Indeed,
when one observes how ill and ugly people make their loves and
quarrels, 'tis pity they should not read novels a little more, to
import the fine generosities, and the clear, firm conduct, which are
as becoming in the unions and separations which love effects under
shingle roofs as in palaces and among illustrious personages.
In novels the most serious questions are really beginning to be
discussed. What made the popularity of "Jane Eyre," but that a
central question was answered in some sort? The question there
answered in regard to a vicious marriage will always be treated
according to the habit of the party. A person of commanding
individualism will answer it as Rochester does,--as Cleopatra, as
Milton, as George Sand do,--magnifying the exception into a rule,
dwarfing the world into an exception. A person of less courage, that
is, of less constitution, will answer as the heroine does,--giving
way to fate, to conventionalism, to the actual state and doings of
men and women.
For the most part, our novel-reading is a passion for results. We
admire parks, and high-born beauties, and the homage of drawing-rooms,
and parliaments. They make us skeptical, by giving prominence to
wealth and social position.
I remember when some peering eyes of boys discovered that the
oranges hanging on the boughs of an orange-tree in a gay piazza were
tied to the twigs by thread.
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