{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_17134/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_17134","id":"gutenberg_17134","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17134","summary":null,"tags":["Category: American Literature","Category: Humour","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Novels","Fantasy","Satire"],"text":"Produced by Suzanne Shell, Sankar Viswanathan, and the\nOnline Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                                _TABOO_\n\n              _A Legend Retold from the Dirghic of Saevius\n                   Nicanor, with Prolegomena, Notes,\n                       and a Preliminary Memoir_\n\n\n\n\n                                  By\n\n                          James Branch Cabell\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n             _At melius fuerat non scribere, namque tacere\n              Tutum semper erit._\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n                               NEW YORK\n\n                      ROBERT M. McBRIDE & COMPANY\n\n                                 1921\n\n             _This edition is limited to nine hundred and\n              twenty numbered copies, of which one hundred\n              copies have been signed by the author._\n\n                         _Copy Number  __893__\n\n\n                          Copyright, 1921, by\n\n                          JAMES BRANCH CABELL\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n              Revised and reprinted, by permission of the\n              Editors, from THE LITERARY REVIEW\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\nTHE DEDICATION\n\nMEMOIR OF SAEVIUS NICANOR\n\nPROLEGOMENA\n\nTHE LEGEND:\n  _How Horvendile Met Fate and Custom_\n  _How the Garbage-Man Came with Forks_\n  _How Thereupon Ensued a Legal Debate_\n  _How There Was Babbling in Philistia_\n  _How It Appeared to the Man in the Street_\n\nCOLOPHON\n\nA POSTSCRIPT\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nTHE DEDICATION\n\n_Laudataque virtus crescit_\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n    \"Buttons, a farthing a pair!\n    Come, who could buy them of me?\n    They're round and sound and pretty,\n    And fit for girls of the city.\"\n\n\n\n\nTO JOHN S. SUMNER\n\n(_Agent of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice_)\n\n\nFor no short while my indebtedness to you has been such as to require\nsome sort of public acknowledgment, which may now, I think, be\ntendered most appropriately by inscribing upon the dedication page of\nthis small volume the name to which you are daily adding in\nsignificance.\n\nIt is a tribute, however trivial, which serves at least to express my\nappreciation of your zeal in re-establishing what seemed to the less\noptimistic a lost cause. I may to-day confess without much\nembarrassment that after fifteen years of foiled endeavors my\n(various) publishers and I had virtually decided that the printing of\nmy books was not likely ever to come under the head of a business\nventure, but was more properly describable as a rather costly form of\ndissipation. People here and there would praise, but until you,\nunsolicited, had volunteered to make me known to the general public,\nnobody seemed appreciably moved to purchase.\n\nOne by one my books had \"fallen dead\" with disheartening monotony:\nthen--through what motive it would savor of ingratitude to\ninquire,--you came to remedy all this in the manner of a philanthropic\nsorcerer, brandishing everywhither your vivifying wand, and the dead\nlived again. At once, they tell me, the patrons of bookstores began to\nask, not only in whispers for the _Jurgen_ which you had everywhere so\nglowingly advertised, but with frank curiosity for \"some of the\nfellow's other books.\"\n\nWhereon we of course began to \"reprint,\" with, I rejoice to say,\nresults which have been very generally acceptable. Barring a few\ncomplaints as to the exiguousness of my writing's salacity,--a\nsalacity which even I confess you amiably exaggerated in attributing\nto my literary manner all qualities which the average reader most\ndesires in novelists,--there has proved to be in point of fact, as my\npublishers and I had dubiously believed for years, a gratifying number\nof persons, living dispersedly about America, prepared to like my\nbooks when these books were brought to their attention. The difficulty\nhad been that we did not know how to reach these widely scattered,\ncongenial readers. But you--like Sir James Barrie's hero--\"found a\nway.