There are many
who think that reading in itself is not good unless the matter read
is excellent.
I do not myself quite agree with this, thinking that
almost any reading is better than none; but I will of course admit
that good matter is better than bad matter. The bulk of the
literature consumed in the States is no doubt composed of novels - as
it is also, now-a-days, in this country. Whether or no an unlimited
supply of novels for young people is or is not advantageous, I will
not here pretend to say. The general opinion with ourselves, I take
it, is that novels are bad reading if they be bad of their kind.
Novels that are not bad are now-a-days accepted generally as
indispensable to our households. Whatever may be the weakness of
the American literary taste in this respect, it is I think a
weakness which we share. There are more novel readers among them
than with us, but only I think in the proportion that there are more
readers.
I have no hesitation in saying that works by English authors are
more popular in the States than those written by Americans; and,
among English authors of the present day, readers by no means
confine themselves to the novelists. The English names of whom I
heard most during my sojourn in the States were perhaps those of
Dickens, Tennyson, Buckle, Tom Hughes, Martin Tupper, and Thackeray.
As the owners of all these names are still living, I am not going to
take upon myself the delicate task of criticising the American
taste.
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