OCR Text |
Show THE CITIZEN llllllllllilllllllllllllllllllllHiNIUIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIUIIIIUIIIIIIIMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMII THINGS BOOKISH li.m.nim.mmmM.H.... mini n IIIHIIIIIIIIHIIIII Edited By WILLIAM C. WINDER, Jr. Said Jurgen to God, God of my grandmother! God whom I too loved in boyhood! why is it that I am denied a God? For I have searched, and nowhere can I find justice, and nowhere can I find anything to worship. Answered God, What, Jurgen, and would you look for justice, of all places, in Heaven? Jurgen of course admitted that he plainly perceived that such a thing could not be considered there, even as he had found it nowhere else in his journeyings, for the search for justice had taken him through medieval folklore and classical Mythology, through hell and heaven, and in despair back to his home and pawnbroker's shop. He found well enough that justice and nowhere existed, but satisfaction could he have peeped out from the pages containing the account of his travels and beheld the vicissitudes of the fate of that record during the two and a half years following its publication, he would have doubtless felt that he had already found more of justice than he could ever hope for in these United States. James Branch Cabell called this masterpiece of his A Comedy of Jus- That may be a true designation of the work to a certain extent, tice. although the book, being a real human document, goes far beyond, but how much more truthfully it describes the proceedings, or lack of proceedings, which kept the book without trial from the reading public of the United States for more than two years. Of such, anyhow, is our nonsensorship composed. Here we are faced by an impossible situation. To be a censor requires a high degree of intelligence, yet, knowing the likes and dislikes of the masses, no really intelligent person could be induced to undertake the job. As it is now, works of art are subjected to indignity and suppressed while salacious stuff of no literary value at all is daily being sold by the hundreds of thousands. There is, however, one bright blue rift in the clouds. New York judges are beginning to read the evidence for themselves instead of humbly bowing to the dictatorship of the unlamented Anthony Comstock and later the unspeakable John S. Sumner. What is more to the point is that some of these judges possess a keen artistic appreciation and are not loath to recommend the very books which they have been called upon to cast into the fires of the heresy-hunterVery notable instances were the cases against the publishing houses of Seltzer ahd of McBride, in all of which were verdicts in favor of a return to sanity. The book Jurgen has been so much in the public eye, the value of its content argued pro and con, until it has in the general mind become almost a myth. As there are so very few persons in possession of the actual facts it will doubtless be of con s. siderable interest and well worth the space to point out a few facts of this The book was published in September, 1919, with second and third editions in November and The December of the same year. critics greeted the book with varying now famous case. degrees of enthusiasm, but all ac- knowledged that it was a very distinguished addition to American letteis. It is a beautiful book, both wise and witty, and it doubtless would have en- joyed the considerable success to which it was justly entitled. Then Mr. Walter J. Kingsley, a theatrical press agent, sent to the literary editor of a New York paper a letter calling attention to the book as being an obscene menace to the innocent public. Of course it did not take long for someone to send a clipping of the Kingsley letter to Mr. Sumner, calling upon him to suppress the book. Mr. Sumner procured a copy, armed himself with a warrant, and seized the plates and all copies of the book which were on hand and summoned the publishers to appear in. court on a charge of violating section 1141 of the Penal Code. On May 17, 1920, the publishers pleaded not guilty and, until October 16, 1922, awaited trial. At this date, two and a half years after the indictment, the Jurgen case was called before Judge Charles C. Nott, the jury was drawn, and the The peoples case was presented. trial was continued after three days, and on October 19, 1922, Judge Nott rendered a decision on the defendants motion for acquittal, directing the jury to bring in a verdict of acquittal. As this decision is so sane, I feel here to offer a quotation from it, I have read and examined the book carefully. It is by Mr. James Branch Cabell, an author of repute and distinction. From the literary point of view its style may fairly be In fact, it is called brilliant. doubtful if the book could be read or understood at all by. more than a very In limited number of readers. my opinion the book is one of unusual literary merit and contains nothing obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, indecent or disgusting within the meaning of the statute. Thus ended one of the most famous cases of the misuse of power by a public official. While we are grateful for the final outcome, we are none the less filled with contempt for the gang which managed to keep this book without trial, under the ban for nearly three years. In looking through the indictment, I find that particular attention is called to infractions of the law on 83 different pages. While I read the book with the keenest pleasure and enjoyment in the autumn of 1919, and felt then that it was a gem, I secretly wondered on reading this indictment if I had missed a hidden something in so many of those pages. To satisfy myself, I went through the book again the other day and looked ... ... up such references as had not remained clear to me since my first