Aquilius.—But to return to our subject. Novels are not objected to as they were; now that every sect in politics and religion have found their efficacy as a means, the form is adopted by all. And with a more vigorous health do each embody their principle. The sickly sentimentality school is sponged out—or nearly so. The novel now really represents the mind of a country in all its phases, and, if not the only, is nearly the best of its literature. It assumes to teach as well as to amuse. I could wish that, in their course down the stream of time, it had not taken the drama by the neck, and held it under water to the drowning.
Curate.—You are wrong. The novel has not drowned the drama. It is the goody, the Puritan school, has done the work, and will, not drown, but suffocate, the noble art that gave us Shakspeare, by stopping up all avenues and entrance to the theatres—having first filled the inside with brimstone, or at least cautioned the world that the smell of brimstone will never quit those who enter. In discussing the subject, however, I would class the play and the novel together, under "works of fiction." Why, by the way, did the self-styled religious world that set up a crusade against novelists—and "fiction-mongers"—show such peculiar favour to John Bunyan, and his Pilgrim's Progress—the most daring fiction? I believe that very imaginative, nay, very powerful work, has gone through more editions than any other in our language: a proof at least that there is something innate in us all,—a natural power of curiosity to see and hear more than actual life presents to us—that sends all, from infancy to age, in every stage of life, either openly or secretly, to the reading tales of fiction. We all like to see Nature herself with a difference; and, loving "to hold the mirror up to nature," we prefer that the glass should be coloured, or at least a shade deeper, and love the image more than the thing.
Aquilius.—Yes; and we indulge in a double and seeming contrary propensity—excitement and repose. We are safe in the storm—look out "from our loopholes of retreat," as Cowper calls them, on the busy world—and in our search after that equally evasive philosopher's stone, the "γνωθι σεαυτον," like to squint at our deformities in private, and, by seeing them in other folks, we learn our faults by deputy.
Curate.—And what a wonderful and wisely-given instinct is there in us all, that we may learn to the utmost in one short life—an instinct by which we recognise as nature, as belonging strictly to ourselves, what we have never seen or experienced, and have only portrayed to us in works of fiction. All people speak of the extensive range of Shakspeare's genius—that he appears to have been conversant with every mode of life, with the sentiments and language appropriate to each—that he is at once king, courtier, citizen, and clown; yet what do those who so admire him for this universality know themselves, but through him, of all these phases of life? We recognise them by an instinct, that enters readily into the possibilities of all nature which is akin to us; and if this be so, the busiest man who is no reader, may, in his walk through life, see much more of mankind than the reader, but know far less. Who teaches to read puts but the key of knowledge into the scholar's hand. It was well said by Aristophanes, "Masters for children, poets for men."
Aquilius.—True; and if all literary fiction could be withdrawn and forgotten, and its renovation prohibited, the greater part of us would be dolts, and, what is worse, unfeeling, ungenerous, and under the debasing dominion of the selfishness of simple reason. It has always appeared to me that those who cautiously keep novels from young people mistake the nature of mind, thinking it only intellect, and would cultivate the understanding alone. Imagination they look upon as an ignis fatuus, to be extinguished if possible—an ignis fatuus arising out of a quagmire, and leading astray into one. There is nothing good comes from the intellect alone. The inventive faculty is compound, in which imagination does the most work; the intellectual portion selects and decides, but collects not the materials. All true sentiment, all noble, all tender feeling, comes not of the understanding, but of that mind—or heart, if we so please to call it—which imagination raises, educates, and perfects. Even feelings are to be made—are much the result of education. The wildest romances will, in this respect, teach nothing wrong. If they create a world somewhat unlike the daily visible, they create another, which is a reality to the possessor, to the romantic, from which he can extract much that is practical, though it may seem not so; for from hence may spring noble impulses, generosity and fortitude. It is not true that such reading enervates the mind: I firmly believe it strengthens it in every respect, and fits it for every action, by unchaining it from a lower and cowardly caution. Who ever read a romance that inculcated listless, shapeless idleness? It encourages action and endurance. We have not high natures till we learn to suffer. I have noted much the different effects troubles have upon different persons, and have seen the unromantic drop like sheep under the rot of their calamities, while the romantic have been buoyant, and mastered them. They have more resources in themselves, and are not bowed down to one thought nor limited to one feeling: in fact, they are higher beings.
Curate.—The caution professes mainly to protect women; yet, among all the young women whom I have been acquainted with, I should say that the novel-readers are not only the best informed, but of the best nature, and some capable of setting examples of a sublime fortitude—the more sublime because shown in a secret and all-enduring patience. Who are they that will sit by the bed-side of the sick day and night, suffer privation, poverty, even undeserved disgrace, and shrink not from the self-imposed duty, but those very young women in whom the understanding and imagination have been equally cultivated, so as to render the feelings acute and impulsive?—and these are novel-readers. Love, it is said, is the only subject all novels are constructed upon; and such reading encourages extravagant thoughts, and gives rise to dangerous feelings. And why dangerous? And why should not such thoughts and feelings be encouraged? Are they bad? Are they not such as are requisite for wife and mother to hold, and best for the destiny of woman—best in every view—best if her lot be a happy one, and far best if her lot be an ill one? For the great mark of such an education is endurance—a power to create a high duty, and energy and patience where both are wanted. Women never sink under any calamity but blighted affection; and we love them not less, we admire them not less, that they do sink then, for their heroism is in the patience that brings and that awaits death.
Aquilius.—I have heard Eusebius say that he has made it a point, wherever he goes, to recommend earnestly to all young mothers to select no nurse for their children but such as have a good stock of nursery tales. He has often purposed to write an essay on the subject of the requisite education for nurses, asserting that there ought to be colleges for training to that one purpose alone; for, as the nurse gives the first education, the first impression, she gives the most important. The child that is not sung to, and whose ear has not been attentive to nursery tales, he would say, would be brought up to turn his father and mother out of doors, and deserve, if he did not come, to be hanged; and if such unfortunate child be a daughter, she would live to be a slut, a slattern, a fool, and a disgrace. He had no doubt, he said, believing that all Shakspeare's creations were realities, that Regan and Goneril were ill nursed, and no readers; and that Cordelia was in infancy well sung to, and being the youngest, was set to read romances to her old and wayward father,—
"Methinks that lady is my child Cordelia!"
How full are these few words of the old father's feeling, and reminiscent of the nursery, of songs, of tales, wherein he had seen the growth of his "child Cordelia!" Eusebius would be eloquent upon this subject: I cannot tell you half of what he thought and vigorously expressed. He used to delight in getting children together and telling them stories, and invariably began with "once upon a time," which, he used to say, had, if any words could have, a magical charm.
Curate.—Bad, indeed, was the change when story reading and telling ceased to be a part of education: and what was put in its place?—stuff that no child could understand or care about. The good old method once abandoned, there was no end to the absurdities that followed; and they who wrote them knew nothing about children, or what would amuse, and, by interesting, improve them. The false system of cramming them with knowledge, which it was impossible for them to digest, really stopped their intellectual growth, and checked the natural spring of their feelings. Wisdom-mongering went on upon the "rational plan," till the wise-heads, full-grown infant pumpkins, fatuated, empty of anything solid or digestible; and so they grew, and grew from night to morn, and morn to night, stolid boobies, lulled into a melancholy sleep by the monotonous hum of "Hymns in Prose."