The "purist" to-day is often the one who revels (in private) most in obscene literature; while many people find in such literature the only means they have of indulging their ungratified love life. Many book-sellers make a specialty of furnishing pornographic books and pictures to many roués and celibates.
The mere interest, however, in a virile and unhypocritical literary work like a novel by Fielding or Smollett, does not indicate abnormal eroticism in the reader. In fact, it is often a sign of some unhealthy tendency or starvation in human nature when a person shrinks from honest and frank literature. The school-boy or college student who reads in stealth De Foe's novel Roxana, instead of Robinson Crusoe, who turns from his Greek version of Aristophanes to the translation of Lysistrata, or who wearies of Chaucer's Prologue to the Canterbury Tales and tries to read in spite of the old English "The Miller's Tale" or "The Reeve's Tale," is not an immoral youngster. The reader who not having read these works may look them up (now that they have been mentioned) is not therefore an indecent or abnormal person. The school-boy's as well as the reader's interest is each additional proof of the erotic in us.
The real lover of literature who has read most of the Latin poets, English dramatists and French novels is soon in the position where the "erotic" portions do not assume for him the vast importance they have for the reader who merely hunts them out and takes no interest in any other passages but these.
Bayle, whose Dictionary abounds in many risqué stories, defended himself in an excellent essay called "Explanation Concerning Obscenities." He said there very aptly:
"If any one was so great a lover of purity, as to wish not only that no immodest desire should arise in his mind, but also that his imagination should be constantly free from every obscene idea, he could not attain his end without losing his eyes and his ears, and the remembrance of many things which he could not choose but see and hear. Such a perfection could not be hoped for, whilst we see men and beasts, and know the significance of certain words that make a necessary part of our language. It is not in our power to have, or not to have, certain ideas, when certain objects strike our senses; they are imprinted in our imagination whether we will or not. Chastity is not endangered by them, provided we don't grow fond of them."
II
Men may be engaged in philanthropic or political movements; they may love their work intensely; they may be consummating an ambition; they may make sacrifices in performing their duties; but withal their minds are pondering on some particular woman, or on women in general. We hold imaginary conversations with women we have known, whom we know, or whom we would like to know. We think about the feminine faces we meet in the streets, and experience a passing melancholy because we are unacquainted with some of the girls we see. Undue interest in the opposite sex is of course also characteristic of women. They adorn their persons and choose their styles in dress with the object of physically attracting the male.
Those who are unhappy in love or marriage do not find themselves compensated for their misfortune by the fact that they may possess great wealth, or have a name that is respected or crowned with glory. The careers of Lord Nelson and Parnell show that national saviours and leaders may be engulfed in a grand passion whose fortunate outcome may be to them possibly as momentous as the welfare of their country. The fact that Anthony was a general on whose move the saving of his country depended, did not make him the less interested in Cleopatra. The fact that Abelard was a philosopher did not make him hold his studies higher than he did Heloise. There was really nothing abnormal about these men. Modern writers have been attracted to them. Shakespeare chose Anthony as the hero of his play, and Pope's famous Epistle shows his interest in Abelard. The amorous adventures of great military leaders like Cæsar and Napoleon are well known.
The love affairs of many literary men make us almost conclude that they were more concerned about their loves than their art. Recall Stendhal's famous cry about his perishing for want of love or Balzac's eternal ambition to be famous and to be loved. Goethe once exclaimed that the only person who was happy was he who was fortunate in his domestic affairs. He made every one of his love affairs the basis of some poem, novel or play; and not to know anything about his love for Charlotte Buff, or Frederica or Lili, or Frau von Stein, is to limit oneself in being able to appreciate Goethe, in being able to understand Werther, Faust, Wilhelm Meister and other works by him.