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    THE IKELTJENCE OF CLASSICAL LITEKATURE. ...

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    We Give These Extracts From An Excellent...

    Rome , Aristophanes and Juvenal , are more responsible for tiie popular views of womanand for the popular mistakes in regard to man ' s

    relative position , than , anything that has been written later . This influence pervades alL history , and so the study of history

    becomes in its turn the source of still greater and more specious errorexcept to a few rare and oriinal mindswhose eccentricities

    have , been pardoned to their genius g , but who have , never influenced the world to the extent that they have been influenced by it .

    The adages or proverbs of all nations are the outgrowths of their first attempts at civilization . They began at a time which knew

    neither letter paper nor the printing press , and they perpetuate the rudest ideas , such as are every way degrading to womanly virtue .

    The influence of general literature is impelled by the mingled current . For many centuries it was the outgrowth of male minds only ,

    of such as had been drilled for seven years at least into all the heathenisms of which I speak .

    "Women , when thev first _beg"an to work , followed the masculine idea , shared the masculine culture . As a portion of general

    literature , the novel , as the most popular , exerts the widest sway . No educational influence in this country compares with it ; even that of

    the pulpit looks trivial beside it . There are thousands whom that influence never reacheshardly one who cannot beg or buy a

    newspaper From , with the its first story lash by , some of the " Atlantic Sylvanus on Cobb a Massachusetts ! " beach to , sp

    the farthest ground which the weary footsteps of the Mormon women at this moment from tlie shell-bound coast of Florida , hung

    with garlands of press orange ; and lime , to the cold green _waters of Lake Superior , in their fretted chalice of copper and gold , —the novel holds

    its sway . On the railroad , at the depot , in the Irish hut , in the Indian lodge , on the steamer and the canal-boat , in the Fifth Avenue

    palace and the Five Points den of infamy , its shabby livery betrays the Until work that latel it is doing it has . kept faith with history and the classics ,

    into but it the is hands very passing of more noble y , and and more independent into the wonien hands and of " there women are , of si late gns

    , which indicate that it may soon become a potent influence of redemption . It has thus far done infinite harm by drawing false

    distinctions between the masculine and feminine elements of human nature , and perpetuating , through the influence of genius often

    intensifying ' , the educational power of a false theory of love and marriage .

    Social customs follow in the train of literature ; and sometimes in keep are the ing live with s popular and labors errors of , remarkable but oftener in individual stern oppositi s of both on to sexes them , ;

    lives that show , if they show nothing else , liow much the resolute endeavor of one noble heart may do towards making real and

    popular its own convictions . The influence of newspapers sustains , of course , the general

    current derived from all these sources .

    The Ikeltjence Of Classical Litekature. ...

    THE _IKELTJENCE OF _CLASSICAL LITEKATURE . 387

• Citation
  • English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Feb. 1, 1860, page 387, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01021860/page/27/