Everyone ought to know...... It ought to be shouted from the house-tops that a perfectly ordinary case leaves the patient sans connaissance et nageant dans le sang.
“It’s very interesting,” she said hurriedly, “but in English it would be condemned as unsuitable for general reading.”
“I thought that possible.”
“The papers would solemnly say that it deals with subjects that are better veiled.”
“Indeed it is remarkable. John Bull is indeed the perfect ostrich.”
“Oh those men who write like that don’t want them veiled from themselves.”
“I will tell you more than that. The Paris pornographia lives on its English patrons.”
“Oh no; I’m sure it doesn’t.”
“On the contrary I assure you this is a fact. Any French bookseller will tell you. I see that this distresses you. It is not perhaps in every case so base as would appear. There is always even in quite deliberate French obscenity a certain esprit. These subjects lend themselves.”
“Oh they don’t care about the esprit. It’s because they think they are being improper. They like to be what they call men of the world, in possession of a fund of things they think can’t be talked about; you can see their silly thoughts by the way they glance at each other; it’s all about nothing. What is obscenity? And the other half of them is ladies, who shout things by always carefully avoiding them; or, if they are “racey,” flatter men’s topics by laughing in a pretended hilarious embarrassment, hitting them as it were, and rushing on to something else, very animated by a becoming blush. I never realised that before. But that’s the secret. What is obscenity?”