\"\n\nI cannot say, in candor, that your method of exegetical criticism has\nalways and in every respect appealed to me. Its applicability, for one\nthing, seems so universal that it might, for aught I know, be\nemployed to interpret the dicta of Ackermann and Macrobius, or even\nthe canons of Doctors Matthews and Sherman herein cited, and thus open\ndire vistas wherein critic would prey on critic, and the most\nrespectable would be locked in fratricidal strife. Moreover, I have\napplied your method to many of the Mother Goose rhymes with rather\ncurious results.... But happily, I have here to confess to you, not\nany disputable literary standards I may harbor, but only my unarguable\ndebt.\n\nIn brief, your aid obtained for me overnight the hearing I had vainly\nsought for a long while; and of such thaumaturgy my appreciation will\nnever be, I trust, inadequate. I therefore grasp at the first chance\nto express this appreciation in--as I have said,--a form which seems\nnot quite inept.\n\n_Dumbarton Grange_\n_December, 1920._\n\n\nOf _The Mulberry Grove_ the following editions have been collated:\n\n(1) The _editio princeps_ of Mansard 1475. An excellent edition,\nhaving, says Garnier, \"nearly all the authority of an MS.\" This\nedition served as the basis of all subsequent editions up to that of\nTribebos, 1553, which then took the lead up to the time of Buelg, who\njudiciously reverted to that of Mansard.\n\n(2) Buelg, in 4 vols. Strasburg. 1786-89. And in 2 vols. Strasburg.\n1786. Both editions containing the Dirghic text with a Latin version,\nand the scholia and indices.\n\n(3) Musgrave, concerning whose edition Garnier is of opinion that,\nthough it appeared later, yet it had been made use of by Buelg. 2 vols.\nOxon. 1800. Reprinted, 3 vols. Oxon. 1809-10.\n\n(4) Vanderhoffen, with scholia, notes, and indices. 7 vols. London.\n1807-25. His notes reprinted separately. Leipsic. 1824.\n\n\n\n\nMEMOIR OF SAEVIUS NICANOR\n\n_Saevius Nicanor Marci libertus negabit_\n\n    \"She went to the tailor's\n    To buy him a coat;\n    When she came back\n    He was riding the goat.\"\n\n\nSaevius Nicanor, one of the earliest of the Grammarians, says\nSuetonius, first acquired fame and reputation by his teaching; and,\nbesides, made commentaries, the greater part of which, however, were\nsaid to have been borrowed. He also wrote a satire, in which he\ninforms us that he was a free man, and had a double cognomen.\n\nIt is reported that in consequence of some aspersion attached to the\ncharacter of his writing, he retired into Sardinia, and, says\nOriphyles, devoted the remainder of his days to the composition of\nsardonic[1] literature.\n\n[Footnote 1: Ackermann reads \"Sardinian.\" It is not certain whether\nthe adjective employed is [Greek: sardanios] or [Greek: sardanikos]. I\nsuspect that Oriphyles here makes an intentional play upon the words.]\n\nHe is quoted by Macrobius, whereas divers references to Nicanor in _La\nHaulte Histoire de Jurgen_ would seem to show that this writer was\nviewed with considerable esteem in mediaeval times. Latterly his work\nhas been virtually unknown.\n\nRobert Burton, for the rest, cites Saevius Nicanor in the 1620 edition\nof _The Anatomy of Melancholy_ (this passage was subsequently\nremodeled) in terms which have the unintended merit of conveying a\nvery fair notion of the old Grammarian's literary ethics:--\n\n\"As a good housewife out of divers fleeces weaves one piece of cloth\n(saith Saevius Nicanor), I have laboriously collected this Cento out of\ndivers Writers, and that _sine injuria_, I have wronged no authors,\nbut given every man his own; which Sosimenes so much commends in\nNicanor, he stole not whole verses, pages, tracts, as some do\nnowadays, concealing their Authors' names, but still said this was\nCleophantus', that Philistion's, that Mnesides', so said Julius\nBassus, so Timaristus, thus far Ophelion: I cite and quote mine own\nAuthors (which howsoever some illiterate scribblers account\npedantical, as a cloak of ignorance and opposite to their affected\nfine style, I must and will use) _sumpsi, non surripui_, and what\nVarro _de re rustica_ speaks of bees, _minime malificae quod nullius\nopus vellicantes faciunt deterius_, I can say of myself no less\nheartily than Sosimenes his laud of Nicanor.\"\n\n\n\n\nPROLEGOMENA\n\n_Nec caput habentia, nec caudam_\n\n    \"I had a little husband, no bigger than my thumb,\n    I put him in my pint-pot, and there I bid him drum.