It is to be noted that books such as those I have just cited are not really sophisticated; they are unaware of the mental richness enveloping the facts of sex. This is as true of De Sade’s novels, for all the complicated aberrations they record, as of Cleland’s puerile story. They concern themselves solely with the facts, and are still at the stage of trying to increase the number of these, whereas the aim of civilized pornographers is to get away from those monotonous facts into a richer region. A common trick among lesser pornographers is to hint mysteriously that the facts are more numerous than they really are. For example, in an absurd novel by Catulle Mendès, the author, after describing with wearisome detail what the hero and his mistress did together (which was pretty much all of the little that _can_ be done), sends them out into the night. ‘When they returned,’ he says, ‘they did not dare look at each other; they had committed the unforgivable sin; henceforth they were cut off from humanity’--or words to that effect. A puerile and ridiculous piece of bravado. One cannot alter the facts or stare them out of countenance. In truth, it is intolerable to stare at them at all. The sexual act itself, while thrilling to the two concerned, must be depressing and even faintly revolting to a mentally adult observer of it--in part because the violent unrestrained expression of any emotion is distasteful (I can still remember with a touch of nausea Mrs. Leslie Carter in _Zaza_), but chiefly because such a spectacle can only remind us drearily of the elementary paucity of those facts on which all life is constructed. I am told that there are sordid resorts in Paris, where, for a price, one may gaze through a peep-hole at this primitive exhibition. It is incredible to me that any one should want to. I should go home and weep. ‘“Dust and ashes!” so you creak it ... what’s become of all the gold ...?’ There are enough barren unsought-for moments, God knows! when all life seems but a skeleton affair, unendurably indigent--merely greed, hunger, passion, passion, hunger, greed--without one’s deliberately going in search of others.