Page:Sarah Sheppard - L. E. L.pdf/86

 out in her original form, with native effulgence and resistless dignity.* Thus advantageously, often, is "Truth severe "In fairy fiction dressed." "The fictions of genius," as another eloquent writer remarks, "are frequently the vehicles of the sublimest verities, and its flashes often open new regions of thought, and throw new light on the mysteries of our being; even when the letter is falsehood, the spirit is often profoundest wisdom."† Yet the very word "novel" is often used as a synonyme for the incarnations of folly, or something worse. While to one class of persons it conveys merely the idea of amusement, to another class it as exclusively implies something morally wrong to be avoided. If, however, what has been stated be true, neither of these opinions is correct. It is indeed to be regretted that, like most other agencies which are at all under man's control, fiction has been perverted to base and ignoble purposes, Vices, which in them selves are very fiends of darkness, decked in fiction’s robes, have walked the world as angels of light. Fiction hereby has been made a minister to evil passions, and her works have been constructed as a vestibule leading through deception to wickedness. Still, to repeat the trite maxim, the abuse of any thing is no argument against its right use. The greater the power and the more extensive the capabilities of an instrument, the more cogent are the reasons for rescuing it from the service of evil, and employing it as an agent of good. Is it not, therefore, important, that so efficient an auxiliary as fiction should not be contentedly left for a moment as a