THE VICIOUS NOVEL
=The introduction.=--Since you were a very small girl I have very
carefully selected the stories told you and the books and papers read to
you. What we read very largely determines our thoughts, words, actions
and character. In the past I have told you many stories of my childhood,
stories I had heard, stories found in the Bible and good books, besides
reading many good books to you. During these years I have selected many
simple interesting books for you to read. I made the selection for you
because I knew what books were too difficult for you; what books would
interest you; what books would do you good and what books would do you
harm. Then you enjoyed those stories which most appealed to a child.
=Why girls are fond of novels.=--Usually the novel craze comes on a girl
when she is about fifteen years of age. This is because of certain
changes that are taking place. God has made her a social being. About
this time in a girl’s life the developing sex nature is stimulating and
awakening the social nature. Thoughts of a lover, courtship, marriage,
wifehood and motherhood are occasionally entertained by her. This is
perfectly natural. The reason she wants to read novels is because they
deal with the social experiences and this appeals to and satisfies her
developing social life.
=She is in a period of transition.=--Wonderful changes are now taking
place, not only in the delicate curves of bust and hips, in the dainty
coloring and superb vitality of body, but also in the thoughts, feelings
and emotions. At this time a girl is passing from girlhood to womanhood.
It is the developing sex life that is producing all of these new
changes. With this new life and new experiences come new dangers. Prior
to this time there has been but little difference between her mind and
that of her brother’s. But, now, this new life is developing the woman
in her. In this transition period, she is conscious of the girl she was
and partly is, and of the woman she is to be and partly is. This is
rather a mixed experience. This accounts for the girl’s changeable
states of mind, emotions, feelings and sentiments. If this new life is
properly directed, it will contribute much to the joy, charm, and beauty
of an ideal womanhood.
=The difference between a good novel and a bad novel.=--The world is being
flooded with novels, good and bad. They are very popular because they
are light reading and appeal to the social nature. Their authors write
largely about courtship and marriage. Some of these books are good and
some dangerously bad. A good novel is one that is high in literary and
moral tone, true to life and gives one a natural and true idea of noble
manhood and pure womanhood; of their social relations in courtship,
marriage and parentage. A good novel can be read by a girl to her
parents or before a company of young people without embarrassment. A bad
novel is one that is either highly sensational, intensely romantic,
untrue to life, tainted with immorality, or in some way gives one a
perverted vision of all the sacred relations of life. A novel that a
girl would be ashamed to read before her parents, or a group of friends,
belongs to that class of literature that should be tabooed.
=The effects of the vicious novel.=--If the girl reads the questionable or
vicious novels, fancies them, admires their heroes and heroines, and in
her mind condones their indiscretions, excuses their sins,--as the
author does,--the influence cannot be otherwise than bad. Such novels
must give an unnatural tone to her thoughts, feelings and sentiments.
Cause and effect are always inseparably related. The outward life is the
enfolding of the inner life of feelings, sentiments and emotions. This
inner life is affected by what we read. If a girl delights in reading
novels that condone, excuse, or advocate a girl receiving caresses,
kisses and keeping late hours at night with a beau, she will not likely
greet her prince at the marriage altar with the rare queenly gift of
unkissed lips. If she delights to read the novels whose heroine was
angelic in all things, except in the insignificant item of personal
purity, she too will be in danger of lacking that same element of
character when she marries, should she be so fortunate as to become a
wife. If she delights in reading novels, whose married heroines lived
“double lives,” she too, one day may be guilty of imitating the heroines
she worshiped.
Novels which are untrue to life, tainted with immorality, certainly
account for many girls going astray, many who overtrust their lovers,
and many uncongenial marriages and many divorces. The title of a novel
usually indicates its contents. Novels with sensational titles or titles
suggesting unnatural and immoral thoughts, appealing to the morbid and
baser feelings should be avoided.
=How to direct and conserve the creative life.=--This new life, the sex
life of a girl, if rightly retained and directed will give strength,
health, beauty and perfection of the body; alertness, strength and
brilliancy of every faculty of the mind and power of the soul. The sex
life is three-fold in its nature, being related to the physical, mental
and soul life.
It is a law of human biology that the direction of this energy is very
largely under the direction of the mind. If one desires bodily
development and will take regular and systematic physical training, this
energy can be built into the muscles giving them the body of an athlete.
If one desires intellectual development and will regularly and
systematically exercise every faculty of the mind, this energy will be
directed to the brain, resulting in intellectual brilliancy. The same
law applies with equal force to the development of the feelings,
sentiments and emotions of the moral nature. If we take normal physical,
mental and moral exercise, this energy will be conserved in the blood,
which is the life, and directed so as to produce a perfect development.
Sin alone has brought conflict and inharmony into our three-fold nature
and prevents perfect happiness and perfect development. This is an
appalling fact. We are hereditarily degenerate. God’s grace and the
right exercise of the will in relation to perfect self-control are
necessary conditions of individual and race improvement. If lascivious
thoughts are allowed control of the will, this creative life will be
misdirected, the generative system will become abnormal, resulting in
sexual weakness and depriving the entire being of the benefits of this
energy.
=The relation of reading to the disposition of the sex life.=--A fondness
for reading highly romantic, intensely sensational, untrue and immoral
novels is abnormal and lead to a misdirection of this creative life.
There is the romantic element in our nature which should be developed,
but it should not be over-developed. We should have a balanced
development. The degenerate elements in our nature, inherited or
acquired, should be suppressed and eliminated. The vicious novel
increases the creation of the sex life and at the same time misdirects
it. This intensifies our degeneracy.
Reading good literature, facts or fiction, or both, is normal and leads
to a natural generation of and distribution of this energy. Girls should
read a general line of good literature. The romantic nature is
especially active in youth. It is for this reason that the youth is
inclined to read only fiction. If in young life we would develop
properly, we should choose a general line of reading, embracing some of
the standard books of fiction, history, travel, poetry, biography,
essays and religion.
=Advice concerning books.=--Every young person should possess some good
books of his own, even if but few. They should read good books. Time is
too valuable to be wasted in reading bad or even mediocre books. In this
way they keep company with the great men and women of this day and of
the past. In this way they become heirs to the intellectual and
spiritual wealth of the past and are intimately associated with and
related to the mental and spiritual aristocracy of the present. They may
not be recognized in their community as belonging to the “upper tens,”
but they can keep company with the best men and women of the ages by
reading good books.
Just as we have read and talked together about good books and stories in
the past, so I trust we shall find it pleasant and profitable to be
companionable in our reading in the future. I will be glad to aid you in
the selection of such books and magazines as will be pleasant and
profitable for you to read in the near future. I will always appreciate
the privilege of hearing you read a book that you like, of discussing
the merits of a book with you, or of giving you the best advice that I
am capable of giving with reference to any book that you may desire to
read.