Their structure is similar to that of dramatic compositions. They
exhibit characters to view. They have their heroes and heroines in the
same manner. They lay open the checkered incidents in the lives of
these. They interweave into their histories the powerful passion of
love. By animated language, and descriptions which glow with sympathy,
they rouse the sensibility of the reader, and fill his soul with
interest in the tale. They fascinate therefore in the same manner as
plays. They produce also the same kind of [7] mental stimulus, or the
same powerful excitement of the mind. Hence it is that this
indisposition is generated. For if other books contain neither
characters, nor incidents, nor any of the high seasoning, or gross
stimulants, which belong to novels they become insipid.
[Footnote 7: I have been told by a physician of the first eminence, that
music and novels have done more to produce the sickly countenances and
nervous habits of our highly educated females, than any other causes
that can be assigned. The excess of stimulus on the mind from the
interesting and melting tales, that are peculiar to novels, affects the
organs of the body, and relaxes the tone of the nerves, in the same
manner as the melting tones of music have been described to act upon the
constitution, after the sedentary employment, necessary for skill in
that science, has injured it.
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