\"\n\n\nPre-eminently the most engaging feature of a topic which pure chance\nand impure idiocy have of late conspired to pull about in the public\nprints,--I mean the question of \"indecency\" in writing,--is the patent\nease with which this topic may be disposed of. Since time's beginning,\nevery age has had its literary taboos, selecting certain things--more\nor less arbitrarily, but usually some natural function--as the things\nwhich must not be written about. To violate any such taboo so long as\nit stays prevalent is to be \"indecent\": and that seems absolutely all\nthere is to say concerning this topic, apart from furnishing some\nimpressive historical illustration....\n\nThe most striking instance which my far from exhaustive researches\nafford, sprang from the fact, perhaps not very generally known, that\nthe natural function of eating, which nowadays may be discussed\nintrepidly anywhere, was once regarded by the Philistines, of at all\nevents the Shephelah and the deme of Novogath, as being\nunmentionable. This ancient tenet of theirs, indeed, is with such\nclearness emphasized in a luckily preserved fragment from the Dirghic,\nor pre-Ciceronian Latin, of Saevius Nicanor that the readiest way to\nillustrate the chameleon-like traits of literary indecency appears to\nbe to record, as hereinafter is recorded, what of this legend\nsurvives.\n\nBuelg and Vanderhoffen, be it said here, are agreed that it is to this\nlegend Milton has referred in his _Areopagitica_, in a passage\nsufficiently quaint-seeming to us (for whom a more advanced\ncivilization has secured the right of free speech) to warrant an\nabridged citation:--\n\n\"What advantage is it to be a man, over it is to be a boy at school,\nif serious and elaborate writings, as if they were no more than the\ntheme of a grammar lad under his pedagogue, must not be uttered\nwithout the cursory eyes of a temporizing and extemporizing licenser?\nwhenas all the writer teaches, all he delivers, is but under the\ntuition, under the correction of his patriarchal licenser, to blot or\nalter what precisely accords not with the hide-bound humor which he\ncalls his judgment? What is it but a servitude like that imposed by\nthe Philistines?\"\n\n\n\n\nTHE LEGEND\n\n_Fit ex his consuetudo, inde natura_\n\n    \"I love little pussy,\n     Her fur is so warm.\"\n\n\n\n\nI--How Horvendile Met Fate and Custom\n\n\nNow, at about the time that the Tyrant Pedagogos fell into disfavor\nwith his people, avers old Nicanor (as the curious may verify by\ncomparing Lib. X, Chap. 28 of his _Mulberry Grove_), passed through\nPhilistia a clerk whom some called Horvendile, travelling by\ncompulsion from he did not know where toward a goal which he could not\ndivine. So this Horvendile said, \"I will make a book of this\njourneying, for it seems to me a rather queer journeying.\"\n\nThey answered him: \"Very well, but if you have had dinner or supper by\nthe way, do you make no mention of it in your book. For it is a law\namong us, for the protection of our youth, that eating[2] must never\nbe spoken of in any of our writing.\"\n\n[Footnote 2: Such at least is the generally received rendering.\nAckermann, following Buelg's probably spurious text, disputes that this\nis the exact meaning of the noun.]\n\nHorvendile considered this a curious enactment, but it seemed only one\namong the innumerable mad customs of Philistia. So he shrugged, and he\nmade the book of his journeying, and of the things which he had seen\nand heard and loved and hated and had put by in the course of his\npassage among ageless and unfathomed mysteries.\n\nAnd in the book there was nowhere any word of eating.\n\n\n\n\n2--How the Garbage Man Came with Forks\n\n\nNow to the book which Horvendile had made comes presently a\ngarbage-man, newly returned from foreign travel for his health's sake,\nwhose name was John. And this scavenger cried, \"Oh, horrible! for here\nis very shameless mention of a sword and a spear and a staff.\"\n\n\"That now is true enough,\" says Horvendile, \"but wherein lies the\nharm?\"\n\n\"Why, one has but to write 'a fork' here, in the place of each of\nthese offensive weapons, and the reference to eating is plain.\"\n\n\"That also is true, but it would be your writing and not my writing\nwhich would refer to eating.\"\n\nJohn said, \"Abandoned one, it is the law of Philistia and the holy\ndoctrine of St. Anthony Koprologos that if anybody chooses to\nunderstand any written word anywhere as meaning 'to eat,' the word\nhenceforward has that meaning.