Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/54

 38 BIOGRAPHICAL STUDIES besmear himself with it in order to appear a buffoon when most audaciously sarcastic and heterodox, has nothing to do with morality or immorality, but is simply the dirt of a child, such as he has described in the infancy of Gargantua, in Book i., chap. xi. As Mr. Besant, in his "French Humourists," re- marks, "The filth and dirt of Rabelais do not take hold of the mind — a little cold water washes all off." We find the same in Chaucer and other early writers, though not so abundantly as in Rabelais, who had to use much for mere disguise, like one crouching in a foul ditch in order to escape his enemies ; and though offensive to us now, it is perfectly innocent compared with certain recent French and English novels, more read by fine ladies than by any other class, wherein the vilest obscenity, mingled with spurious senti- mentaUsm and other sweet nastiness, is served up in choice language — a luscious and poisonous com- pound, as revolting to the really pure minded as that hideous Thais of Dante {Inferno, xviii.) in that cesspool of Malebolge — "quclla sozza scapigliata fante, Che la si graffia con 1' unghie merdose, Et or s' accoscia, et era e in piede stante. Taida e la puttana." We may be sure that the rude and rigorous Dante, even the ineffably tender and ardent Dante of the Vita Nuova and the imparadised Beatrice, would have painted just such a picture of some lovely and fascinating countess of, say, Dumas fils — an exquisite and delicate creature, redolent of the costliest per- fumes, and redolent of the impurest passions in the purest French.