persistent survival of that third-rate English strain which shows itself
so ingenuously in the colonial spirit, the sense of inferiority, the
frank craving for praise from home. The race, in truth, grows mongrel,
and the protest against that mongrelism only serves to drive in the
fact. But a mongrel race is necessarily a race still in the stage of
reaching out for culture; it has not yet formulated defensible
standards; it must needs rest heavily upon the superstitions that go
with inferiority. The Reformation brought Scotland among the civilized
nations, but it took Scotland a century and a half to live down the
Reformation.[78] Dogmatism, conformity, Philistinism, the fear of
rebels, the crusading spirit; these are the marks of an upstart people,
uncertain of their rank in the world and even of their direction.[79] A
cultured European, reading a typical American critical journal, must
needs conceive the United States, says H. G. Wells, as "a vain,
garrulous and prosperous female of uncertain age and still more
uncertain temper, with unfounded pretensions to intellectuality and an
ideal of refinement of the most negative description ... the Aunt Errant
of Christendom."[80] There is always that blushful shyness, that
timorous uncertainty, broken by sudden rages, sudden enunciations of
impeccable doctrine, sudden runnings amuck. Formalism is the hall-mark
of the national culture, and sins against the one are sins against the
other. The American is school-mastered out of gusto, out of joy, out of
innocence. He can never fathom William Blake's notion that "the lust of
the goat is also to the glory of God." He must be correct, or, in his
own phrase, he must bust.
_Via trita est tutissima._ The new generation, urged to curiosity and
rebellion by its mounting sap, is rigorously restrained, regimented,
policed. The ideal is vacuity, guilelessness, imbecility. "We are
looking at this particular book," said Comstock's successor of "The
'Genius,'" "from the standpoint of its harmful effect on female readers
of immature mind."[81] To be curious is to be lewd; to know is to yield
to fornication. Here we have the mediaeval doctrine still on its legs: a
chance word may arouse "a libidinous passion" in the mind of a "modest"
woman. Not only youth must be safeguarded, but also the "female," the
untrustworthy one, the temptress. "Modest," is a euphemism; it takes
laws to keep her "pure." The "locks of chastity" rust in the Cluny
Museum; in place of them we have comstockery....
But, as I have said in hymning Huneker, there is yet the munyonic
consolation. Time is a great legalizer, even in the field of morals. We
have yet no delivery, but we have at least the beginnings of a revolt,
or, at all events, of a protest. We have already reached, in Howells,
our Hannah More; in Clemens, our Swift; in Henry James, our Horace
Walpole; in Woodberry, Robinson _et al._, our Cowpers, Southeys and
Crabbes; perhaps we might even make a composite and call it our Johnson.
We are sweating through our Eighteenth Century, our era of sentiment,
our spiritual measles. Maybe a new day is not quite so far off as it
seems to be, and with it we may get our Hardy, our Conrad, our
Swinburne, our Thomas, our Moore, our Meredith and our Synge.
THE END
FOOTNOTES:
[38] American Literature, tr. by Julia Franklin; New York, Doubleday,
Page & Co., 1915.
[39] New York, Dodd, Mead & Co., 1916.
[40] The first edition for public sale did not appear until June, 1917,
and in it the preface was suppressed.
[41] Second edition; Boston, Little, Brown & Co., 1859, xxvi.
[42] _Cf._ The Puritan, by Owen Hatteras, _The Smart Set_, July, 1916;
and The Puritan's Will to Power, by Randolph S. Bourne, _The Seven
Arts_, April, 1917.
[43] An instructive account of the organization and methods of the
Anti-Saloon League, a thoroughly typical Puritan engine, is to be found
in Alcohol and Society, by John Koren; New York, Henry Holt & Co., 1916.
[44] U. S. Rep., vol. 242, No. 7, p. 502.
[45] The majority opinion, written by Mr. Justice Day, is given in U. S.
Rep., vol. 242, no. 7, pp. 482-496.
[46] New York, (1914).
[47] I quote from page 157 of Anthony Comstock, Fighter, the official
biography. On page 239 the number of his prosecutions is given as 3,646,
with 2,682 convictions, which works out to but 73 per cent. He is
credited with having destroyed 50 tons of books, 28,425 pounds of
stereotype plates, 16,900 photographic negatives, and 3,984,063
photographs--enough to fill "sixteen freight cars, fifteen loaded with
ten tons each, and the other nearly full."
[48] By Charles Gallaudet Trumbull; New York, Fleming H. Revell Co.