\"\n\n\"Then you of Philistia have very foolish laws.\"\n\nTo which John the Scavenger sagely replied: \"Ah, but if laws exist\nthey ought to fairly and impartially and without favoritism be\nenforced until amended or repealed. Much of the unsettled condition\nprevailing in the country at the present time can be traced directly\nto a lack of law enforcement in many directions during past years.\"\n\n\"Now I misdoubt if I understand you, Messire John, for your\ninfinitives are split beyond comprehension. And when you talk about\nthe non-enforcement of anything in many directions, even though these\ndirections were during past years, I find it so confusing that the one\nthing of which I can be quite certain is that it was never you whom\nthe law selected to pass upon and to amend all books.\"\n\nThis Horvendile says foolishly, not knowing it is an axiom among the\nPhilistines that literary expression is best controlled by somebody\nwith no misleading tenderness toward it; and that it is this custom,\nas they proudly aver, which makes the literature of Philistia what it\nis.\n\nBut John the Garbage-man said nothing at all, the while that he\nchanged nouns to \"fork\" and \"dish,\" and carefully annotated each verb\nin the book as meaning \"to eat.\" Thereafter he carried off the book\nalong with his garbage, and with--which was the bewildering part of\nit--self-evident and glowing self-esteem. And all that watched him\nspoke the Dirghic word of derision, which is \"Tee-Hee.\"\n\n\n\n\n3--How Thereupon Ensued a Legal Debate\n\n\nNow Horvendile in his bewilderment consulted with a man of law. And\nthe lawman answered a little peevishly, by reason of the fact that age\nhad impaired his digestive organs, and he said, \"But of course you are\na lewd fellow if you have been suspected of writing about eating.\"\n\n\"Sir,\" replies Horvendile, \"I would have you consider that if your\nparents and your grandparents had not eaten, your race would have\nperished, and you would never have been born. I would have you\nconsider that if you and your wife had not eaten, again your race\nwould have perished, and neither of you would ever have lived to have\nthe children for whose protection, as men tell me, you of Philistia\navoid all mention of eating.\"\n\n\"Yes, for the object of this most righteous law,\" declares the lawman,\n\"is to protect those whose character is not so completely formed as to\nbe proof against the effect of meat market reports and grocery\nadvertisements and menu folders and other such provocatives to\ngluttony.\"\n\n\"--Yet I would have you consider how little is to be gained by\nattempting to conceal even from the young the inevitability of this\nnatural function, so long as dogs eat publicly in the streets, and the\npoultry regale themselves just as candidly, and the house-flies also.\nInstead, the knowledge that this function is not to be talked about\ninduces furtive and misleading discussion among these children, and,\nthough lack of proper instruction in the approved etiquette of eating,\nthey often commit deplorable errors--\"\n\nTo which the man of law replied, still with a bewildering effect of\ntalking very wisely and patiently: \"Ah, but it does not matter at all\nwhether or not the function of eating is practised and is inevitable\nto the nature and laws of our being. The law merely considers that any\nmention of eating is apt to inflame an improper and lewd appetite,\nparticularly in the young, who are always ready to eat: and therefore\nany such mention is an obscene libel.\"\n\n\n\n\n4--How There Was Babbling in Philistia\n\nNow Horvendile, yet in bewilderment, lamented, and he fled from the\nman of law. Thereafter, in order to learn what manner of writing was\nmost honored by the Philistines, this Horvendile goes into an academy\nwhere the faded old books of Philistia were stored, along with\nyesterday's other leavings.\n\nAnd as he perturbedly inspected these old books, one of the fifty\nmummies which were installed in this Academy of Starch and Fetters,\nwith a hundred lackeys to attend them, spoke vexedly to Horvendile,\nsaying, as it was the custom of these mummies to say, before this\ncould be said to them, \"I never heard of you before.