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366 SKETCHES.
mightiest, the most romantic — the relation between man
and his highest, his ‘best, his first and his last friend? I
also lave a little objection to novels in general, when I
compare them to the novel of novels — real, living life.
It is because they occupy themselves too much with con-
jugating, in a certain exclusive sense, the eternal verb, I
love, thou lovest, we love, etc., ete. Yes, I object a little
to this, for I find that it is not so on earth. I am of the
opinion of England’s great Dr. Johnson, when he says in
his preface to Shakespeare’s works: “ Love is only one of
many passions, and as it has no great influence upon the
sum of life, it has little operation in the dramas of a poet
who caught his ideas from the living world, and exhibited
only what he saw before him. He knew that any other
passion, according as it be regular or exorbitant, is a cause
of happiness or calamity.”
There are novels which are free from the one-sidedness of
which I have complained, and which contain much of the
best which characterizes the genuine novel. ‘Their worth
lies above all in the moral tone which breathes through
them like a healthy, invigorating breeze, and which holds
up to view the influence of good over circumstances, and
also man’s power to help himself. We see in them the
good intent, the pure purpose, perseverance, industry, pa-
tience struggling with all kinds of difficulties, conquering at
last,and man becoming the creator of his own happiness. :
These novels can have a beneficial influence upon youthful
minds on the point of making the acquaintance of life and
the world.
All novels which approach the primeval novel, I wish
every success and an inconceivable number of readers.
These readers I wish mind and sense rightly to understand
them; for true is the saying of Lichtenberg: “If, when a
book and a head happen to knock against each other, it
should sound hollow or discordant, it is not always the
fault of the book.”
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