ON READING. 85 



ous in its consequences. To read without thought is to read uselessly *, 

 it is to waste mind and time. Nay it is more than this. It prevents 

 proper mental action, it deprives the mind of the power of thinking, 

 strips it of every thing like originality, destroys invention. 



All these evils have we seen, some have we felt, as the result of a 

 too great indulgence in novel reading. We have condensed these thoughts 

 into as brief a space as possible, throwing out mere hints for more ex- 

 tended trains of reflection, in order that we might have room, without 

 extending this article beyond proper limits, to quote a few paragraphs, 

 expressing our views more forcibly than our pen is able to express them. 

 We commend the remarks to our readers. They are from the pen of 

 a friend who had read much, but had not forgotten to think ; and they 

 originally appeared in a College Magazine. 



" Novels now, considered in all their results, are the most vigorous 

 antidote to a system of thorough, diffusive education. Not only does 

 their perusal impoverish in a higli degree the intelligent and reflecting 

 mind, which either reads indiscriminately, or with inconsiderate regard 

 for their character, but what is far more baneful, it snatches upon the 

 imguarded mind, gifted with only a faint outline of literature, and un- 

 taught to reason calmly, and to sludy deliberately — captivates the im- 

 agination, and bears it away in triumph, to riot in brilliant, corrupting 

 festivities — vain mockeries of truth ! It is in this point of view we 

 must regard the works under consideration as most dangerous — their 

 tendency to mislead those without tlie discretion to withstand their en- 

 ticing forms, and to read with right aims ; to such they prove a curse — 

 throwing the mind, while yet barren of fundamental truths and general 

 knowledge, into a state unfit for toil, unfit for active exertion, enerva- 

 ting the faculties, and creating a morbid and insatiate appetite for tinsel- 

 ed trash, incompatible with a regard for fact or reason. Their frequent 

 study familiarizes with vice, renders callous to debasing crimes, and 

 above all creates a false delicacy, which is the same forerunner and 

 concomitant of lurking licentiousness ! It depraves taste by destroying 

 our natural abhorrence for vulgar epithets and allusions. 



"■ While the reflecting mind, steeled by a contemplation of great 

 moral or political truths — armed by a large and varied acquaintance 

 with literature — above all alive to its worth — while such a one may 

 peruse harmlessly the modern works of fiction, yet it is a culpable waste 

 of time ; and even the perusal of those of acknowledged merit should 

 ever bear but a small proportion to otlicr intellectual pursuits, at the ex- 

 pense of vigor and precision of thought. Again — the mind whose lit- 

 erary liorizon is comparatively liiniled, especially the youthful uiiud, 



