LETTERS TO THE PUBLISHER The following letters, addressed to the publisher of "Jurgen," are here reprinted with the kind permission of the writers and of the publisher: 15 West 67th Street February 17, 1920 We want to congratulate you for publishing that remarkable book, Jurgen, of James Branch Cabell, and add our opinion, for whatever it may be worth, to the opinion of those who admire it and are protesting against the Censor's attack upon it. Such an attack is based, we suppose, on the law which prescribes that: "The test of obscenity within the meaning of the statute is whether the tendency of the matter charged as obscene is to deprave or corrupt the morals of those whose minds are open to such immoral influences and into whose hands a publication of this sort may fall.” According to this law, the factors which determine whether a book can be published or not are "the minds that are open," etc., a definition which includes the immature and degenerate minds, so that the culture of a people is subordinated to the requirements of immature and degenerate minds, in which case the word "culture" becomes synonymous with immorality and must cease to exist with what it connotes. Strangely enough, the type of mind with which the law and the Censor are in such close sympathy has always been and is averse from the intellectual effort required for the understanding and appreciation of a work of a highly intellectual order, so that it is automatically protected from what might affect its morbid condition in a work of this kind. It is strange, therefore, that a book like Jurgen should have been read at all by the agent who is in so close a sympathy with immature and degenerate minds-a book of which Hugh Walpole, an eminent writer, says: "Jurgen is surely a book that should make Americans proud. I am delighted with its delicacy and goodtemper and tenderness, its fancy and its wit. If Americans are looking for a book to show to Europe, here it is.” But, then, while there are American artists and Americans who appreciate art, their number is far from sufficient to offset the mass of those who, while advertising so loudly the "idealism" of America, are really so devoid of it as to stifle or drive out of their country those who could best inspire it. This cannot be called an exaggerated statement, as they have so driven out already such men as Stephen Crane, Harris Merton Lyon, John Curnos, Henry James, Whistler, John Sargent, Shannon and many others. Can we wonder about it when the expression of the artist is subjected to the standard that fits immature and degenerate minds? Strangest of all, however, is the erratic action of the Censor who vents his thunder against Jurgen, a phantasy made of poetry, philosophy and the sanest and most varied humor, which at its broadest never seeks to make sensuality attractive but ridiculous, a book which rises to the height of permanent achievement above the stream of mediocre literature flooding our times. This book the Censor wishes to suppress when he has allowed a book as repulsively obscene as Freud's Leonardo da Vinci to circulate freely for some years past, to "fall into the hands of those whose minds are open to such influences." It seems a pity that if literary ignorance, lack of culture and lack of information are to be the standards required for the control over literature in this country, there should not be at least some sort of limitation to their powers of destruction. Very truly yours, Amelie Rives Troubetzkoy, PENNSYLVANIA STATE BOARD OF CENSORS OF MOTION PICTURES Projection Rooms 1025 Cherry Street March 1, 1920. In Jurgen Mr. Cabell's symbolism is at times phallic, but his narrative is so far above the understanding of any but the highly sophisticated that in my opinion no conceivable injury could result from its public circulation. It is safe to say that not another person in our English speaking and English writing world could think in such terms and set down so altogether a remarkable piece of literature. In this book he ranges the whole firmament of mythology and romance. To nine out of ten persons it is and will remain as incomprehensible as Greek. It is for the enjoyment of rare souls whose reading has been wide and whose tastes are unusual, caviar to be attacked lightly and joyously by the epicure. No one else would seem to have any business with such a book. Cabell's women are intangible creatures so far removed from daily human form that they cannot be made to fall under the rules established for the world that we know about. It is difficult then to know on what grounds he should be condemned for impropriety. Sincerely yours, Ellis P. Oberholtzer. 18 Upper Fitzwilliam Street, Dublin 10th February, 1920. Your letter of the 16th January, announcing Jurgen as the latest victim of Comstockery, amazed me. I have been through the book again in search of passages likely to offend even the most prurient puritan, for on first reading nothing of the kind had struck me. All I can say is that only the logic which would bowdlerize the Bible or classical mythology could take offense at Jurgen. It is a delightful fantasia, a charmingly sophisticated fairy tale, but a fairy tale nevertheless. To inject into that world of myth, where Mr. Cabell's fancy plays so skillfully, the crude solemnities of Methodist morality is the supreme act of philistinism. I hope that you will be properly supported in an attempt to vindicate the rights of literature, for never was there a clearer case of the issue which must be faced, if art in America is ever to escape the tutelage of the aesthetically blind. Jurgen is not even a Dreiserian chaos of contemporary realism, where the pious stenographer might find some incitement to a life of pleasure. Its action lies outside of time and space, far beyond good and evil; obviously so must the morality (if any) which is read into it. It seems to me as ludicrous to criticise Jurgen's actions as to blush at the perversities of Leda, or to ostracize Pasiphae on the grounds of immorality. Except that the good pawnbroker did not observe the continence alleged to be the ideal of all true Presbyterians, there is nothing to be said against him which would not apply to every personage in the legendary lore of most civilized countries. There is no scene which could be described, in my opinion, as deliberately voluptuous, or specifically obscene. These are the counts, I understand, on which certain masterpieces have from time to time been indicted. With every good wish for your success in the fight which I hope you will make on behalf of Mr. Cabell in particular and the liberty of the artist in general, I remain, Yours sincerely, Ernest A. Boyd. New York, 28 January, 1920. I hear Jurgen is suppressed, but I hope you are going to fight it tooth and nail because it is really time to clear up the muddle between literature and pornography; and the juxtaposition of Madeleine and Jurgen is an admirable instance. There are things that the hand of vulgarity must not touch, but there is nothing in human nature that literature cannot sanctify; there's the difference. Yours very sincerely, Gilbert Cannan. |