The New York herald. [volume] (New York, N.Y.) 1920-1924, 1922-04-16
SOULS FOR SALE. BY Rupert
Hughes. Harper s. Bros.


two-thirds that strange animal
which we have learned to call a
'propagandist." The book is one
part story. two parts augmentation
or assertion in support of the thesis
that the motion picture business is
as "pure" as a certain familiar bak-
ing powder, that it has already at
tanned nearly to perfection as an art
form, and that, in the words of an
actor in the story, ''the screen is
the biggest educationa. and moral
force ever discovered and il hasn't
got fault that is all its own"
More specifically we are told by the
same actor that it is too bad we
Americans make such a baRe of OBJ
scenity! A little wholesome smut
never hurt anybody"
There is an engaging. naive frank
ness about the phrase--"wholesome
smut" There is, of course. a legi-
innate, commendable use of even the
obscene in art and literature RAJ
belais, Shakespeare, Balzac, De Maui
PEASANT, Mark Twain, even Thack-
cray demonstrate that. But it can
never be called smut" which can
only mean filth-filth for its own
sake. And the Introduction of filth
for the joy in its filthiness is, never
artistic. 1t is simply-filth.
Another subsidiary line of "propa-
ganda" is statement of the care
for the ultra "emancipated" woman.
Like Mr.. George and a few other
men, Mr.. Hughes is become more
of a feminist" than any woman has
yet dared to be. Indeed, so far as
one can judge from their comment,
intelligent women find the curious
attitude Of such femiLlsts a little
exasperatingly amusing. but chiefly
just stupid in its ignorance of the
woman's mind and soul. 1t is apt
to make the assumption, as Mr.
Hughes apparently does in the char
acter OF his heroine in this book,
that all normal, fully alive women
have essentially the soul of the pros
titute-of the prostitute from choice,
whose explanation is that of De
Maupassant's Norman peasant
"parce que je trouU' ca 0entill"
There are such women, just as there
are men so obsessed, so sex-ridden
that their cosmos contains little
else, but it is hardly intelligent to
extend their rather abnormal. patho-
logical psychology to embrace all
humanity.
This book is a vicious performance
done well enough to attain a wide
hearing and accomplish some poison
Ing. 1t is vicious because it is bal
art, in that, after cleverly worked
out introduction, it becomes clumsy
in its construction overloaded with
cheap incident, tawdry devices that
fall to the level of art of an old time
"tank show" and almost incoherent
in its. action. And Mr.. Hughes knows
better; when he is inept, awkward
in management of his plot he cannot
plead inexperience, for he has done
some very good work. Possibly he
thinks that for the audience at which
this is aimed it does not matter.
Therein he may be right, because an
audience which can regard 1.-The
Birth of a Nation" and Broken
Blossoms" as the peak of artistic at
tainment is not likely to complain of
crudity.
1t Is vicious because it is bad
morally-if one may assume that
there is such thing as a moral
standard. That may be open to de-
bate, especially as to detail, but prob
ably even Mr.. Hughes will admit
that it is possible to differentiate, at
least along broad lines, between what
the sane human being calls right and
wrong, good and bad, healthy and
unhealthy. From this point of APP
pfoach the book is-vicious because its
"feminism" is not only false psy
chologically but. after one grants -
occasional validity as a prob 81
against silly conventions or ancient
taboos and injustices, 1t remains ar
absolutely self cantarad dahocinoIx