If Mr. Cabell had not pre-empted the phrase, the words with which he
characterized the tale _Jurgen_ might well be used as a title for
an account of the tale’s adventures with the law. Those adventures,
which the matter of this book commemorates no less effectively than it
helped to divert them from a less happy outcome, form indeed a comedy
of justice: a comedy which, perhaps, aroused more of indignation than
of mirth, and which, in its duration, somewhat exceeded the time-limit
that a canny dramatist allots himself, but which ended appropriately on
a note of justice, and thus showed Mr. Cabell to be not only the maker
of a happily descriptive phrase but also somewhat of a prophet.
Well, the comedy of _Jurgen’s_ suppression is ended. The book is
admitted once more to the freedom of the library, and the pawnbroker
is again at liberty to wander throughout the universe in search of
rationality and fair dealing. And in due course, time and the wisdom of
other generations will decide whether the pawnbroker, or the book, or
the adventures of either be in any way memorable.
Today, however, the vicissitudes of _Jurgen_ are of indisputable
importance, if only because similar misfortunes may overtake yet
other publications. At the moment it appears that the position of
literature is less precarious than it has been in the recent past.
For the courts, of late, with gratifying accord have failed to detect
obscenity in a number of volumes at which professional righteousness
has taken offense, and there apparently is cause to hope that legal
precedent will dispel the obscurity which so long has surrounded
decency--within the meaning of the statute. Yet it is still possible
for an incorporated organization to waylay and imprison art: to
exercise by accusation a censorship which impermanence makes no less
dangerous. Until the difference between the liberty permitted to art
and the license forbidden to the vulgar be clearly defined, it remains
impossible for any artist to foreknow how fully he may describe
and thereby interpret life as he sees it, or for the community to
enjoy uninterrupted access to much of the best of ancient and modern
literature.
In the pages which follow is printed an argument that expressly defines
the test whereby that which is legally permissible and that which is
prohibited may be determined. It is, explicitly, an argument in behalf
of _Jurgen_, submitted at the trial of the publishers of that book: and
it is published in book form, in part because of its intrinsic interest
to all readers of Cabell, in part because it is a valuable addition to
the literature of censorship. But here there seems need to preface the
argument with a brief history of the _Jurgen_ case.