(1913).
[49] An example: "All the evil men in New York cannot harm a hair of my
head, were it not the will of God. If it be His will, what right have I
or any one to say aught? I am only a speck, a mite, before God, yet not
a hair of my head can be harmed unless it be His will. Oh, to live, to
feel, to be--Thy will be done!" (pp. 84-5). Again: "I prayed that, if my
bill might not pass, I might go back to New York submissive to God's
will, feeling that it was for the best. I asked for forgiveness and
asked that my bill might pass, if possible; but over and above all, that
the will of God be done" (p. 6). Nevertheless, Comstock neglected no
chance to apply his backstairs pressure to the members of both Houses.
[50] Now, with amendments, sections 211, 212 and 245 of the United
States Criminal Code.
[51] _Vide_ Anthony Comstock, Fighter, pp. 81, 85, 94.
[52] Now sections 1141, 1142 and 1143 of the Penal Laws of New York.
[53] U. S. _vs._ Casper, reported in the _Twentieth Century_, Feb. 11,
1892.
[54] The trial court dodged the issue by directing the jury to find the
prisoner not guilty on the ground of insanity. The necessary
implication, of course, was that the publication complained of was
actually obscene. In 1895, one Wise, of Clay Center, Kansas, sent a
quotation from the Bible through the mails, and was found guilty of
mailing obscene matter. See The Free Press Anthology, compiled by
Theodore Schroeder; New York, Truth Seeker Pub. Co., 1909, p. 258.
[55] U. S. _vs._ Bennett, 16 Blatchford, 368-9 (1877).
[56] _Idem_, 362; People _vs._ Muller, 96 N. Y., 411; U. S. _vs._ Clark,
38 Fed. Rep. 734.
[57] U. S. _vs._ Moore, 129 Fed., 160-1 (1904).
[58] U. S. _vs._ Heywood, judge's charge, Boston, 1877. Quoted in U. S.
_vs._ Bennett, 16 Blatchford.
[59] U. S. _vs._ Slenker, 32 Fed. Rep., 693; People _vs._ Muller, 96 N.
Y. 408-414; Anti-Vice Motion Picture Co. _vs._ Bell, reported in the
_New York Law Journal_, Sept. 22, 1916; Sociological Research Film
Corporation _vs._ the City of New York, 83 Misc. 815; Steele _vs._
Bannon, 7 L. R. C. L. Series, 267; U. S. _vs._ Means, 42 Fed. Rep. 605,
etc.
[60] U. S. _vs._ Cheseman, 19 Fed. Rep., 597 (1884).
[61] People _vs._ Muller, 96 N. Y., 413.
[62] U. S. _vs._ Bennett, 16 Blatchford, 368-9.
[63] U. S. _vs._ Smith, 45 Fed. Rep. 478.
[64] U. S. _vs._ Bennett, 16 Blatchford, 360-1; People _vs._ Berry, 1 N.
Y., Crim. R., 32.
[65] People _vs._ Muller, 32 Hun., 212-215.
[66] U. S. _vs._ Bennett, 16 Blatchford, 361.
[67] U. S. _vs._ Moore, 16 Fed. Rep., 39; U. S. _vs._ Wright, 38 Fed.
Rep., 106; U. S. _vs._ Dorsey, 40 Fed. Rep., 752; U. S. _vs._ Baker, 155
Mass., 287; U. S. _vs._ Grimm, 15 Supreme Court Rep., 472.
[68] Various cases in point are cited in the Brief on Behalf of
Plaintiff in Dreiser _vs._ John Lane Co., App. Div. 1st Dept. N. Y.,
1917. I cite a few: People _vs._ Eastman, 188 N. Y., 478; U. S. _vs._
Swearingen, 161 U. S., 446; People _vs._ Tylkoff, 212 N. Y., 197; In the
matter of Worthington Co., 62 St. Rep. 116-7; St. Hubert Guild _vs._
Quinn, 64 Misc., 336-341. But nearly all such decisions are in New York
cases. In the Federal courts the Comstocks usually have their way.
[69] St. Hubert Guild _vs._ Quinn, 64 Misc., 339.
[70] For example, Judge Chas. L. Benedict, sitting in U. S. _vs._
Bennett, _op. cit._ This is a leading case, and the Comstocks make much
of it. Nevertheless, a contemporary newspaper denounces Judge Benedict
for his "intense bigotry" and alleges that "the only evidence which he
permitted to be given was on the side of the prosecution." (Port Jervis,
N. Y., _Evening Gazette_, March 22, 1879.) Moreover, a juror in the
case, Alfred A. Valentine, thought it necessary to inform the newspapers
that he voted guilty only in obedience to judicial instructions.
