Page:My Dear Cornelia (1924).pdf/17

 tion with her seems a kind of baseness and disloyalty. Yet, as much as a superior being can be troubled, she was troubled about the state of current fiction. She was troubled in that high and spirited sense of responsibility which certain fine women feel for the tone of the Republic.

"You have shown," she said, "some understanding of the immense influence exerted by literature upon the minds of our young people. But your discussion of 'unprintable' books is up in the air. You must meet peril definitely, perilously, or your readers won't even believe that it exists. In a prairie fire, you must fight with fire; water, the flames snuff up like a perfume, and sweep on. You don't come to grips with the facts. You asperse them with rosewater."

"You mean," I replied, fencing feebly, "that I did not furnish a guide to those new books which no young person should read? I had thought that would rather please you. The suppressive societies will supply the information which I omitted. I am not specially interested in the circulation of any questionable books—except my own."

"Your innuendo is nasty and your tone is flippant," she said. I bowed in acknowledgment of my entire agreement. "But the subject," she