Suggestions on What Ladies Should Read

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Putnam's Magazine, Page 384, Volume 10, Issue 57, Sept. 1857
Novel-Reading.

ive to the too highly wrought descrip-
tions of characters, passions, and events,
recorded in novels, unless she possesses
an amount of cool judgment and plain
practical sense rarely found in early
youth, and by no means indicative of
the highest type of mind when so
found.
Novel-reading, we are thus bound to
conclude, if systematically indulged in,
and especially by girls, will probably
result in the acquirement of those ro-
mantic notions and false views of
life so much deprecated by the pa-
rents and guardians of youth. Blanche
and Maria, under this sort of training,
look coolly on all matter-of-fact affairs,
and give their best energies, direct
their highest aspirations, towards some-
thing as yet vague and unformed in the
future. The cares and duties of home
are too small for their heroin capacities;
the affection of father, mother, brothers,
and sisters, does not satisfy their deep
and yearning hearts.
Blanche, a damsel gifted with health,
intelligence, loving friends, and a peace-
ful homeBlanche goes on imagining
miseries for herself, and adroitly weed-
ing out all the homely, sweet happiness
which life offers her. She is unappre-
ciated, misunderstood by all around
her; their ways are not her ways, and
she arrogantly assumes that it would be
sinking herself to grow to their level.
The first, best years of womanhood
thus pass, and it is not till they are
passed that she recognizes the unique
treasure she has let slipthe absolutely
priceless jewel she has lostforever.
Pity her as she slowly wakesaroused,
it may be, by the shock of some great,
real troubleto the knowledge of how
morbid was the pain, how senseless the
discontent, how forced and imaginary
the so-called suffering of those years
those irrevqcable years, which should
have seen her fresh of spirit, brave of
heart, cheerful in temper, the brightener
of her home, the helper of those near-
est her. But her nature has strength,
strength hitherto misdirected, and she
will arouse herself; she will discipline
the wild feelings, order anew the un-
trammeled energies, and her after-life
may do much to rectify to others those
misspent, wasted years. But, alas,
nothing in the world can give baek to
her the freshness, and sweetness, and
gladness of girlhood. A woman may
hope one day to be an angel, a poet
VOL. x.25
once said, but she can never again be
a girl.
Maria is of a different and commoner
nature; weak, and inclined to senti-
mentality, in which form her romance
evinces itself. She is prone to confi-
dences with female friends; writes long
letters to the confidante par excellence
letters with the invariable postscript,
Burn this directly you have read it.
Love is of course her grievance; and
Maria is always equally in love and in
distress, just like a heroine, as she con-
soles herself by recollecting. Her brain
teems with visions of chivalric Arthurs,
noble-minded (but low-spirited) Ernests,
devoted Henrys, etc., of whom she has
read so much. By the aid of her ready
imagination, she tran****es into the
likeness of these gentlemen the honest,
hard-working Messrs. Brown, Smith,
and Jon6s, young men of her acquaint-
ance.
Oh, beware, soft-hearted Maria, of
placing faith in those well-conned pic-
tures of lovers and husbnnds. When
Mr. Brown proposes, dont expect him
to fall at your feet, nor dash his hand
upon his forehead, nor glare fiercely,
nor gaze with indescribable tenderness,
nor, in s
ciated, misunderstood by all around
her; their ways are not her ways, and
she arrogantly assumes that it would be
sinking herself to grow to their level.
The first, best years of womanhood
thus pass, and it is not till they are
passed that she recognizes the unique
treasure she has let slipthe absolutely
priceless jewel she has lostforever.
Pity her as she slowly wakesaroused,
it may be, by the shock of some great,
real troubleto the knowledge of how
morbid was the pain, how senseless the
discontent, how forced and imaginary
the so-called suffering of those years
those irrevqcable years, which should
have seen her fresh of spirit, brave of
heart, cheerful in temper, the brightener
of her home, the helper of those near-
est her. But her nature has strength,
strength hitherto misdirected, and she
will arouse herself; she will discipline
the wild feelings, order anew the un-
trammeled energies, and her after-life
may do much to rectify to others those
misspent, wasted years. But, alas,
nothing in the world can give baek to
her the freshness, and sweetness, and
gladness of girlhood. A woman may
hope one day to be an angel, a poet
VOL. x.25
once said, but she can never again be
a girl.
Maria is of a different and commoner
nature; weak, and inclined to senti-
mentality, in which form her romance
evinces itself. She is prone to confi-
dences with female friends; writes long
letters to the confidante par excellence
letters with the invariable postscript,
Burn this directly you have read it.
Love is of course her grievance; and
Maria is always equally in love and in
distress, just like a heroine, as she con-
soles herself by recollecting. Her brain
teems with visions of chivalric Arthurs,
noble-minded (but low-spirited) Ernests,
devoted Henrys, etc., of whom she has
read so much. By the aid of her ready
imagination, she tran****es into the
likeness of these gentlemen the honest,
hard-working Messrs. Brown, Smith,
and Jon6s, young men of her acquaint-
ance.
Oh, beware, soft-hearted Maria, of
placing faith in those well-conned pic-
tures of lovers and husbnnds. When
Mr. Brown proposes, dont expect him
to fall at your feet, nor dash his hand
upon his forehead, nor glare fiercely,
nor gaze with indescribable tenderness,
nor, in short, to fulfill any of those con-
ditions you have been taught to believe
inevitable to declarations of the kind.
When you are engaged, moreover, do
not assume as a matter of course, that
every other interest in Mr. Browns
life is swallowed up by that of love;
and that his every thought, his looks,
his words, must all naturally converge
to you, and you alone, for the remain-
der of his natural life. Do not assume,
do not expect this, or woeful disappoint-
ment, selfish pain, and vexation of spirit~
will inevitably be your lot.
Not one man in ten thousand loves
with exclusive devotion; and no man is
at once so desperate and so unchanging,
so passionate and so unselfish, so fiery
fierce, and so thoughtfully tender, as
your favorite romances would have you
to believe. These several characteris-
tics belong to separate idiosyncrasies
widely differing orders of individuals.
In real life it is oftenest the ordinary,
common-place-seeming people, quiet,
and leading unnoticeable lives, who make
no fuss about their feelings, and are, in
brief, neither romantic to hear about,
nor picturesque to see, who are most
deep-hearted, constant to one idea, one
faith, one memory; and who, perhaps,
View page 386