[71] _Vide_ Newspaper Morals, by H. L. Mencken, the _Atlantic Monthly_,
March, 1914.
[72] As a fair specimen of the sort of reasoning that prevails among the
consecrated brethren I offer the following extract from an argument
against birth control delivered by the present active head of the New
York Society for the Suppression of Vice before the Women's City Club of
New York, Nov. 17, 1916:
"Natural and inevitable conditions, over which we can have no control,
will assert themselves wherever population becomes too dense. This has
been exemplified time after time in the history of the world where
over-population has been corrected by manifestations of nature or by
war, flood or pestilence.... Belgium may have been regarded as an
over-populated country. Is it a coincidence that, during the past two
years, the territory of Belgium has been devastated and its population
scattered throughout the other countries of the world?"
[73] For example, the printed contract of the John Lane Co., publisher
of Dreiser's The "Genius," contains this provision: "The author hereby
guarantees ... that the work ... contains nothing of a scandalous, an
immoral or a libelous nature." The contract for the publication of The
"Genius" was signed on July 30, 1914. The manuscript had been carefully
read by representatives of the publisher, and presumably passed as not
scandalous or immoral, inasmuch as the publication of a scandalous or
immoral book would have exposed the publisher to prosecution. About
8,000 copies were sold under this contract. Two years later, in July,
1916, the Society for the Suppression of Vice threatened to begin a
prosecution unless the book was withdrawn. It was withdrawn forthwith,
and Dreiser was compelled to enter suit for a performance of the
contract. The withdrawal, it will be noticed, was not in obedience to a
court order, but followed a mere comstockian threat. Yet Dreiser was at
once deprived of his royalties, and forced into expensive litigation.
Had it not been that eminent counsel volunteered for his defence, his
personal means would have been insufficient to have got him even a day
in court.
[74] The chief sufferers from this conflict are the authors of moving
pictures. What they face at the hands of imbecile State boards of
censorship is described at length by Channing Pollock in an article
entitled "Swinging the Censor" in the _Bulletin_ of the Authors' League
of America for March, 1917.
[75] For example, the magazine which printed David Graham Phillips'
Susan Lenox: Her Rise and Fall as a serial prefaced it with a moral
encomium by the Rev. Charles H. Parkhurst. Later, when the novel
appeared in book form, the Comstocks began an action to have it
suppressed, and forced the publisher to bowdlerize it.
[76] An account of a typical prosecution, arbitrary, unintelligent and
disingenuous, is to be found in Sumner and Indecency, by Frank Harris,
in _Pearson's Magazine_ for June, 1917, p. 556.
[77] For further discussions of this point consult Art in America, by
Aleister Crowley, _The English Review_, Nov., 1913; Life, Art and
America, by Theodore Dreiser, _The Seven Arts_, Feb., 1917; and The
American; His Ideas of Beauty, by H. L. Mencken, _The Smart Set_, Sept.,
1913.
[78] _Vide_ The Cambridge History of English Literature, vol. XI, p.
225.
[79] The point is discussed by H. V. Routh in The Cambridge History of
English Literature, vol. XI, p. 290.
[80] In Boon; New York, George H. Doran Co., 1915.
[81] In a letter to Felix Shay, Nov. 24, 1916.
INDEX
Abolitionists, 213, 231
Agnosticism, 14, 17
Alden, W. L., on Conrad, 53
"Almayer's Folly," 12, 16, 37, 42, 47, 51, 52, 56, 59
American Bible Society, 239
American mind, 25, 197-8, 207 et seq.
"Amy Foster," 36
Anglo-Saxon point of view, 20-3
Animal behaviour, theory of, 135
"Anthony Comstock, Fighter," 254 _n_, 255 et seq.
Anti-Saloon League, 244 et seq., 249-50
Art Students' League raid, 269
Balzac, H. de, 15, 73, 76, 113, 155, 202, 260
"Banks of the Wabash, The," 106
Beauty, Dreiser on, 126
Benedict, Judge Chas. L., and Comstockery, 267 _n_.
Bennett, Arnold, 19, 26, 32, 48, 62, 78, 104, 137, 142, 143
Bible, declared obscene, 261-2
Bierce, Ambrose, 146, 202, 216, 224
"Blue Sphere, The," 126
_Bohemian Magazine_, 104
Bourne, Randolph, 147 _n_, 158, 237 _n_.
