The Wyandot pioneer. (Upper Sandusky, Ohio) 1853-1868, 1868-05-07
Is Novel-Reading Right or
Wrong?
BY HENRY WARD BEECHER.

Is Notwithstanding Right Or
Wrong?
BY HENRY WARD BEECHER.
A young parishioner writes to inquire
our opinion of novel-reading, remind
ing us, that after some years attendance
at church, he has never heard an ex-
preston of opinion from the pulpit on
this subject.
Protestant Christendom is not united
on any other practical more entirely
than on the propriety of reading fic-
ton. The parallels of the New Testa-
ment, Milton's Paradise Lost, Bunyan's
Pilgrims Progress, Pollock's Course of
Time, and numbers of other familiar
books found in the libraries and in the
hands Of the children of those who are
rigidly strict in their notions of read
ing, show that it is not against novels.
as such, but against mischievous or
doubtfully good novels that warnings
are directed. If one may read the Pill
grim's Progress, then the question is
given up, and it is settled that novels
may be read.
There are two practical questions
which cover the whole ground.
To what extent is it wise for one to
indulge in the reading of even good
novels? The answer would vary in
different cases. The line would not be
drawn alike for the old and the young,
for the ignorant and the cultured, for
invalids and for people in health and
active life, for sober and matter-of-fact
pee pie, and for mercurial and sanguine
natures. Every man learns to measure
his food and raiment by the condition
in which he finds himself and the tenn
permanent which he inherits. And SO it
must be in novel-reading.
In general, it may be said, that fc-
tions are to be used as condiments, not
food. They are the seasoning of solid
reading, or of earnest action. They are
designed to refresh the imagination-to
stimulate those dormant feelings and
tastes whichsvery-day work, long con-
tinued, tends to deaden-to work, in
medical phrase. as an alternative.
No one would think of making his
whole breakfast out of the sugar-bowl.
nor his dinner of spices and sauces. So
no one should make novels the staple
of his reading. Books of Travel, Biog-
raphies, History, Natural Science, Nor
al Treatises, should form the solid part
OF reading. 1t is q good rule for a
young man not to let day pass with
out page read in some work which
shall yield real knowledge. Fictions
should bear about the proportion to sol
i'd and instructive reading that pepper
does to food, or sugar to his drink. 1t
is true that good novels may and dc
contain fund of important informa-
ton, much acute criticism and discus
sion of social questions hardly to be
found any where else in equal excel
lence. Miss Austen's works, Miss Edge
worth's tales, Miss Sedgwick's novels
Walter Scott's matchless romances, con
tain as good matter as is to be found in
sermons, essays, histories, or poems.-
Notwithstanding all this, SO stimulat-
ing is fiction that it is not wise to make
it the chief part of ones reading. AND
this is especially true of persons of ar
imaginative and mercurial nature, who
are apt to be already too excitable, and
who will be only adding fuel to fire.
To sum up: Novels may be a relief
from severe studies; relaxation to
persons overworksd; an Alternative te
prosaic natures, prone to carry sobri-
ETY. to dullness; to invalids, and to per-
sons on voyages, travels, or in vaca-
tions, who find it impossible to pursue
any sober train of study. u
If we might be allowed to suggest so
audacious thing, we should say that
very good people, the sober sort, the
proper, moral and religious minded
should read more fictions, while the
gay, the joyous, and the young, should
read fewer novels.
There is one use Of novels not to be
overlooked, viz. their Office in induc-
ing habit of reading among thousands
who would not read at all but for the
interest experienced in good stories.
In America, the non-reading classes
are the dangerous classes. Much mis-
chief as is done by no literature at all
Error is certainly an evil. but ignor-
ance is prolific mother of evil. If
then, millions of day-laborers can be
led to books by first reading novels, il
the habit of deriving pleasure from the
printed page, and not from gross sensu-
ality, can be established by the instru-
mentality of novels, they may become
sort of primary school-masters.
In this view, there is no rivalry be-
tween works OF instruction and novels
The latter may serve to coax heed