Formalism is the hall-mark
of the national culture, and sins against the one are sins against the
other. The American is school-mastered out of gusto, out of joy, out of
innocence. He can never fathom William Blake's notion that "the lust of
the goat is also to the glory of God." He must be correct, or, in his
own phrase, he must bust.
_Via trita est tutissima._ The new generation, urged to curiosity and
rebellion by its mounting sap, is rigorously restrained, regimented,
policed. The ideal is vacuity, guilelessness, imbecility. "We are
looking at this particular book," said Comstock's successor of "The
'Genius,'" "from the standpoint of its harmful effect on female readers
of immature mind."[81] To be curious is to be lewd; to know is to yield
to fornication. Here we have the mediaeval doctrine still on its legs: a
chance word may arouse "a libidinous passion" in the mind of a "modest"
woman. Not only youth must be safeguarded, but also the "female," the
untrustworthy one, the temptress. "Modest," is a euphemism; it takes
laws to keep her "pure.
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