Boynton, H. W., 134, 158
British mind, 25
Brooks, Van Wyck, 134
_Butler, Edward Malia_, 116 et seq., 119
Calvinism, 14, 139, 164, 197 et seq.
Catholicism, Dreiser's, 75
Censorship, theatre, 241; moving picture, 242, 274
_Century Magazine_, 143, 221
"Chance," 37, 48, 56, 60
Chicago Vice Commission, report of, 269
"Children of the Sea," _see_ "Nigger of the Narcissus, The"
"Chopin: the Man and His Music," 166, 169 et seq.
Clemens, S. L., _see_ Twain, Mark
Clifford, Hugh, 52, 54, 59
Comstock, Anthony, 253 et seq.
Comstock Postal Acts of 1873, 241, 257 et seq.
Comstocks, attack on Dreiser, 101-2, 140 et seq.
Conrad, Joseph, birth and parentage, 20;
first book, 51;
early success, 53;
pensioned, 54;
his books as bibelots, 56;
style, 36 et seq.;
materials, 40 et seq.;
irony, 13, 18;
ethical agnosticism, 17, 29-32;
on women, 33-5;
statement of his task, 29;
contrasted with other authors, 30, 45, 48-9, 88 et seq., 96
_Cowperwood, Frank_, 79, 114 et seq., 135, 201
Criticism in America, 153 et seq., 191-2
Curle, Richard, 60
_Delineator_, 104
de Pachmann, Vladimir, 171, 178
Dewey, John, 152-3
Dime novels, Dreiser as editor of, 103
Doubleday, Page & Co., 70, 100-1, 102
Drama League of America, 180, 182
Dreiser, Theodore, birth and parentage, 76-7, 106;
early influences, 68 et seq.;
career in journalism, 98-105;
first book, 70, 98 et seq.;
dates of books, 100, 105;
plays, 105, 125-6;
travel books, 105, 127-131;
style, 79 et seq., 113;
mysticism, 12;
agnosticism, 88 et seq., 147;
his novels criticized, 106 et seq.;
academic attitude toward, 131 et seq.;
attacked by Comstocks, 139 et seq.;
contrasted with Conrad, 34, 88 et seq.
Dresser, Paul, 106, 130
"Egoists," 179, 181
"End of the Tether, The," 47
"Falk," 16, 36, 39, 47, 59, 64
Fiction, English, 18, 19
"Financier, The," 81, 86, 101, 105, 107, 114, 122, 138
Flaubert, Gustave, 73, 84, 136, 181
Follett, Wilson, 11, 13, 17, 60
Garnett, Edward, 52
"'Genius,' The," 80-1, 83, 86, 87, 93, 105, 107, 115, 122, 125,
139, 226, 270, 273, 282
_Gerhardt, Jennie_, 109-10, 119, 137
_Gerhardt, Jennie's_ father, 96, 117
German mind, 25
"Girl in the Coffin, The," 125
Good Templars, 228-30
_Goorall, Yanko_, 12
Great Awakening of 1734, 227
Greenwich Village, 124, 145, 224
"Hand of the Potter, The," 105
_Hanson, Minnie_, 85
Hardy, Thomas, 16, 62, 69, 71, 72, 76, 260
Harper & Bros., 100-2, 105
Harvard, 163, 169, 177
"Heart of Darkness," 35, 36, 41, 64
_Herrenmoral_, 236
_Heyst_, 12, 34, 59
"Hoosier Holiday, A," 76, 86, 88, 92, 105, 106, 125, 127 et seq.
Hope, Dreiser on, 126
Howells, W. D., 28, 58, 74, 76, 97, 156, 159, 188, 205, 217, 218,
275, 282
Hueffer, Ford Madox, 53, 54
Huneker, James, birth and parentage, 164;
in journalism, 167, 183;
as music student, 166-7;
as a critic, 159 et seq., 190-4;
books on music, 168-175;
stories, 188-90;
on Conrad, 59;
his aims, 193;
style, 180 et seq.
_Hurstwood_, 99, 108-9
Ibsen, Henrik, 15, 23, 24, 40, 83, 124, 156, 160-1, 162, 182, 200
"Iconoclasts," 169, 170, 179, 181
"Inheritors, The," 42, 53, 56
"In the Dark," 126
"Ivory, Apes and Peacocks," 59
James, Henry, 58, 62, 113, 217, 218, 283
"Jennie Gerhardt," 16, 71, 76-7, 82, 84, 96, 101, 105-9, 111-2, 117,
124, 276
Jesup, Morris K., 257 et seq.
