Page:Moral Pieces in Prose and Verse.pdf/68



READING is not only a pleasant recreation, but, under proper regulations, the best employment for our leisure hours. It becomes either salutary, or pernicious, according to the choice we make of our books, and the time we devote to them. It is possible to be dissipated even in reading good books; this however is so seldom the case with those of our age, that it is hardly an evil to be guarded against. But there is a kind of dissipation to which most young people are prone, extremely injurious in a variety of ways. That is the reading of novels, without limit as to number, or discretion in the choice. This is not only a waste of time which can never be recalled, but has the worst possible effects upon the mind, by unfitting it for every other kind of intellectual enjoyment. Youth is the season for the acquisition of knowledge, but whoever is much devoted to a love of works of fiction, will find it impossible to pursue, with any effect, such a course of study, as will enlighten her understanding, strengthen her mind, or amend her heart. On the contrary she will find her mind enervated, her wishes uncertain and contradictory,