reading. I thought I knew Cabell fairly well, but these few snatches have-giveme a deeper pleasure than I ever guessed at before. About the first chance I get, I am going right through the whole book again, and I think of it now in delightful anticipation. Jurgen is a fantasy pure and simple, but at the same time it is a human document both profound, brilliant and sympathetic, and done by a writer, one of the few of this country, who knows how to handle his English beautifully. That Mr. Cabell knows well hi3 Rabelais is obvious and quite beside the point. Quite alike in their fictitious origins and references, alike in their Irreverence for all conventions and conventional beliefs, yet where Rabelais writes in coarse and ungainly candor, Cabell writes with a wealth of sophisticated brilliance and subtle allusions. Right here I ask permission to return to the case again, mentioning in passing that the attorneys for the publishers, in their brief submitted to the court, denied the intent of many of these subtly veiled allusions. Of course, this may have been necessary in law, but intelligent readers will continue to place their own interpretation on these . passages. Mr. Cabell, I feel quite certain, does not agree with the attorneys, as is evidenced by the entire content of his little book Taboo,' dedicated to Mr. Sumner. The journeying of rejuvenated Jurgen through all history, mythology, heaven and hell in search of satisfac- tion is merely another phase of the endless search of intelligent man for the key to the riddle of the universe. Of course his experiences are many and varying, for said he to the Centaur at the beginning of his travels, At all events I am willing ,to taste any drink once. The Centaur replied, "You will be chilled, though, traveling as you are. For you and I are going a queer way, in search of justice, over the grave of a dream and through And on they the malice of time. went from one illusion to another, enjoying the fruit here, plucking the roses there by the wayside, only to find that each momentary thrill left, but a dull aftermath. Jurgen wrent from love to love, from experience to experience, but in tasting of this and that, he found that his ideals were but after all the children of his own brain. He found that of things as they actually existed he was quite in ignorance, that all his memories and experiences were but the illusions of his own mind, the shells in which he had encased the actualities of existence. But in all Jurgens failures there is no dolorous weeping for the impossible. It is a rare artist who can so wonderfully sustain an Interest in so many of these futile experiences, but Mr. Cabell by the sheer cleverness of his wit, depth of understanding, and brilliance of his writing has done this His descriptions of the completely. sojourn of Jurgen in Hell and Heaven are rare pieces of work. I offer here a droll little note on Heil, For with the devils Jurgen got on garrulously. The religion of Hell is patriotism, and the government is an enlightened democracy. This contented the devils, and Jurgen had learned long ago never to fall out with either of these codes, without which, as the devils were fond of observing, Hell would not be what it is. One of the high points in the book is Jurgens visit to Heaven, the heaven of his grandmother. For after all does not every person believe in his own heaven, one fashioned after his own ideals and thoughts, But I think this heaven of Jurgens grandmother is a fairly good example of the ideal of the majority of good folk. Cabell here approaches a real sort of reverence; a sort of universal cry for understanding goes out from him when he says, God of my grandmother, I cannot quite believe in You and Your doings as they are recorded I find incoherent and a little droll. But I am glad the affair has been arranged that You may always now be real to brave and gentle persons who have believed in and have worshipped and have loved You. To have disappointed them would have been unfair; and it is right that before the faith they had in You not even Koshchei who made things as they are was able to be reasonable. And then during God, Jurgen looked had vanished and was vacant. So of his converse with and saw that God the great throne course Jurgen ascended the throne of Heaven and sat beneath the rainbow, but even then he was not satisfied and asked himself, And what will you do now? Oh, fretful little Jurgen, you that have complained because you had not your desire, you are omnipotent over Earth and all the affairs of men. What now is your desire? He sat there sadly thinking, then answered with the voice of universal man, For I do not know. Oh, nothing can help me, for I do not know what thing it is that I desire! And this book and this sceptre and this throne avail me nothing at all, and nothing can ever avail me, for I am Jurgen who seeks he knows not what. And having tasted all things, but never finding the drink that quenched his thirst, Jurgen took upon himself again his old illusions and returned, with a shrug of his shoulders, to his old home. This book is but a link in the chain of questionings of the heart of James Branch Cabell. I have not mentioned its relation to the other books, but of this I shall write at an early date I hope, for to me James Branch Cabell stands high among the sons of America, and highest as an artist among the sons of the South. And this book of which I have been writing stands high with those who can recognize merit. Many who read the book after its suppression were very much disappointed. They were doubtless looking for something very exciting to their nerves, which does not exist in it, rather than for sound literary merit and a deep and profound insight into human nature. If you want It is lewdness, dont read Jurgen. a rare book, beautifully done. |