\"\n\n\"Ah, sir, it is not that which is troubling me,\" then answered\nHorvendile: \"but rather, I am troubled because the book of my\njourneying has been suspected of encroachment upon gastronomy. Now I\nnotice your most sacred volume here begins with a very remarkable myth\nabout the fruit of a tree in the middle of a garden, and goes on to\nspeak of the supper which Lot shared with two angels and with his\ndaughters also, and of the cakes which Tamar served to Amnon, and to\nspeak over and over again of eating--\"\n\n\"Of course,\" replies the mummy, yawning, because he had heard this\nsilly sort of talking before.\n\n\"I notice that your most honored poet, here where the dust is\nthickest, from the moment he began by writing about certain painted\nberries which mocked the appetite of Dame Venus, and about a repast\nfrom which luxurious Tarquin retired like a full-fed hound or a gorged\nhawk, speaks continually of eating. And I notice that everybody, but\nparticularly the young person, is encouraged to read these books, and\nother ancient books which speak very explicitly indeed of eating--\"\n\n\"Of course,\" again replies the mummy (who had been for many years an\nexponent of dormitive literacy)--\"of course, young persons ought to\nread them: for all these books are classics, and we who were more\nobviously the heirs of the ages, and the inheritors of European\nculture, used frequently to discuss these books in Paff's\nbeer-cellar.\"\n\n\"Well, but does the indecency of this word 'eating' evaporate out of\nit as the years pass, so that the word is hurtful only when very\nfreshly written!\"\n\nThe mummy blinked so wisely that you would never have guessed that the\nbrains and viscera of all these mummies had been removed when the\nembalmers, Time and Conformity, were preparing these fifty for the\nAcademy of Starch and Fetters. \"Young man, I doubt if the majority of\nus here in the academy are deeply interested in this question of\neating, for reasons unnecessary to specify. But before estimating your\nliterary pretensions, I must ask if you ever frequented Paff's\nbeer-cellar?\"\n\nHorvendile said, \"No.\"\n\nNow this mummy was an amiable and cultured old relic, unshakably made\nsure of his high name for scholarship by the fact that he had written\ndozens of books which nobody else had even read. So he said,\nfriendlily enough: \"Then that would seem to settle your pretensions.\nTo have talked twaddle in Paff's beer-cellar is the one real proof of\nliterary merit, no matter what sort of twaddle you may have written in\nyour book, or in many books, as I am here in this academy to attest.\nMoreover, I am old enough to remember when cookery-books were sold\nopenly upon the newsstands, and in consequence I am very grateful to\nthe garbage-man, who, in common with all other intelligent persons,\nhas never dreamed of meddling with anything I wrote.\"\n\n\"But, sir,\" says Horvendile, \"do you esteem a scavenger, who does not\npretend to specialize in anything save filth, to be the best possible\njudge of books?\"\n\n\"He may be an excellent critic if only he indeed belongs to the\nforthputting Philistine stock: that proviso is most important, though,\nfor, as I recently declared, we have very dangerous standards\ndomiciled in the midst of us, that are only too quickly raised--\"\n\nSays Horvendile, with a shudder: \"You speak ambiguously. But still, in\ncriticizing books--\"\n\n\"Plainly, young man, you do not appreciate that the essential\nqualifications for a critic of Philistine literature are,\" said this\nmummy bewilderingly, \"to have set off fireworks in July, to have\nplayed ball in a vacant lot, and to have repeated what Spartacus said\nto the gladiators.\"[3]\n\n[Footnote 3: It is a gratifying tribute to the permanence of aesthetic\ncanons to record that Dr. Brander Matthews (connected with Columbia\nUniversity) has, in an article upon \"Alien Views of American\nLiterature,\" contributed to the _New York Times_ of 14 November, 1920,\naccepted these three qualifications as the essential groundwork for a\nliterary critic even to-day; although Dr. Matthews is inclined, as a\nconcession to modernism, to add to the list an ability to recite\nWebster's Reply to Hayne. Since Dr. Matthews frankly states that he\nhas been incited to this recital of a critic's needs by (in his happy\nwording) \"the alien angle\" of \"standards domiciled in the midst of\nus,\" it is sincerely to be hoped that his requirements may be met\nforthwith.]