We believe the amount of ill circulated by means of anonymous letters,
as described in this book, to be as great as can be imported in all
the French novels (and that is a bold word). We know ourselves of two
or three cases of morbid wickedness, displayed by means of anonymous
letters, that may vie with what puzzled the best wits of France in a
famous law-suit not long since. It is true, there is, to balance all
this, a healthy rebound,--a surprise and a shame; and there are
heartily good people, such as are described in this book, who, having
taken a direction upward, keep it, and cannot be bent downward nor
aside. But, then, the reverse of the picture is of a blackness that
would appall one who came to it with any idyllic ideas of the purity
and peaceful loveliness of agricultural life.
But what does this prove? Only the need of a dissemination of all that
is best, intellectually and morally, through the whole people. Our
groves and fields have no good fairies or genii who teach, by legend
or gentle apparition, the truths, the principles, that can alone
preserve the village, as the city, from the possession of the fiend.
Their place must be taken by the school-master, and he must be one who
knows not only "readin', writin', and 'rithmetic," but the service of
God and the destiny of man.
Pages:
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321