NOVEL-READING AS A VICE.

(Saturday Review.)

A great deal has recently been said, and it need hardly be added that a great deal of nonsense has been talked, as to the relations between art and morality. It cannot be denied, however, that some curious problems of casuistry arise when we attempt to lay down any definite propositions upon the subject. Amongst the various arguments which now and then come to the surface is one which may deserve some thought in an era which, from one point of view, may be called the age of novel-reading. Some, worthy persons regard, or used to regard, all study of fiction as a vice, with the exception, perhaps, of those fictions which have a distinct moral or religious purpose. This doctrine has, pretty much gone out of fashion, along a good many other prejudices, good and bad. And, indeed; if delight in all forms of story-telling is wrong, we must admit that the human race not only is, but always has been, and always will be, hopelessly vicious. The general condemnation, however, was supported by a specific theory in which there may, perhaps, be some kernel of truth. The theory is that indulgence in sentiment which necessarily leads to no action must be injurious. Weep over a real sufferer, and your tears may lead you to do something to remedy his misfortune. Weep over an imaginary sufferer, and you must necessarily acquire a habit of weeping without acting. It is dangerous to cultivate sentiment which can never find the natural channel of active benevolence. The man who catches Sterne's capacity for weeping over a dead donkey—especially a fictitious dead donkey—will end by falling into Sterne's scandalous indifference to his domestic and social duties. The feelings are precious things, and if we wastefully expend them upon mare nonentities, we shall find that we have none left for the rough work of daily life. It is much pleasanter to weep in an easy chair, and congratulate ourselves upon our exquisite sensibility, than to encounter all the disgusting details which beset the practical philanthropist. The man therefore, who is always indulging in the pleasures of imaginary grief naturally becomes effeminate and luxurious. His feelings become an end instead of a means; and nobody can be more hard-hearted in actual life than some one who have the keenest appreciation of beautiful sentiment in the ideal world. We must admit that this doctrine is not without facts to confirm, at any rate, its partial truth. The type which it regards as the natural project of artistic indulgence is one which really exists and is sufficiently offensive. The thoroughbred sentimentalist is often callous in actual life. Sterne, as we have said, and Rousseau, weeping over the beauty of natural affections and abandoning his children, are familiar examples ; and we might possibly find some nearer to our own day. But it is obvious that the theory requires very narrow limitations. Stated absolutely, it would lead to absurd results. The habit of cultivating the emotions by imaginary indulgence leads, it would seem to imply, to a weakening of the emotions as forces in active life. If we apply this to the converse case we should become paradoxical. A man certainly does not get rid of vicious propensities by the same method, The reader of immoral literature is not generally a person of strict virtue in his practice; to study cynical and irreverent books is not, as a rule, the best mode of learning to govern one's actions by regard for the purest and holiest motives. Mr. Swinburne makes the ingenious remark that Wycherley was so filthy-minded a writer that he would probably at this day have been a severe censor of morals; and we presume that by the same rule the purity of Milton or Bunyan shows that they would now have dabbled in the most questionable topics; but when we do not want to be epigrammatic we do not find this rule of opposites exemplified in practice. It is equally clear, again, that the best of mankind are apt to delight in solitary meditations which are not immediately translated into action. People whose lives are a continual embodiment of love to their fellow-creatures may yet find time to cultivate their emotions by the study of the nobler forms of art and literature, and are not the weaker for their indulgence. It is, therefore, palpably erroneous to regard the emotions as a kind of force which may either be applied to drive the machinery of active life, or dissipated in imaginary indulgence; and of which, consequently, what is applied in one sphere must be lost in the other. Some less crude hypothesis is necessary before we can approach to anything like an accurate statement of the case. One consideration is tolerably obvious. The pleasure which we receive from reading a novel, for example, is due only in part to the indulgence of sympathetic emotions. When we read " Waverley" we have the pleasure, it is true, of weeping over the sorrows of Flora M'lvor, and of feeling a glow of loyally to the unfortunate Pretender. But we also imbibe, with more or less consciousness, Scott's theories about man and nature. We learn to appreciate the beauties of lake and moor. We look through his eyes at manly and simple characters, or we come to understand what were the passions which really moved human beings a century and a half ago. In other words, though Scott is not intentionally didactic, he unconsciously impresses upon us certain psychological, moral, and æsthetic views us distinctly as though he were preaching a series of propositions, instead of setting before us a number of symbols. It would be easy enough to translate his pictorial representations into logic, and to work out the process by which Scott's romances, when assimilated by other minds, were transmuted into a set of definite philosophical or theological theories. In this sense even a more trivial novelist than Scott may became a more effective preacher than many official expounders of doctrine. By placing ourselves at his point of view we learn to adopt his theories; we associate certain characters with the sentiments which he attributes to them; we regard certain typical figures with reverence or ridicule, as the case may be, and find ourselves in possession of a whole body of prejudices, and consequently of the code of opinions which