The result is a bloated imagination, sickly judgment, and disgust towards all the real businesses of life

Heh. Thomas Jefferson, 1818. Here is another recurring issue - fiction versus non-fiction. While Jefferson made an exception for novels with a moral dimension, he otherwise had a poor opinion of fictional writing.

A great obstacle to good education is the inordinate passion prevalent for novels, and the time lost in that reading which should be instructively employed. When this poison infects the mind, it destroys its tone and revolts it against wholesome reading. Reason and fact, plain and unadorned, are rejected. Nothing can engage attention unless dressed in all the figments of fancy, and nothing so bedecked comes amiss. The result is a bloated imagination, sickly judgment, and disgust towards all the real businesses of life.