ON READING.
If the wisdom of nations, which loves to find expression in the
proverbs, teaches us that a man may be known by knowing the company
that he frequents; we can say with the same assurance that his
character and dispositions may be known from the books which he
constantly reads. Of all friends, the most intimate are the books
that we constantly read, hence there is nothing more important for a
young person, as there is nothing that entails such grave
consequences for the moral culture, than the selection of proper and
suitable books. Because it is a noted fact that such readings
exercise the deepest influence over the mind and heart, so much that
all the resources which the ingeniousness of maternal love can employ
against it avail nothing. God's minister in the pulpit of truth has
no weight with those souls fascinated by the deceitful charms of a
bad book, which addresses itself to their prejudices and passions.
The charitable advice of the confessor in the tribunal of penance is
futile against the intoxicating seductions of those romances whose
only merit consists in flattering the most depraved inclinations of
the human heart.
Indeed it is a subject both of surprise and sorrow to see an author
of the most menial abilities lauded to the skies for a book still
more abject than himself, a book teeming with error and immorality;
while, very often, a discourse, a sermon or an instruction, whatever
may be the authority that they receive either from the character of
the person who pronounces them, or from the gravity of the
circumstances in which he speaks, are heard with indifference. Good
and evil, truth and error, are never so rapidly propagated, never so
powerful in their action, never so certain in their effects as when
they are communicated to us under the form of a book authorized by
fashion or party spirit. Hence there is no greater responsibility
before God than that which man assumes when he wields the pen in the
name of humanity, whether for noble or selfish ends.
A book is a teacher whose doctrine is listened to with a willingness
equal to its degree of conformity to the inclinations of our heart.
It is a friend that gains our confidence, inasmuch as it flatters our
prejudices and passions, and in which we find a reflection of our own
thoughts, the echo of our most secret sentiments. You would not like
to receive a stranger into your house without his being properly
recommended, but you will readily receive a book on the strength of
reports that are often deceitful.
The country is flooded with productions that sap the foundations of
morality, and which bear that _imprimatur_ given by a poisoned
public opinion to such authors as pander to its craven spirit. The
world judges with a depraved indulgence the book in which it finds
its maxims approved and sanctioned, portraying the exact seducing
picture of its vanities. The purest souls and, not unfrequently,
serious minds are too often imposed upon by those popular prejudices,
and, despite their good reason, yield to their influence by reading
the flimsy productions of depraved minds, which, besides all the
other injuries they cause, rob them of a most precious time. A book
must be very bad before the world condemns it, so bad, in fact, that
its own intrinsic filth disgusts the reader and seals its fate. But,
there is another kind of literature favorably received by that
portion of mankind called respectable, honest, and sometimes even
severe, and whose authority is capable of making a grave impression
on your mind.
It is, therefore, very important for you to know not only the signs
by which to recognize a bad book, but also whom you should consult as
judges in the matter. There can be no question here of those books
professedly immoral, in which vice is eulogized and corrupt maxims
sustained. Those books are not dangerous for you, because they will
not fall under your hands, and even when they would you could not
open one of them without flinging it away with horror;--in this case
the evil--contains in itself its own remedy.
But there are books, less dangerous in appearance, in which the most
delicate situations are represented, clothed in all the charms of
style, well calculated, under their moral guise and serious bearing,
to captivate the heart and imagination. Indeed to represent in lively
colors the terrible effects of the passions, and the fatal
consequences that a momentary excitement might entail is not of a
nature to inspire a young lady with horror for vice and love for
virtue. How is it possible that she will guard against the evil
inclinations of the heart, when she is conscious of the danger in
giving them free scope, and that a momentary forgetfulness is
sometimes punished by a life-time of sorrow and bitterness? Such a
culpable negligence might be accounted for, if there existed a
necessary relation between the will and the imagination, by which the
determinations of the former are necessarily dependant upon the
impressions of the latter.
But such is not the case, for the imagination has a sphere of action
very different from that of the intelligence or the will. It is an
interior mirror which reflects back upon the soul images of things
beheld by the senses and conceived by the intelligence, without
regard to time or place. Positively no, would be the answer of a
young lady of self-respect, whom we would ask if she would like to
see with her own eyes all that is spoken of in the novel which she
reads with so little caution! Your answer would be given in the same
terms, should we ask you if she might read without impunity to virtue
those intrigues, those scenes so engaging to curiosity, and which
incite the reader to follow up the details of ineffectual struggles
against passion. Could she, without blushing, listen to the
passionate conversations of those who had lead each other to
destruction, after having exhausted all the resources of heart and
mind to render vice amiable, even when their fall would seem to be
less the effect of a criminal will than the result of a kind of
fatality? Your answer to all this would be emphatically, no!
But while young ladies will neither listen to nor look at scenes of
this nature, many, alas! do not scruple to look at them in books,
where they are much more dangerous, for being adorned with all the
charms of style, and because the persons represented are made to
speak and act in a much more luring manner than they do in reality.
They devour with avidity those dangerous, and sometimes scurrilous
pages; but while they chain their attention to the matter they are
reading, their imagination gains the ascendancy over all the senses,
and under their united action images are formed which leave a lasting
impression on the mind--images of misfortune that has befallen
persons either through their own fault or the fault of others, and
which, through sympathy, the human heart, whether wrong or right, is
always ready to find a pretext to justify.
In reading of those misfortunes she may perhaps recognize the hand
of divine vengeance pursuing the criminal culprit, which is of a
nature to inspire her with a sentiment of fear that deters from the
commission of crime; but such sentiments have been felt by the heroes
of the novel which she has read, and nevertheless they have fallen
into the abyss which they so much dreaded, I would almost say while
fleeing from it. But when they take their stand on a declivity so
steep and slippery, nothing short of a miracle can save them.
Such is precisely the nature of the danger in which the readers of
such books place them-selves. In those books human frailty is
idolized, deeds committed through it are either necessary or
excusable, the hair-breadth escapes, and often the tragical
conclusion of their story, will often inspire the reader with a
salutary terror, it is true; but will that feeling destroy all those
tender sympathizing sentiments that were felt while dreading it? Of
course this fear is felt by the will, but the imagination has already
finished its work; it has seen, heard and felt by the senses; it has
delighted and fascinated the soul by those images whose charms cannot
be destroyed by the unfortunate issue of those struggles in which
frailty played such an important role.
The will, distracted by the tumult of external things, and the
variety of, her occupations or pleasures, will soon lose this
sentiment of terror on which she seems to count so much, but the
imagination will conserve for a long time the impressions and images
upon which it has feasted, and which will form the constant subject
of her thoughts during the day and of her dreams during the night.
Hence, the books that are capable of producing such results are
evidently bad, and if you wish to preserve intact the innocence of
your heart you should never take one of them in your hands. If you
wish to conceive a deep horror for vice, and guard against the snares
of passion, you will more readily and securely attain your end by
reading a few serious books in which truth is presented in its own
simplicity without artifice. Books in which the author, realizing the
importance of his mission, directly addresses the mind without trying
to captivate the heart and imagination, or to render vice amiable
first in order to inspire you with horror for it afterwards. If you
wish to be true to yourself; if by your readings your object is to
cultivate a love for virtue and horror for evil, novels are not the
books that you will have recourse to.
Hence, to draw a practical conclusion from our considerations on
this subject, you may safely say that a book is, if not bad, at least
dangerous when its tendencies are to render interesting, and
agreeable such deeds or language as you would neither look at nor
listen to. This should be the first rule by which to judge of the
moral worth of the books you wish to read.