The Camden weekly journal. [volume] (Camden, South-Carolina) 1853-1861, 1853-08-23
The corrupt tendency Of Fashionable
American Literature. =
DY II. W. MILLER.

l. it not lamcntable that throughout our whole
country. and especially in our populous cities,
the most frothy, ephemeral ami corrupt produc-
tions of the day have become the Evortes of the
reading public? that the scholars study and the
adys drawing room are considered more tastily
decorated by the works of the lieentious novel.
ists of the nineteenth century, than they would
be by all the literary learning Of the past? How
Otter. arc the mother and daughter occupied in
poriug, with apparent delight over the vicious
productions of Bulwer or Eugene Sue, when they
would scorn to appear even to countenancc one
who is suspected of frequerting haunts of vice,
for which the reading of these very works may
have given him taste? Yes, chaste indeed
must be the thoughts, pure the reflections Of her
who mas Just emerged from scene drawn by the
pen of the novelist which she hcrsclfwouId blush
to relate! And yet all this is encouraged. Go
into any of your bookstores, visit your reading
rooms, look around You in your public saloons
whose productions first meet the eye? Those
Of the graphic, the virtuous, the mortal Scott,
of the cllaste Addison, and their compeers? No;
but there lies open the Don Juan, or the Vision
of Judgment of Byron, the Ernest Maltravers, or
Falkland of Bulwer, the Temptations of Eugene
Sue and scattered here and there, AS il to intuse
into the whole mass the lowest, filthiest, black
est vice, the eye rests upon the vu gar and prof
leate cffusions of Paul De Kock! And can the
mind spend days and nights, weeks and months
in contemplating such scenes as are described,
such characters as are deIineatcd in much OF the
the fiction of the day. and still retain its purity,
its strength, its capacity to distinguish between
rirllt and wrong, to detect error and elncldate
truth? Can it, by the graphic power Of the
novelist, be induced to lie down in mental asso-
citation with the debauchee or libertne-lock
arms Of the most intimate cnmpanlonshlp with
the Shrew or the tnrmagant-st for hours IN
close communion with the larccner, the swndler,
or the assassn--entcr into all the schemes, the
dark and cunning Vaccinations Of the gambler
or political jugsler, join in their feelings, partic-
pate in their sympaliics; can it pass through
all this, ask, and still retain unsoied those
moral scnsiLilitics, that well balanced state OF
moral feeling as would fit it for the duties Of
life? As well might YOU expect the contidng
youth to learn the true principles Of the Chris
tian faith bv the study of the writings Of Boiling
broke or Paine! Thus do we meet around us
melancholy victims of the fashionable reading of
the day. In the case of the young female, there
is exhibited total unstringing Of the mental
nerves, morbid rcstlessncss of desire. 1t has
produced upon the mind an effect similar to that
which some medicines have upon the bodily
organs. An ideal world is created. 1t is in
habitcd by every species Of unnatural being.
Visions intlistinct and unsettled are constantly
fittinc. before it. Narc and incomprehcuSbe
ideas Of right and wrong, of virtue and vice, OF
truth and error, are inccssantly haunting it. The
charms of domestic life, the duties of the parent,
are forgotten or neglected, smothertd beneath
the mass of mental confusion. So has al intel
Irct, which would, with proper culture, have
proved blessing and delight to every circle, be.
come the architect Of its own ruin