The New York herald., 1922-01-15
What Is Clean Fiction
Defined by Experts
By ToRREY FORD.


r n this ultra seXy year of the play and
the novel it may seem pure extrava-
gance to waste any further words on
the quarrel between the realist and the Gen.
sor. Still we are in a squandering mood, es-
pecially as most OF the words with which
this little outburst is fabricated are borrowed
from other mouths or pens, or typewriters
for that matter, as the case may be.
Chief responsibility for bringing up the
dear, dead topic must be shouldered by the
Yale Reriel0. though we may be guilty of
contributory negligence in bringing a copy
Of the January Reviete to the attention of
the censor and the censored. The Revie1U
/ for January prints an article, "Art and
/ Deccncy," by Grant Slovenian, professor
of classics in the University of Wisconsin.
Prof. Showerman is neither purist nor a
moralist in the strictest sense nor is he an
ardent advocate of suppression. He is more
of literary pacifist, a dignified commen-
tator, interested in the current trend Of the
sex novelist rather than wrought up over
his offenses. His attempt to establish a
line of decency in fiction" appears to be
stimulated more by academic concern than
by any reverence for the laws on the statute
books.
Decency Often Offended, While
Letter of Law Is Preserved
I'VE shall do better" he writes. ito regard
realism in the portrayal of sex as an offense
not so much against morals as against
decency. The essence of. the sex novelist's
offense lies not in the ilegality or in the
immortality of the matter he represents but
in its ugliness.
If we transgress the written law we are
guilty not only of indecency but of mis-
demeanor, or of immortality in the strict and
legal sense; if we transgress the unwritten
law we are still guilty of indecency. but of
immortality only in the broad sense If we
resort to the plea that he have made no
breach in the law OF the land we are none
the less under condemnation for breach of
the law of taste
we are not to tell all OF the truth If
this means Justification of life it is at worst
conventional Justification that carries no
actual deceit There may be, as Mr. w. L.
George laments no completely sincere writ
ing; but there is likewise no completely sin
cere conversation and no completely sincere
dressing; nor is civilization itself judged as
an expression of nature in the ordinary
sense, completely sincere.
For all this let us be duly and devoutly
thankful. The muZzling of art is painful
TO think of. but we are not left without COM
tort II may be called an outrage
upon personal liberty and a crime against
aesthetic sincerity when a minority OF one
in nation of fifty millions is hampered in
the expression of his feelings; but what of
the forty-nine millions and odd who are
asked to listen?"
Later in his article Prof Showerman comes
TO the more or less definite conclusion that
The ~ peal against a too liberal literature
of sex. then whether it be the verse of the
ancient Ovid or the prose of the most recent
champion of truthfulness and sincerity. is
not grounded ultimately in Americanism. or
IN Puritanism. or even in morality, but in
decency; which is to say in nature as she is
seen to operate in civilized society"
Not until toward the close of the article.
IN the manner of a postscript, does the Zine
of .decency" actually appear Prof Shower
mar insists that If he is dealing with the
law at all II is not the law of the statute
books but the law of taste.
But is the law of taste any less uncertain
than the law of the courts?" he asks who
is to say when an impression on the olfac-
tory ceases to be perfume and becomes a
scent, ceases to be a scent and becomes a
door, ceases to be an odor and becomes rank
enough to be called smell to heaven? Who
shall determine at what point the use of the
beauty box parts company with innocent i'm
pulse to accommodation. or the linked
sweetness Of the movie kiss becomes too
long drawn out for decency? Who shall say
what Is the precise moment when rumorifer-
Gus masticaton becomes horrible suggestion
Of the trough? Can decency be defined? Is
there, after all, a law of taste?
The Law of Taste Still
Governs Cultivated People
There is and there is not If we mean
ox1t prescription there is not. If we mean
that there is general territory which has
always been and is still recognized by the
high average of cultivated people as ground
that should not be trodden there is law You