and chemistry; studies of human nature in the elements of it. But I
attach little weight to this function: they are hardly ever read
with earnestness enough to permit them to fulfil it. The utmost
they usually do is to enlarge somewhat the charity of a kind reader,
or the bitterness of a malicious one; for each will gather, from the
novel, food for her own disposition. Those who are naturally proud
and envious will learn from Thackeray to despise humanity; those who
are naturally gentle, to pity it; those who are naturally shallow,
to laugh at it. So, also, there might be a serviceable power in
novels to bring before us, in vividness, a human truth which we had
before dimly conceived; but the temptation to picturesqueness of
statement is so great, that often the best writers of fiction cannot
resist it; and our views are rendered so violent and one-sided, that
their vitality is rather a harm than good.

Without, however, venturing here on any attempt at decision how much
novel reading should be allowed, let me at least clearly assert
this,--that whether novels, or poetry, or history be read, they
should be chosen, not for their freedom from evil, but for their
possession of good. The chance and scattered evil that may here and
there haunt, or hide itself in, a powerful book, never does any harm
to a noble girl; but the emptiness of an author oppresses her, and
his amiable folly degrades her. And if she can have access to a
good library of old and classical books, there need be no choosing
at all. Keep the modern magazine and novel out of your girl's way:
turn her loose into the old library every wet day, and let her
alone. She will find what is good for her; you cannot: for there
is just this difference between the making of a girl's character and
a boy's--you may chisel a boy into shape, as you would a rock, or
hammer him into it, if he be of a better kind, as you would a piece