here and here'."[19]

It is far better for him, instead of poring over a detail of the causes
and symptoms of the disease which he hugs, to be stimulated to an effort
in which, though it be but temporary, ecstatic, and for an end not
actually attainable, he may at least forget the disease altogether. Such
a stimulus a great poem may afford him; but in the whole expanse of
novel-literature he merely sees his own sickly experience modified in an
infinite variety of reflections, till he fancies that the "strange
disease of modern life" is the proper constitution of God's universe.

FOOTNOTES:

[18]

"When the fretful stir
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world
Have hung upon the beatings of my heart."
--Wordsworth, 'Tintern Abbey.'

[19] Matthew Arnold's 'Memorial Verses,' lines 20-22, adapted to the
context.

J. EVIL EFFECTS OF NOVEL-READING

21. Novel-reading thus aggravates two of the worst maladies of modern
times, self-consciousness and want of reverence. Many a man in these
days, instead of doing some sound piece of work for mankind, spends his
time in explaining to himself why it is that he does not do it, and how,
after all, he is superior to those who do. Even men of a higher sort
never seem to forget themselves in their work. Our popular writers
generally take the reader into confidence as to their private feelings
as they go along; our men of action are burdened by a sense of their
reputation with "intelligent circles." No one loses himself in a cause.
Scarcely understanding what is meant by a "divine indifference" as to
the fate of individual existences in the evolution of God's plan, we
weary heaven with complaints that we find the world contrary, or that we
cannot satisfy ourselves with a theory of life. Thus "measuring
ourselves by ourselves, and comparing ourselves among ourselves, we are
not wise." The novel furnishes the standard for the measurement, and the
data for the comparison. It presents us with a series of fictitious
experiences, in the light of which we read our own, and become more
critically conscious of them. Instead of idealising life, if we may so
express ourselves, it sentimentalises it. It does not subordinate
incidents to ideas; yet it does not treat them simply as phenomena to
excite curiosity, but as misfortunes or blessings to excite sentiment.
The writer of the "Mill on the Floss" reaches almost the tragic pitch
tow