ABSTRACT

Those who condemn novels, or fiction, in the abstract, are guilty of shameful absurdity and inconsistency. They are profoundly ignorant of human nature; the brightest of whose properties is to be influenced more by example than by precept: and of human taste; the purest of whose gratifications is to view human characters and events, depicted by a vigorous and enlightened fancy. The number of good novels is very large. And even the trivial and injudicious are not without their use, since there are vast numbers whose judgment and education raise them just high enough to relish these meagre tales, and to whom sublimer fictions and austere studies are totally unfit. There are a great many specimens of fiction where merit is liable to no exception; that there are the most popular and current works of the kind and, consequently most likely to fall into the hand of readers who take up books at random.