There ends the record of the tale _Jurgen’s_ adventures with the law. The record is, as has been said, uneventful. A book had been impugned, that is all. An author had been vilified and his publishers indicted; certain thousands of readers had been deprived of access to a book which critical opinion had commended to their interest; and author and publishers both had been robbed of the revenues from whatever sale the book might have had during the nearly three years in which it was removed from publication. True, Mr. Cabell and his book had received much publicity.... There is a legend, indeed, that the author of _Jurgen_ (and of a dozen other distinguished books) owes much of his present place in letters to the advertising which Mr. Sumner involuntarily accorded him. But one may question that. An examination of the publishers’ files seem to show that most of the expressions of admiration for _Jurgen_ were repetitions of an enthusiasm expressed before the book’s “suppression.” And if the enthusiasm and the sympathy of Mr. Cabell’s admirers were hearteningly evident, the attacks of his detractors did not flag; and an inestimable number of persons, knowing Mr. Cabell’s work only through the recorded opinions of Messrs. Kingsley and Sumner, did certainly condemn him unread and, shuddering, barred their library doors against him.... No, Mr. Cabell owes no debt of thanks to the accusers of _Jurgen_. But all this is by the way. The argument, which appears in the following pages, is of importance not alone because it so ably defends _Jurgen_, but because it defines, more clearly than any other recent document, the present legal status of literature in America in relation to permissible candor in treatment and subject matter. The brief is not in any sense an argument in behalf of unrestricted publication of any matter, however obscene, or indeed in behalf of the publication of obscenity in any form. It is not a denial of the community’s right to protect itself from offenses against good taste or against its moral security, or to punish violation of the laws by which the public welfare is safe-guarded. But one need not be an apologist of license to perceive that there is in a thoughtful consideration of every aspect of life no kinship to indecency; or to perceive that the community cannot, without serious danger to its own cultural development, ignore the distinction between the artist’s attempt to create beauty by means of the written word, and the lewd and vulgar outpourings of the pornographer. When these two things are confused by a semi-official organization which is endowed with suppressive powers, even when the courts fail to sustain its accusations, the menace to the community is measurably increased. As a protection against this menace the brief presents, with admirable clarity, a legal test, the validity of which common sense will readily recognize, for the determination of literature as distinct from obscenity.