\n\n\"No, no, the essential thing is not quite that,\" observed an attendant\nlackey, a really clever writer, who wrote, indeed, far more\nintelligently than he thought. He was a professor of patriotism, and\nprior to being embalmed in the academy he had charge of the\npostgraduate work in atavism and superior sneering. \"No, my test is\nnot quite that, and if you venture to disagree with me about this or\nanything else you are a ruthless Hun and an impudent Jew. No, the\ngarbage-man may very well be an excellent judge: for by my quite\ninfallible test the one thing requisite for a critic of our great\nPhilistine literature is an ability to induce within himself such an\ninternal disturbance as resembles a profound murmur of ancestral\nvoices--\"\n\n\"But, oh, dear me!\" says Horvendile, embarrassed by such talk.\n\n\"--And to experience a mysterious inflowing,\" continued the other, \"of\nnational experience--\"\n\n\"The function is of national experience undoubtedly,\" said Horvendile,\n\"but still--\"\n\n\"--Whenever he meditates,\" concluded this lackey bewilderingly, \"upon\nthe name of Bradford and six other surnames.[4] At all events, I have\nturned wearily from your book, you bolshevistic German Jew--\"\n\n[Footnote 4: Saevius Nicanor does not record the wonder-working\nsurnames employed to produce this ancient, ante-Aristotlean [Greek:\n_katharsis_], and they are not certainly known. But, quite unaided, I\nbelieve, by old Nicanor's hint, Dr. Stuart Pratt Sherman (the\naccomplished editor of divers contributions to literature, and the\nauthor of several books) has discovered, through a series of\ninteresting experiments in vivisection, that the one needful endowment\nfor a critic of American letters is the power to induce within himself\n\"a profound murmur of ancestral voices, and to experience a mysterious\ninflowing of national experience, in meditating on the names of Mark\nTwain, Whitman, Thoreau, Lincoln, Emerson, Franklin, and Bradford.\"\nCompare \"Is There Anything To Be Said for Literary Tradition,\" in _The\nBookman_ for October, 1920. Any candid consideration of Dr. Sherman's\nphraseology, here as elsewhere, cannot fail to suggest that he has\nhappily re-discovered the long-lost critical abracadabra of\nPhilistia.]\n\n\"But I,\" says Horvendile feebly, \"am not a German Jew.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, you are, and so is everybody else whose literary likings are\nnot my likings. I repeat, then, that I have turned wearily from your\nbook. Whether or not it treats of eating, its implication is clearly\nthat the Philistia which has developed Bradford and six other\nappellations perfectly adapted to produce murmurings and inflowings in\nproperly constituted persons,--and which Philistia, as I have\nelsewhere asserted, is to-day as always a revolting country whenever\nit condemns,--has had no civilised cultural atmosphere worth\nmentioning. So your book fails to connect itself vitally with our\ngreat tradition as to our literature, and I find nowhere in your book\nany ascending sun heralded by the lookouts.\"\n\n\"No more do I,\" said Horvendile; \"but I would have imagined you were\nmore interested in lunar phenomena, and even so--\"\n\n\"Moreover,\" now declared another mummy (this was a Moor, called\nP.E.M., or the Peach,[5] who through some oversight had not been\nembalmed, but only pickled in vinegar, to the detriment of his\ndisposition),--\"moreover, I am not at all in sympathy with any protest\nwhatever against the scavenger, for it might be taken as an excuse for\nwhat they are pleased to call art.\"\n\n[Footnote 5: Codman annotates this: \"Synonyms, since P.E.M. is\nobviously _Persicum Esculentum Malum_--that is, the peach; 'which,'\nsays Macrobius, 'although it rather belongs to the tribe of apples,\nSaevius reckons as a species of nut.'\"]\n\nAll groaned at this abominable word. And then another lackey cried,\n\"You are a prosperous and affected pseudo-litterateur!\" and all the\nmummies spoke sepulchrally the word of derision, which is \"Tee-Hee\":\nand many said also, \"The scavenger has never meddled with us, and we\nnever heard of you,\" and there was much other incoherent foolishness.\n\nBut Horvendile had fled, bewildered by the ways of Philistia's adepts\nin starch and fetters, and bewildered in particular to note that a\nmummy, so generally esteemed a kindly and well-meaning fossil,\nappeared quite honestly to believe that all literature came out of\nthe beer-cellar of Paff, or Pfaff, or had some similarly Teutonic\nsponsor; and that handball was the best training for literary\ncriticism; and that the cookery-books of fifty years ago had something\nto do with Horvendile's account of his journeying, from he did not\nknow where toward a goal which he could not divine, now being in the\ngarbage pile. It troubled Horvendile because so many persons seemed to\nregard the old fellow half seriously.