To me it has been left to smirch the good name of a revered American classic; to dig a Grave of the Nameless for a play that clean men and women have loved.
I am the Satanic genius that makes an Artist—moulder of a pictorial masterpiece—poison his triumph in gangrene.
I AM “SMUT.”
My words need explanation. Yet from my own foul station I hesitate to descend. Here, however, is an advertisement that sullied the pages of a New York newspaper on October 4th:
“Why does every girl have
to battle against love?”
“Why does every woman have to feel the straining power of seduction in one form or another—the hot, alluring breaths of deceits?
“This thing has been, time and again, from the beginning of history, through all the ages. Man’s most beautiful property, most sought after, most desired, has been woman. And through all these ages it was more through passion than the better desires.
“Even the saints of past history fought bloody battles; worked, dreamed, struggled through their love for women—not satisfied with one or two or three. These almighty men demanded hundreds—every variety of beauty, dainty little girls in their teens; blondes from the Northlands; strange slant-eyed brunettes from the Southlands. Mighty wars, broken nations, wrecked civilizations over the Helens-of-Troy and Cleopatras.