efore us, in vividness, a human truth which we had before dimly
conceived; but the temptation to picturesqueness of statement is so
great, that often the best writers of fiction cannot resist it; and our
views are rendered so violent and one-sided, that their vitality is
rather a harm than good.

78. Without, however, venturing here on any attempt at decision of how
much novel-reading should be allowed, let me at least clearly assert
this, that whether novels, or poetry, or history be read, they should
be chosen, not for their freedom from evil, but for their possession of
good. The chance and scattered evil that may here and there haunt, or
hide itself in, a powerful book, never does any harm to a noble girl;
but the emptiness of an author oppresses her, and his amiable folly
degrades her. And if she can have access to a good library of old and
classical books, there need be no choosing at all. Keep the modern
magazine and novel out of your girl's way; turn her loose into the old
library every wet day, and let her alone. She will find what is good
for her; you cannot; for there is just this difference between the
making of a girl's character and a boy's--you may chisel a boy into
shape, as you would a rock, or hammer him into it, if he be of a better
kind, as you would a piece of bronze. But you cannot hammer a girl
into anything. She grows as a flower does,--she will wither without
sun; she will decay in her sheath, as the narcissus will, if you do not
give her air enough; she may fall, and defile her head in dust, if you
leave her without help at some moments of her life; but you cannot
fetter her; she must take her own fair form and way, if she take any,
and in mind as in body, must have always--

"Her household motions light and free
And steps of virgin liberty."

Let her loose in the library, I say, as you do a fawn in a field. It
knows the bad weeds twenty times better than you; and the good ones,
too, and will eat some bitter and prickly ones, good for it, which you
had not the slightest thought would have been so.

79. Then, in art, keep the finest models before her, and let her
practice in all accomplishments to be accurate and thorough, so as to
enable her to understand more than she accomplishes. I say the finest
models--that is to say, the truest, simplest, usefullest. Note those
epithets; they will range through all the arts. Try them in music,
where you might think them the least appli