The alleged perils of novel reading.

[glaurung]

Reading novels, instead of proper "literature," is bad for you. Very bad. If you're a student, it will cause you to slack off your studies to the point of being expelled from school for being "a dolt and a nuisance." If you're a woman, it will cause you to become "insane, incurably insane from reading novels."

So says the author of "A Pastor’s Jottings; or, Striking Scenes during a ministry of Thirty-five years." (Anonymous, published by the American Tract Society, New York, 1864 - 348 pages, about 60 unnumbered chapters).

If you think all this is quaint and outdated, just mentally substitute "social media" or "screen time" for "novels" and it will suddenly all look like very familiar, very modern bullshit.

The fact that a religious book written and published in the US *during the civil war* does not have anything in it pertaining to the great moral issue of the time, (zero hits for Negro or slavery, only one hit for "slave" talking about someone being a slave to sin), says a lot about the priorities of the author, none of it good.

Since no one other than Google seems to have a digital copy of this public domain book, and google does not allow anyone to download their precious books because capitalist enshittification, here is the full text of the chapter titled “Novel Readers” (p. 314- 320).

One of the greatest blessings in the world is the printing press; especially in a country like our own, where nearly all can read, and where books are cheap. We may add to this, that a sound literature is of incalculable importance and influence. Society itself has scarcely the power over the mind which the newspaper or the book has among other reasons, because, as Chambers says in his great dictionary, "Books are standing counsellors and preachers always at hand, and always disinterested; having this advantage over oral instructors, that they are ready to repeat their lesson as often as we please."

It is of great advantage to a young person to have a taste for reading, especially for studying the works of great minds which the press places before us from every part of the world. We feel, while we study their works, that their spirits are subduing our own, even though we cannot lay our finger on the passages which produce the effect. As a foreign writer has said, "A leafy wood is always sounding with the wind, even when the individual branches are not stirred."

But this blessing, like every other, has its attendant evils, and is liable to abuse. If wholesome food is provided for the mind, so is poison. If men of God, feeling their solemn responsibility to him for the due improvement of society, and influencing its members to do good, often send forth streams of knowledge through the world; so there are others in league with Satan, who send forth impure streams to corrupt the hearts of men, making them ready for every evil work. If history and geography and science are ready to strengthen the intellect and inform the judgment; if theology would lead us to understand and to feel the infinite realities of eternal truth; and if strains of high- souled poetry would elevate and purify the imagination; so also there are publications issuing from great men and small, but of corrupt hearts and perverted tastes, which address themselves to the lowest passions of their readers, polluting their principles, and so acting on them as to make them ready to do all that is sinful before God and injurious to society.

And where are the evils which spring from the perusal of novels? Or rather, where are they not? Have they not in many cases deprived religion of its strength, if not of its vitality? Have they not vitiated the public taste, so that the man of learning and correct feelings can scarcely expect so to write, or to lecture, or to preach, as to cherish the hope of acceptance and success? The minds of novel readers are intoxicated, their rest is broken, their health shattered, and their prospect of usefulness blighted.

It must not be said that all these results are imaginary. Hear the testimony of the late Dr. Arnold, and no witness can be more unexceptionable, alike for his high moral and intellectual powers, and from the fact that he had for many years under his care hundreds of the sons of England's best families. He says, "Childishness in boys even of good ability, seems to be a growing fault; and I do not know to what to ascribe it, except to the great number of exciting books of amusement, like Pickwick, Nickleby, Bentley's Magazine, etc. These completely satisfy all the intellectual appetite of a boy, and leave him totally palled, not only for his regular work, but for literature of all sorts, even for history and poetry."

Hear too the testimony of one who too well knew the evidence on which he spoke: "The son of one of our most distinguished statesmen entered university with brilliant prospects. He was a lad of fine native talent, attractive person and manners, and with rank and fortune to satisfy the highest ambition. His college apartments were splendidly furnished, and every facility afforded him for prosecuting a course of studies fitting him for eminence in any profession of his choice. But the habit of indulging in light reading, formed in the academy, proved his ruin. Piles of the fascinating 'yellow covered literature' were found in his room. The hours that should have been given to study were thus absorbed. His recitations were neglected. Remonstrance was vain, and within a year he was sent away by the officers of the college as a dolt and a nuisance."

And once more, listen to the evidence given by a physician in Massachusetts: "I have seen a young lady with her table loaded with volumes of fictitious trash, poring day after day and night after night over highly wrought scenes and skilfully portrayed pictures of romance, until her cheeks grew pale, her eyes became wild and restless, and her mind wandered and was lost -- the light of intelligence passed behind a cloud, and her soul was for ever benighted. She was insane, incurably insane from reading novels."

And if further evidence as to their results be needed, here it is: Bulwer the novelist, in a letter to a gentleman in Boston said, "I have closed my career as a writer of fiction. I am gloomy and unhappy. I have exhausted the powers of life, chasing pleasure where it is not to be found."

Need we show the dreadful influence of this kind of literature on morals? Not very long since, a double suicide was committed in Massachusetts by a young married couple from Ohio, who were clearly proved to be led to ruin and death by these most pernicious books. Not many winters ago, in a town of New England of not more than five thousand inhabitants, to the certain knowledge of the writer of this volume, three divorces were distinctly traced to the influence of this class of writings on the minds of young romantic wives and mothers, one or two of whom were professors of religion. Police officers too in London and some of our own large cities, have given mournful evidence of the results of some of these novels when dramatized and performed on the stage, as leading to burglaries and murder.

Some years ago I attended the ordination of a young minister, in the presence of a very large congregation. When giving an account of his conversion to God, he said that the greatest impediment he met with in the cultivation of religious habits, was the practice formed in early life of reading novels. Turning from the ministers who listened to his account to the congregation, he broke into a strain of high animation, and told them that if he had the eloquence of an archangel he would employ it in beseeching those young persons who wished to enjoy happiness on earth and heaven hereafter, never, never to touch the unhallowed book, called by whatever name it might be, partaking of the character of a novel.

My young friends, be entreated to avoid this moral poison, and to have a due regard for your own intellect and heart and for the best interests of society. Read no book on which you cannot pray for the divine blessing, and carefully study those writings which lead to happiness and to God.

Comments

[armiphlage]

"three divorces were distinctly traced to the influence of this class of writings on the minds of young romantic wives and mothers, one or two of whom were professors of religion."

This suggests a correlation between divorce and being a professor of religion. Also, with n=3, the error bars of "one or two" on that analysis are rather suspect.

[oursin]

I suspect the meaning is 'they professed religion' rather than being professors in any academic sense.

This seems really quite late for All Novels Are The Tool of Satan, rather than Good Novels Which Preach A Sound Moral Message vs Trash, burn the latter.

[glaurung]

"seems really quite late"

- I think the author is belongs to the 19th century version of paleo-evangelical Christianity - the people who continue to frown upon dancing and popular music and anything fun or frivolous long, long after other Christians had decided to stop moaning about such things and get with the times.

[conuly]

This isn't exactly a writer acquainted with the science of statistics.