386 Novel-Reading.

in their own still, undemonstrative way,
suffer most, and endure most.
No, Maria. If your Mr. Brown be a
good man, and love you truly, it is
quite reasonable to suppose that the
haven of his busy multifarious thoughts
will always be, that same little you,
to which, tired, embittered, or world-
weary, he will instinctively turn for
comfort, and rest, and help. See that
you afford all this to him, and be con-
tent. Wholesome, everyday, house-
hold love is, after all, a better thing to
live on, than all the impassioned,
soul-subduing, intense, kind of
thing that sounds so well in novels.
Bread is more nourishing than tipsy-
cake.
Women in fiction are generally much
more correctly drawn than men. This
is attributed to the preponderance of
women-writers of such books, who na-
turally delineate their own nature most
faithfully. But another and scarcely
less probable solution of the question
may surely be found in the fact, that
young women, being generally great
novel-readers, and strongly impressed
by what they read, are apt uncon-
sciously to copy the types of woman-
hood therein set forth, to the destruc-
tion of whatever originality they them-
selves may be endowed with. We talk
of the present system of female educa-
tion tending to stamp all women as with
one likeness, and turn them out as of
one mould. Has not the indiscriminate
study of novels something to answer for
in this respect? Must we npt confess
that our friends Blanche and Maria are,
in fact, but real-world, flesh-and-blood
versions of certain Isabels and Helens we
wot of in certain three-volume records?
Only unfortunately, while the novel-
ist can fashion his heroine as he will,
and make her, in spite of her wrong
ideas, her needless desperation, and her
generally picturesque unreasonableness,
courageous, high-minded, and perhaps,
at the end of the book, patient, gentle,
and very fit to fill the position of wife
and motherwhile the autocratic nov-
elist can do all this, human nature is
less happy and less potent. The girl
whose character is influenced by such
traditions, who entertains an ambition
to be like Isabel, and voluntarily or in-
voluntarily imitates her ways, her say-
ings, doings, and thinkings, is apt to
stop short of that which is really noble
and beautiful in the imaginary woman,
[Sept.,

while she is satisfied with catching the
outside peculiarities, the romantic sur-
face, which a false taste and a degen-
erate ideal teach her to consider ad-
mirable and becoming.
How many girls, so influenced, have
learned absolutely to cultivate a pas-
sionate temperament as something
rather fine than pitiable; and have
clenched their hands, uttered fierce
words, rushed about the house, knocked
about the things nearest them, in a
fashion most dismaying to their quieter
relatives and friendsin a fashion
which they would be ashamed to follow,
if Isabel had not given them the prece-
dentdear, handsome, impetuous, in-
teresting Isabel, who is so good and
true-hearted in spite of it all!
Again, what a picturesque character-
istic, in a novel, is that well-known
proud reserve, that dignified reti-
cence, which never shows what it feels,
and seldom says what it meanswhich
expresses six hearts full of emotion by
a tightening of the lip, or a quiver of the
fingerswhich lives and suffers, dies
and makes no sign! How interesting
all this can be made in a book; how in-
tolerable, how unlovable, how tinprofit-
able it would be in real life! Happily,
humanity cannot attain to the ultimate
perfection of this type of being. No
woman can carry out to the full extent
such an idea of stately calm; no woman
ever succeeds in thoroughly becoming
~such an ice-encrusted volcano.
Still she may endeavor, and tend to-
wards such an ideal; but, Oh, young
ladies, my dear friends, if you must copy
fictitious personalities, I do entreat you,
let your model be after another pattern
than this last and worst of all! Do not
attempt to distort your features and be-
havior into that spurious placidity; do
not try to curb out of your pleasant
faces the arch glance, the quick smile,
the numberless sweet and changeful
inflections, as natural to them as to
your native skies, and as dear and win-
ning. Do not pause ere you speak, till
you have arranged those well-balanced,
nicely-rounded periods that fall so sub-
limely fron~i the proudly-curved~ lips
of the ladies of the reserved and haughty
school. In short, place your ideal high-
er than the heroine of any novel what-
soever. Interesting, charming, nay
beautiful, as are the female creations
of some novelists (always excepting the
last-instanced variety), the second-harri