Note 481 — Chapter VI
Reading edition
Newman's Apologia, pp. 96-97. Mark Twain thinks the influence of the novels was pernicious. He says: "A curious exemplification of the power of a single book for good or harm is shown in the effects wrought by Don Quixote and those wrought by Ivanhoe. The first swept the world's admiration for the mediaeval chivalry-silliness out of existence; and the other restored it.... Sir Walter had so large a hand in making Southern character, as it existed before the war, that he is in great measure responsible for the war." (Life on the Mississippi, ch. xlvi.)