they imply, before we have drawn any explicit inferences, or gone through any conscious process of reasoning whatever. By such means the most purely artistic writer, the man who has no intention of inculcating any definite moral whatever, may be in fact a most potent preacher; and nobody who considers the influence exercised by the greatest literary names can doubt that the artistic embodiment of a given set of ideas has often been far more effective than the philosophical analysts of logicians. In this sense, therefore, there is no difficulty in understanding how the study of fiction may have a powerful moral influence. We do not of course mean the kind of fiction which is read merely with a view to killing time. But the study of any of the greater writers tends to strengthen or weaken certain important associations of ideas ; to make us regard truly noble types of character with affection, or look upon them as ridiculous or repulsive. The novelist teaches lessons as effectually as the metaphysician, the moralist, or the political economist though in less definite terms. There is no more difficulty in understanding why the study of his books should produce a good or bad moral effect than in understanding why the study any art or philosophy may be effective, though divorced from immediate practice. We may learn in general terms what is good and evil, and what are the penalties and rewards of vice and virtue, without simultaneously applying the doctrine to facts. The emotion does not immediately expend itself in work, but it raises the mind to that temperature at which impressions may be indelibly stamped upon it. In this way, therefore, though a man may not be stimulated to any good action by his reading, though he may not immediately rush out to volunteer in a good cause or put down a handsome subscription to a benevolent society, his moral nature may be enriched and stimulated. He gains a new set of associations with objects previously uninteresting. The scenery which had been dumb or inarticulate begins to talk to him with the voice of Scott or Wordsworth. He learns precisely as he would learn from the society of an intelligent companion who points objects of interests previously unnoticed. But it may still be asked whether a further result may not occasionally follow. There is the familiar case of the lover who liked to be parted from his mistress in order that he might have the pleasure of writing sentimental letters about the pangs of separation. In like manner, when Dickens was making all England weep over the wrongs of workhouse boys or the victims of Yorkshire schools, it might be doubted whether his readers learnt to be practically benevolent, or to expend all their little stock of sentiment upon imaginary woes. The question is one rather as to the use made of fiction by the reader than as to the intention of the writer. The good tendency is obvious enough. Life is apt to be a prosaic business in the main. Nine-tenths of the human race are doomed to spend most of their waking hours in a wearisome round of petty drudgery. Even those whose energy is really devoted to some great purpose have to make the unpleasant discovery that much of their activity will have to be consumed in the routine of petty details. So far as a writer makes them conscious of the more poetical side of daily life, opens, their eyes to the sorrows and joys of prosaic people, enables them to widen their sympathies or to be more sensitive to the great issues which lie hidden under the surface of ordinary affairs, he is rendering them an essential service. If for a time they venture into dreamland under his guidance, something of the magic colouring may remain when they return to ordinary delight. Though he preaches no moral of instantaneous application, he may modify their whole conception of life and its issues. But it must be admitted that it is possible to make a poison or an opiate of what ought to be a medicine. The ideal world into which we go for relief from our daily drudgery may reflect light upon ordinary things, or may be an enervating region of periodical lotus-eating. Some people might think that their sympathy for Oliver Twist excused them from caring about any flesh-and-blood sufferer. Others might be enabled to see more vividly sorrows which they had previously passed over because embodied in commonplace outsides. It is impossible to lay down any precise rules upon such questions : everybody has to learn for himself what is the best discipline which best suits his own case; and the wisest general maxims are of very little service. Yet, without referring to individual cases, there are some marks sufficiently characteristic of the school which fosters the morbid tendency. Art which is too much divorced from reference to the actual world shows its sickliness by unmistakable symptoms. It suffers from the blight of sentimentalism or sensationalism. When people begin to pet and cocker their fine feelings, and to take delight in weeping for the sake of weeping, we may be pretty sure that they are losing a proper hold upon a world in which there is always sufficient cause for melancholy without creating artificial misery. When they delight in descriptions of the horrible or the nauseous, it is plain enough that such dram-drinking implies a depraved appetite, or, in other words, a hardening of the natural emotions. When such tendencies are strongly marked, as is generally the case with declining schools, we cannot doubt that the pleasure is of an enervating tendency. The emotions are not being refined and strengthened by occasional retreats into the ideal worlds, but are regarded as sources of luxurious enjoyment, instead of being used for daily life. In such cases we have the unfortunate familiar contrast of men who combine artistic refinement with hardness and grossness in all other departments of conduct. And, of course, the natural retort is a puritanical hatred of all artistic enjoyment whatever. The history of art and literature has been too often a history of oscillation between these extremes, and we cannot be too jealous of any tendency to promote such morbid tendencies by a wide divorce between the worlds of imagination and reality.


Advocate (Melbourne, Vic. : 1868 - 1954), Saturday 8 January 1876, page 17