\n\n\n\n\n5--How It Appeared to the Man in the Street\n\nStill, Horvendile was not quite routed by these heaped follies. \"For,\nafter all,\" says Horvendile, in his own folly, \"it is for the normal\nhuman being that books are made, and not for mummies and men of law\nand scavengers.\"\n\nSo Horvendile went through a many streets that were thronged with\npersons travelling by compulsion from they did not know where toward a\ngoal which they could not divine, and were not especially bothering\nabout. And it was evening, and to this side and to that side the men\nand women of Philistia were dining. Everywhere maids were passing hot\ndishes, and forks were being thrust into these dishes, and each was\neating according to his ability and condition. No matter how\npoverty-stricken the household, the housewife was serving her poor\nbest to the goodman. For with luncheon so long past, all the really\nvirile men of Philistia were famished, and stood ready to eat the\nmoment, they had a dish uncovered.\n\nSo it befell that Horvendile encountered a representative citizen, who\nwas coming out of a representative restaurant with a representative\nwife.\n\nAnd the sight of this representative citizen was to Horvendile a tonic\njoy and a warming of the heart. For this man, and each of the\nthousands like him, as Horvendile reflected, had been within this hour\nsedately dining with his wife,--neither of them eating with the zest\nand vigor of their first youth, perhaps, but sharing amicably the more\nmoderate refreshment which middle-age requires,--without being at any\nparticular pains to conceal the fact from anybody. Here was then,\nafter all, the strong and sure salvation of Philistia, in this quiet,\nunassuming common-sense, which dealt with the facts of life as facts,\nthe while that the foolish laws, and the academical and stercoricolous\nnonsense of Philistia, reverberated as remotely and as unheeded as\nharmless summer thunder.\n\n\"Sir,\" says elated Horvendile, \"I perceive that you two have just been\neating, and that emboldens me to ask you--\"\n\nBut at this point Horvendile found he had been knocked down, because\nthe parents of the representative citizen had taught him from his\nearliest youth that any mention of eating was highly indecent in the\npresence of gentlewomen. And for Horvendile, recumbent upon the\npavement, it was bewildering to note the glow of honest indignation in\nthe face of the representative citizen, who waited there, in front of\nthe restaurant he usually patronized....\n\n\n\n\nCOLOPHON\n\n\nHere, rather vexatiously, the old manuscript breaks off. But what\nsurvives and has been cited of this fragment amply shows you, I think,\nthat even in remote Philistia, whenever this question of \"indecency\"\narose, everybody (including the accused) was apt to act very\nfoolishly. It has attested too, I hope, the readiness with which you\nmay read ambiguities into the most respectable of authors; as well as\nthe readiness with which a fanatical training may lead you to imagine\nsome underlying impropriety in all writing about any natural function,\neven though it be a function so time-hallowed and general as that to\nwhich this curious Dirghic legend refers.\n\n\n\n\nA POSTSCRIPT\n\n(_French of C.J.P. Garnier_)\n\n    The swine that died in Gadara two thousand years ago\n    Went mad in lofty places, with results that all men know--\n    Went mad in lofty places through long rooting in the dirt,\n    Which (even for swine) begets at last soul-satisfying hurt.\n\n    The swine in lofty places now are matter for no song\n    By any prudent singer, but--_how long, O Lord, how long?_\n\n\n_EXPLICIT_\n\n\n\n\nBOOKS _by_ MR. CABELL\n\n\n_Biography_:\n\nBEYOND LIFE\nFIGURES OF EARTH\nDOMNEI\nCHIVALRY\nJURGEN\nTABOO\nTHE LINE OF LOVE\nGALLANTRY\nTHE CERTAIN HOUR\nTHE CORDS OF VANITY\nFROM THE HIDDEN WAY\nTHE RIVET IN GRANDFATHER'S NECK\nTHE EAGLE'S SHADOW\nTHE CREAM OF THE JEST\n\n\n_Genealogy_:\n\nBRANCH OF ABINGDON\nBRANCHIANA\nTHE MAJORS AND THEIR MARRIAGES","title":"Taboo: A Legend Retold from the Dirghic of S\u00e6vius Nicanor, with; Prolegomena, Notes, and a Preliminary Memoir","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":4884}