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THE EDUCATIONAL POWER OF FICTION.
character of their times far more accurately than all the veritable histories ever written. Washington Irving's faithful narrations are but a little remembered in comparison with his burlesque, "Knickerbocker's History of New York.' Hawthorne has given a charm to American life by the vivid descriptions in which his novels abound. These examples are but a few which serve to show the power of the imagination in portraying scenes and customs—a power that the products of fact can never supply.
The novelist, above writers of every class, may make his compositions the mighty agents of truth and morality. That which appears dry and insipid in an ethical treatise, when clothed by the eloquence of genius, takes new light and fires men to action.
The influence of fiction is not so instantaneous as that exerted by the public press, or the orator. Nevertheless it gains in permanency what it lacks in promptness. Once in a while, however, some novel appears which immediately produces a visible effect upon public thought. To the genius cf Dickens the poor of England are indebted for a melioration of their sufferings. By his pathos and humor he called the attention of his countrymen to the misery and wretchedness among the lower classes, and thus led to measures of relief. Thackeray performed a similar service for the wealthy portion of society, by his portrayal of the vanities and follies into which life is perverted by fashion.
On this side of the Atlantic a still greater revolution of sentiment was effected by the appearance of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." A more recent example of the novel's power is "The Fool's Errand." Judge Tourgee called the general attention of the people to the neglected condition of the South, and as a result, measures are now under consideration for the development of
the resources and the education of the masses in that region.
While this higher class of inventive literature furnishes healthful recreation for the mind, cultivates the finer sentiments, brings great truths home to our understanding, reveals human nature, arouses ambition, and nerves men and nations to action, on the contrary, that of a low and sentimental quality must be conceded to be most baleful in its influence. The basest characters are glorified as heroes, and a glamour of romance reflected upon deeds the blackest and most loathsome. By giving to vice the attractions of virtue, principles are corrupted, morals subverted and the passions inflamed. It is these morbid effusions of unscrupulous writers that have brought so much discredit upon the whole domain of fiction and placed it under the ban of many conscientious guardians of juvenile purity. Hence, they may well be excused for much of their sweeping, indiscriminate condemnation, since these cheap and trashy productions are constantly tempting children in every book-store. Such writings are the disseminators of crime. Their germs of infection pollute the literature of a nation, spreading noxious diseases to the mind and propagating vice in its worst form.
The test of a good novel is not that its scenes are all laid in happy places, that it treats only of the pure or that it is adorned with a moral. Works written with an ethical aim are generally failures—possessing few readers and little influence. Some of our most celebrated novels are those which deal with localities and characters from which in real life we shrink with horror. It matters little out of what circumstances the author forms his plot, provided he gives to his creations their true attributes.
Fictitious literature has acquired its