It is deserving of remark and censure that American literature is become
shockingly moral. There is not a doubt of it; our writers, if accused,
would make explicit confession that morality is their only
fault--morality in the strict and specific sense. Far be it from me to
disparage and belittle this decent tendency to ignore the largest side
of human nature, and liveliest element of literary interest. It has an
eminence of its own; if it is not great art, it is at least great
folly--a superior sort of folly to which none of the masters of letters
has ever attained. Not Shakspeare, nor Cervantes, nor Goethe, nor
Molière, nor--no, not even Rabelais--ever achieved that shining pinnacle
of propriety to which the latter-day American has aspired, by turning
his back upon nature's broad and fruitful levels and his eyes upon the
passionate altitudes where, throned upon congenial ice, Miss Nancy sits
to censure letters, putting the Muses into petticoats and affixing a
fig-leaf upon Truth. Ours are an age and country of expurgated editions,
emasculated art, and social customs that look over the top of a fan.
Lo! prude-eyed Primdimity, mother of Gush,
Sex-conscious, invoking the difficult blush;
At vices that plague us and sins that beset
Sternly directing her private lorgnette,
Whose lenses, self-searching instinctive for sin,
Make image without of the fancies within.
Itself, if examined, would show us, alas!
A tiny transparency (French) on each glass.
Now, prudery in letters, if it would but have the goodness not to
coexist with prudery in life, might be suffered with easy fortitude,
inasmuch as one needs not read what one does not like; and between the
license of the dear old bucks above mentioned, and the severities of
Miss Nancy Howells, and Miss Nancy James, Jr., of t'other school, there
is latitude for gratification of individual taste. But it occurs that a
literature rather accurately reflects all the virtues and other vices of
its period and country, and its tendencies are but the matchings of
thought with action. Hence, we may reasonably expect to find--and
indubitably shall find--certain well-marked correspondences between the
literary faults which it pleases our writers to commit and the social
crimes which it pleases the Adversary to see their readers commit.
Within the current lustrum the prudery which had already, for some
seasons, been achieving a vinegar-visaged and corkscrew-curled certain
age in letters, has invaded the ball-room, and is infesting it in
quantity. Supportable, because evitable, in letters, it is here, for the
contrary reason, insufferable; for one must dance and enjoy one's self
whether one like it or not. Pleasure, I take it, is a duty not to be
shirked at the command of disinclination. Youth, following the bent of
inherited instinct, and loyally conforming himself to the centuries,
must shake a leg in the dance, and Age, from emulation and habit, and
for denial of rheumatic incapacity, must occasionally twist his heel
though he twist it off in the performance. Dance we must, and dance we
shall; that is settled; the question of magnitude is, Shall we caper
jocundly with the good grace of an easy conscience, or submit to shuffle
half-heartedly with a sense of shame, wincing under the slow stroke of
our own rebuking eye? To this momentous question let us now
intelligently address our minds, sacredly pledged, as becomes lovers of
truth, to its determination in the manner most agreeable to our desires;
and if, in pursuance of this laudable design, we have the unhappiness to
bother the bunions decorating the all-pervading feet of the good people
whose deprecations are voiced in _The Dance of Death_ and the clamatory
literature of which that blessed volume was the honored parent, upon
their own corns be it; they should not have obtruded these eminences
when youth and pleasure meet
To chase the glowing hours with flying feet.
What, therefore, whence, and likewise why, is dancing? From what flower
of nature, fertilized by what pollen of circumstance or necessity, is it
the fruit? Let us go to the root of the matter.