Show effect of sanitation on literary manners literary manners have altered ali ened not only as a result of the enlargement of the audience though that was bound to have an important effect on literature but as a result of changes in the manners and customs of everyday life the increase of privacy the improvement pro of sanitation the growing custom of cleanliness both of habits and of the body and the abolition of many gross usages have hare resulted in making many things that once were the comic contretemps of ordinary life seem now merely offensive irrel kancies evan van clea cies probably improved sanitation has had wore more influence on literary manners than anyone yet suspects you will notice that what its enemies tall call prudery Is most general in countries in which sanitation has made the greatest progress it if rabelais were to return as an englishman or an american today he would probably find himself blushing like a victorian girl at having made some of his own jokes this li Is not to belittle the jokes of rabelais but merely to recognize that the manners era and d convictions that were the natural soli soft of many of those jokes no longer exist today robert lynd in the atlantic monthly |