gether, 31 specimens
are listed. "The 'Genius'" runs to 350,000 words. The profanity thus
works out to somewhat less than one word in 10,000.... Alas, the
comstockian proboscis, feeling for such offendings, is not as alert as
when uncovering more savoury delicacies. On page 191 I find an
overlooked _by God_. On page 372 there are _Oh God, God curse her_, and
_God strike her dead_. On page 373 there are _Ah God, Oh God_ and three
other invocations of God. On page 617 there is _God help me_. On page
720 there is _as God is my judge_. On page 723 there is _I'm no damned
good_.... But I begin to blush.

When the Comstock Society began proceedings against "The 'Genius,'" a
group of English novelists, including Arnold Bennett, H. G. Wells, W. L.
George and Hugh Walpole, cabled an indignant caveat. This bestirred the
Author's League of America to activity, and its executive committee
issued a minute denouncing the business. Later on a protest of American
_literati_ was circulated, and more than 400 signed, including such
highly respectable authors as Winston Churchill, Percy MacKaye, Booth
Tarkington and James Lane Allen, and such critics as Lawrence Gilman,
Clayton Hamilton and James Huneker, and the editors of such journals as
the _Century_, the _Atlantic Monthly_ and the _New Republic_. Among my
literary lumber is all the correspondence relating to this protest, not
forgetting the letters of those who refused to sign, and some day I hope
to publish it, that posterity may not lose the joy of an extremely
diverting episode. The case attracted wide attention and was the theme
of an extraordinarily violent discussion, but the resultant benefits to
Dreiser were more than counterbalanced, I daresay, by the withdrawal of
"The 'Genius'" itself.[28]

Sec. 7

Dreiser, like Mark Twain and Emerson before him, has been far more
hospitably greeted in his first stage, now drawing to a close, in
England than in his own country. The cause of this, I daresay, lies
partly in the fact that "Sister Carrie" was in general circulation over
there during the seven years that it remained suppressed on this side.
It was during these years that such men as Arnold Bennett, Theodore
Watts-Dunton, Frank Harris and H. G. Wells, and such critical journals
as the _Spectator_, the _Saturday Review_ and the _Athenaeum_ became
aware of him, and so laid the foundations of a sound appreciation of his
subsequent work. Since the beginning of the war, certain