On Novels by Thomas de Quincey — Read

(_Two pages written in a Lady's Album._[68])

A false ridicule has settled upon Novels, and upon Young Ladies as the readers of novels. Love, we are told authoritatively, has not that importance in the actual practice of life -- nor that extensive influence upon human affairs -- which novel-writers postulate, and which the interest of novels presumes. Something to this effect has been said by an eminent writer; and the law is generally laid down upon these principles by cynical old men, and envious blue-stockings who have outlived their personal attractions. The sentiment however is false even for the present condition of society; and it will become continually _more_ false as society improves. For what is the great commanding event, the one sole revolution, in a woman's life? Marriage. Viewing her course from the cradle to the grave in the light of a drama, I am entitled to say that her wedding-day is its catastrophe -- or, in technical language, its _peripeteia_: whatever else is important to her in succeeding years has its origin in that event. So much for _that_ sex. For the other, it is admitted that Love is not, in the same exclusive sense, the governing principle under which their lives move: but what then are the concurrent forces, which sometimes happen to cooeperate with that agency -- but more frequently disturb it? They are two; Ambition, and Avarice. Now for the vast majority of men -- Ambition, or the passion for personal distinction, has too narrow a stage of action, its grounds of hope are too fugitive and unsteady, to furnish any durable or domineering influence upon the course of life.