NOVEL READING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 8162, 25 January 1890, Page 2 (Supplement)

NOVEL READING.

Within the last few days the Bishop of Chester has been bestowing his benediction upon novels and novel reading, and confessing that it was once his pet ambition to write a great novel. We confess to a fear that this latest episcopal utterance may do more harm than good. Our own very serious opinion <i&th&b the taste for novel reading needs¥jf> Encouragement from high places ; contrary, something in the way of 'caution, and qualification is muoh more urgently wanted. It is always necessary to recollect that there are several classes Of novel readers. There are those, for instance, who take them up as a department of English literature, which must be surveyed and studied like any other field of intellectual activity, and estimated according to the established canons of Criticism; there are those who have occasional recourse to a good work of fiction as a relief to the tension of an overworked brain; and there are those, the largest class, who make novel reading the sole amusement of their leisure, for whom it is the only form of mental recreation they are able to enjoy or even tolerate. To say anything in favour of novel reading to this last class is, if we may adopt a homely illustration, like praising dram-drinking before a lover of alcohol. An episcopal recommendation, therefore, will serve to justify the practice, and will dispel any lingering scruples that may exist in some conscientious minds..—Banner,