This is done under pretext of showing us vice. In fine, and this is the characterization I shall use in contrasting this group with that much sweeter group led by George Eliot, the distinctive feature of these first novelists is to show men with microscopic detail how bad men may be. I shall presently illustrate with the George Eliot group how much larger the mission of the novel is than this; meantime, I cannot leave this matter without recording, in the plainest terms, that, for far deeper reasons than those which Roger Bacon gave for sweeping away the works of Aristotle, if I had my way with these classic books I would blot them from the face of the earth. One who studies the tortuous behaviors of men in history soon ceases to wonder at any human inconsistency; but, so far as I _can_ marvel, I _do_ daily that we regulate by law the sale of gunpowder, the storage of nitro-glycerine, the administration of poison--all of which can hurt but our bodies--but are absolutely careless of these things--so-called classic books, which wind their infinite insidiousnesses about the souls of our young children, and either strangle them or cover them with unremovable slime under our very eyes, working in a security of fame and so-called classicism that is more effectual for this purpose than the security of the dark. Of this terror it is the sweetest souls who know most. In the beginning of _Aurora Leigh_, Mrs. Browning speaks this matter so well that I must clinch my opinion with her words. Aurora Leigh says, recalling her own youthful experience: "Sublimest danger, over which none weep, When any young wayfaring soul goes forth Alone, unconscious of the perilous road, The day-sun dazzling in his limpid eyes, To thrust his own way, he an alien, through The world of books! Ah, you!--you think it fine, You clap hands--'A fair day!'--you cheer him on As if the worst could happen, were to rest Too long beside a fountain. Yet behold, Behold!--the world of books is still the world; And worldlings in it are less merciful And more puissant. For the wicked there Are winged like angels. Every knife that strikes Is edged from elemental fire to assail Our spiritual life. The beautiful seems right By force of beauty, and the feeble wrong Because of weakness.... ... In the book-world, true, There's no lack, neither, of God's saints and kings... True, many a prophet teaches in the roads ... But stay--who judges?... ... The child there? Would you leave That child to wander in a battle-field And push his innocent smile against the guns? Or even in the catacombs--his torch Grown ragged in the fluttering air, and all The dark a-mutter round him? not a child!"