PRUNING THE CLASSICS

"La France--c'est un pays mechant!" This, or its modern equivalent in English, was the decision in a recent court order which forbade an Ohio publisher to circulate an edition of Rabelais. Certain other books by prominent French authors, classics of French literature, have been suppressed elsewhere in this country. These books have withstood the criticism of centuries, have been included in all the great libraries of the world, and have been listed among the best products in any literature. We are still censoring them, and our great-great-aunts, the mid-victorian, ladies who dressed the piano's "limbs" in pantalettes, would give vigorous nods of approval.

But if we condemn the French, is there any rhyme or reason in sanctioning Shakespeare, Milton, Gibbon, even the Bible, in whose pages may be found "foul and indecent" passages? They too have been censored in the past. In fact, to put the shoe on the other foot, the Parisian authorities once, banned Fielding's "Tom Jones", to the righteous glee of Richardson, who had never forgiven Fielding for his burlesque on "Pamela". But today we accept classics in English as they are, dirty and not washed behind the ears, if you like, but still themselves, uncensored. To discriminate against such classics because they happen to speak French, is manifestly unfair.

To be sure, wholesale acceptance of French, or any other, novels is not to be advocated any more than a wholesale abandonment of all censorship of the "Movies". It is as necessary to keep down the weeds as it is to cultivate the rightful heirs of the soil. But in keeping down the weeds, it is equally important to be sure not to stifle any legitimate flower, an incipient "classic".

A novel deserves to be suppressed only when it has its "raison d'etre" in immorality or indecency. Such a ruling would affect home-bred American books fully, as often as the much-warned-against French ones. As for the Classics, in whatever language, the very fact that they are classics shows them to be sound and healthy, or they would not stand up today before public opinion, as fresh and vigorous as two or three centuries ago, when they were written.