Art & Creativity Quote by Frederick Marryat

Marryat’s line carries the polite venom of a novelist who’s tired of being treated like a parlor trick. In one sentence, he flips the usual Victorian literary hierarchy: the “rich” aren’t patrons to be courted, they’re an audience to be distrusted. The sting is in the doubled contrast. The poor deserve “instruction” (moral formation, practical literacy, a stake in public life), and even when they only get “amusement,” that pleasure is framed as earned and legitimate. The rich, by comparison, are offered only “amusement” - not because they’re incapable of learning, but because their reading habits are implied to be decorative, consumption as status.

The subtext is both ethical and strategic. Marryat isn’t just claiming noble motives; he’s carving out a market and a mandate. The early-to-mid 19th century is when mass readership starts to become a force: cheaper print, expanding education, serialized fiction, a growing urban working class hungry for stories. A writer who aligns himself with that crowd signals modernity, relevance, and a kind of patriotic seriousness. It’s also self-protection. By positioning himself against elite “amusement,” Marryat preempts criticism that popular fiction is vulgar: if the work entertains, it does so with purpose, aimed at people for whom culture isn’t a hobby but a tool.

There’s a quiet provocation here, too. “Rather” suggests choice, as if the author is actively walking away from the drawing rooms where careers were made. It’s a declaration of literary allegiance - and a warning that the gatekeepers are no longer the only gate.