_Jim, Lord_, 12, 16, 38, 39, 42, 59
_Jones, Althea_, 80-1, 85
Joseffy, Rafael, 167, 178
Kellner, Leon, 197 et seq.
_Kultur-Novellen_, Huneker's, 188 et seq.
_Kurtz_, 12, 16, 34, 38, 39, 59
Libraries, Dreiser's books in American, 143-5 _n_.
"Life, Art and America," 86, 88, 92, 105
"Lord Jim," 36, 47, 56, 60
Lord's Day Alliance, 242
Love, Dreiser on, 126
_MacWhirr, Capt._, 12, 37, 42
Mann Act, 241, 251-2, 258
_Marlow_, 36, 37
_Meeber, Carrie_, 40, 85, 99, 109 et seq., 126, 137
"Melomaniacs," 188 et seq.
Men and Religions Forward Movement, 239
Methodism, 139, 197, 277
"Mezzotints in Modern Music," 168
"Mirror of the Sea, The," 50, 56
"Morals, Not Art or Literature," 253
Naturalism, German, 77
"New Cosmopolis," 165, 183 et seq.
Nietzsche, F. W., 15, 29, 90, 93, 136, 158, 162, 173, 180, 181, 183,
192, 193
"Nigger of the Narcissus, The," 50, 52, 56
Norris, Frank, 15, 70, 71, 100, 108, 122, 163, 191, 224
"Nostromo," 12, 38, 42, 45, 46-7, 48, 56
"Old Fogy," 170 et seq., 179, 181
"Old Ragpicker," 125
"Outcast of the Islands, An," 37
Page, Walter H., 102
"Pathos of Distance, The," 164
"Personal Record, A," 37, 51, 88
Pilsner, 165, 184-5
"Plays of the Natural and the Supernatural," 105, 125
Poe, Edgar Allan, 73, 151, 152, 154, 180-1, 189, 214, 221
"Point of Honor, The," 42, 47
Prague, 165, 185-6
Prohibition, 228-9, 244 et seq.
Prudery, American, 228
_Razumov_, 12, 34, 49
Resignationism, 14
"Return, The," 42
"Romance," 56
_Ruiz, Gaspar_, 12
Russia, Conrad's picture of, 49-50
Sea, Conrad's pictures of, 50-1
"Secret Agent, The," 42, 48, 59, 60
"Set of Six, A.," 56
"Shadow Line, The," 12, 13, 47
Shakespeare, Wm., 14-5, 61, 155, 121, 199, 204
Shaw, G. B., 15, 16, 19, 26, 121-2, 161, 182, 269
"Sister Carrie," 58, 70, 71, 73, 81, 84, 95, 97, 98 et seq., 105,
107, 108, 109, 111, 112-3, 117, 119, 126, 143, 201
_Sklavenmoral_, 22, 235
Slav, qualities of, 14
"Some Reminiscences," 37, 56. (_See also_ "Personal Record, A.")
Sons of Temperance, 228
Street & Smith, 103-4
Symons, Arthur, 19, 28-9, 39
"Tales of Unrest," 52, 56
"Titan, The," 60, 77, 82, 86, 101, 105, 106, 111, 114, 117 et seq.,
129, 138, 201, 275
Train, George Francis, 261-2
"Traveler at Forty, A.," 76, 82, 105, 125, 127
Truth, Dreiser on, 126
Twain, Mark, 15, 17, 30, 90, 131-2, 133, 143, 151, 202, 203-4, 217, 222
"Typhoon," 12, 47, 50, 53
"Under Western Eyes," 36, 42, 47, 48, 49, 56, 59
"Victory," 13, 33, 42, 48, 55, 56
"Visionaries," 188 et seq.
Webb Law, 230, 241, 258
Wells, H. G., 19, 32, 38, 48, 53, 62, 135, 142, 144, 281
_Wille zur Macht_, the Puritan, 237, 246
_Witla, Eugene_, 122 et seq., 137, 140 et seq.
Young Men's Christian Association, 230, 238, 240, 256
"Youth," 12, 13, 37, 41, 48, 53, 54, 56, 64
Zola, Emile, 15-6, 63, 71-2, 76, 78, 113, 124, 136, 202, 216, 260