THE PRUDE IN LETTERS AND LIFE

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 Moliere, 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