Attempt > Volume 3

58 THE ATTEMPT.
" PLATED OUT."
The multitude of novels written in the present day is something quite appall¬
ing, and we wonder if any one person could be found with the superhuman patience
to read them all as they come out. It might be done, perhaps, by rising early and
going late to rest, bringing your novel with you to the breakfast or dinner table,
and giving up every requirement of duty, or even pleasure. But this not being
attainable even to the most idle and frivolous, the question comes to be, which to
choose out of the vast array, and which will afford the highest kind of gratification
to the reader. Of course this must to a great extent be regulated by the peculiar
taste of the individual; and no fact is more patent than that tastes do differ very
widely; and this is no doubt a great blessing, else what would become of the hetero¬
geneous mass we find in the circulating libraries 1 Some people prefer the senti¬
mental style, where the heroes with any character at all are all dai-k, and have a
mystery, and the heroine goes from one fearful trouble into another in such rapid
succession, that one would almost be made to believe the normal state of young girls
is intense misery. Others, again, prefer the dashing style, and give you Amazons
warranted to go over hedges and ditches like experienced huntsmen ; and gentlemen,
whose habit of using slang, and even stronger language, would almost lead us to
doubt their right to the title. Others have a morbid taste for " battle, murder and
sudden death," of which the supply is always quite equal to the demand ; and lastly,
there are some who look out for common sense, and an air of probability, to enable
them to digest their novel, and who consequently do not deal largely in the article
at all. The truth is, let who will deny it, much novel reading has a deleterious
effect; it should be read as we eat sugar plums, not as an article of staple food, but
as a slight zest when the meal is over; it should constitute our recreation, not the
business of our lives.
There are a few, a very few novel writers, whose works improve the more they
are read; who teach the most useful lessons in the most attractive form, whose fun
really makes us laugh, whose pathos brings tears to our eyes, and from the perusal
of whose works we rise with the earnest wish in our hearts to live good and useful
lives.
The great difficulty with authors is, to portray female character truly; with
authoresses to give us men, not lay figures. Authors are too apt to make their