Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise | Page 4

which plain lying seems
almost white and quite harmless. And as no author could afford to be
silent on the subject that underlies all subjects, our literature, in so far
as it attempted to deal with the most vital phases of human nature, was

beneath contempt. The authors who knew they were lying sank almost
as low as the nasty-nice purveyors of fake idealism and candied
pruriency who fancied they were writing the truth. Now it almost seems
that the day of lying conscious and unconscious is about run. "And ye
shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."
There are three ways of dealing with the sex relations of men and
women--two wrong and one right.
For lack of more accurate names the two wrong ways may be called
respectively the Anglo-Saxon and the Continental. Both are in essence
processes of spicing up and coloring up perfectly innocuous facts of
nature to make them poisonously attractive to perverted palates. The
wishy-washy literature and the wishy-washy morality on which it is
based are not one stage more--or less--rotten than the libertine literature
and the libertine morality on which it is based. So far as degrading
effect is concerned, the "pure, sweet" story or play, false to nature, false
to true morality, propagandist of indecent emotions disguised as
idealism, need yield nothing to the so-called "strong" story. Both
pander to different forms of the same diseased craving for the unnatural.
Both produce moral atrophy. The one tends to encourage the shallow
and unthinking in ignorance of life and so causes them to suffer the
merciless penalties of ignorance. The other tends to miseducate the
shallow and unthinking, to give them a ruinously false notion of the
delights of vice. The Anglo-Saxon "morality" is like a nude figure
salaciously draped; the Continental "strength" is like a nude figure
salaciously distorted. The Anglo-Saxon article reeks the stench of
disinfectants; the Continental reeks the stench of degenerate perfume.
The Continental shouts "Hypocrisy!" at the Anglo-Saxon; the
Anglo-Saxon shouts "Filthiness!" at the Continental. Both are right;
they are twin sisters of the same horrid mother. And an author of either
allegiance has to have many a redeeming grace of style, of character
drawing, of philosophy, to gain him tolerance in a clean mind.
There is the third and right way of dealing with the sex relations of men
and women. That is the way of simple candor and naturalness. Treat the
sex question as you would any other question. Don't treat it reverently;

don't treat it rakishly. Treat it naturally. Don't insult your intelligence
and lower your moral tone by thinking about either the decency or the
indecency of matters that are familiar, undeniable, and unchangeable
facts of life. Don't look on woman as mere female, but as human being.
Remember that she has a mind and a heart as well as a body. In a
sentence, don't join in the prurient clamor of "purity" hypocrites and
"strong" libertines that exaggerates and distorts the most commonplace,
if the most important feature of life. Let us try to be as sensible about
sex as we are trying to be about all the other phenomena of the universe
in this more enlightened day.
Nothing so sweetens a sin or so delights a sinner as getting big-eyed
about it and him. Those of us who are naughty aren't nearly so naughty
as we like to think; nor are those of us who are nice nearly so nice. Our
virtues and our failings are--perhaps to an unsuspected degree--the
result of the circumstances in which we are placed. The way to improve
individuals is to improve these circumstances; and the way to start at
improving the circumstances is by looking honestly and fearlessly at
things as they are. We must know our world and ourselves before we
can know what should be kept and what changed. And the beginning of
this wisdom is in seeing sex relations rationally. Until that fundamental
matter is brought under the sway of good common sense, improvement
in other directions will be slow indeed. Let us stop lying--to others--to
ourselves.
D.G.P.
July, 1908.

SUSAN LENOX
CHAPTER I
THE child's dead," said Nora, the nurse. It was the upstairs sitting-room
in one of the pretentious houses of Sutherland, oldest and most
charming of the towns on the Indiana bank of the Ohio. The two big

windows were open; their limp and listless draperies showed that there
was not the least motion in the stifling humid air of the July afternoon.
At the center of the room stood an oblong table; over it were neatly
spread several thicknesses of white cotton cloth; naked upon them lay
the body of a newborn girl baby. At one side of the table nearer the
window stood Nora. Hers were