There was a very narrow lane ran past the foot of Mr. Claremont's garden, in which stood a little hut, occupied by a poor, but pious old man, who earned a scanty livelihood by gardening. He was known all ever the town by the title of Commodore, merely because in his youth he had commanded a fishing-smack. Montague had one evening walked some way out of town; and on his return, intending to pass an hour at Mr. Claremont's, he passed through this lane as the shortest way to his house. In passing the Commodore's domicil, which stood on the lower side of the lane, he cast his eyes in at the window, which had neither shutter nor curtain, and by a glimmering fire-light saw the old man sitting in his arm chair by the fire, while a female sat on a low stool beside him, who seemed to be doing something to his foot, which lay across her lap. Montague halted an instant, for there was something about the female figure, although enveloped in a large shawl and hood, that reminded him of Margarette. But her back was toward him, and the fire-light was so dim, that he remained in doubt whether or not it was she. "If it is her," thought he, as he walked on—"If it is her, performing such an office for the poor old Commodore, it may, after all, be her who visits the Delantys." As he came out of the lane, he met an acquaintance, with whom he conversed a minute or two, and then proceeded to Mr. Claremont's.
On entering the parlor, he found the little domestic circle complete. Mr. Claremont was engaged in a volume of Brewster's Encyclopedia; Alice with Malvina, over which she was shedding a torrent of tears,—and Margarette with her knitting work. "It was not her, after all," thought Montague; "but who could it be? she had not the air of a rustic!" After receiving Mr. Claremont's cordial welcome, he advanced toward his cousin, and closing her book with gentle violence, said—
"If you sustain no other injury, my dear Alice, you will inevitably ruin your eyes by reading while you weep so profusely. I wish you would relinquish novels as I fear they do you little good. Their general tendency is to enervate rather than strengthen the character." "I wish you could persuade her to relinquish them, Mr. Montague," said Mr. Claremont. "I am satisfied that that class of reading, only increases in Alice that sensitiveness which is already too strong. It will degenerate into weakness, and I know of few things more to be dreaded than a sickly sensibility."
"Why should you suppose that the reading of novels would produce that effect, more than the scenes of real life?" said Alice, "when it is universally conceded, that no genius can ever reach the truth."
"I can tell you why, Alice," said Montague. "In reading works of the imagination, persons of feeling unconsciously identify themselves with the favorite character; and then in a day or two, and sometimes in a few hours, their feelings are taxed with those scenes of sorrow and excitement, which in real life are scattered through months, or perhaps years. The greater part of life is made up of comparative trifles, which make little demand on the feelings, and scenes of sorrow and excitement are 'few and far between,' like the convulsions of the elements—which, though often distressing, and sometimes disastrous, are, on the whole, highly beneficial. But were the elements always at war, nature would soon sink to dissolution; and so if the mind and the heart were constantly raised to a state of high excitement, their energies would soon be exhausted, and the corporeal part would soon sink in the conflict. Do you read novels, Miss Claremont?" inquired Montague.
"Sometimes, but not often," Margarette replied.
"And do they affect you as they do cousin Alice?"
"Affect her?" cried Alice—"no, indeed! I never saw her moved to tears, by reading, but once in my life."
"And pray what was she then reading?" asked Montague, with a smile.