He drew the paper before him; he selected a pen; he dipped it in the ink and poised it before him.
Then he looked from one to another, and an expression of pained surprise spread over his features.
"Why," said Solomon John, "I have nothing to say!"
(I quote from memory, not having the classics at hand.)
There was great disappointment in the Peterkin family, and the project was given up. But why so? Solomon John need not have been so easily discouraged. He was in the exact position to produce literature—pure, high, legitimate literature—the Novel Without a Purpose.
In the effort to preserve the purity of the Pierian Springs, those guardians of this noble art, who arbitrate in the "standard magazines," condemn and exclude what they define as "controversial literature."
Suppose someone comes along with a story advocating euthanasia, showing with all the force of the art of fiction the slow, hideous suffering of some helpless cancer patient or the like, the blessed release that might be humanly given; showing it so as to make an indelible impression—this story is refused as "controversial," as being written with a purpose.
Yet the same magazine will print a story no better written, showing the magnificent heroism of the man who slowly dies in year-long torment, helpless himself and steady drain on everyone about him, virtuously refusing to shorten his torments—and theirs.
What is a controversy? A discussion, surely. It has two sides.
Why isn't a story upholding one side of a controversy as controversial as a story upholding the other side?