That so small a part of the novel has been preserved is most annoying; it must have been comparable, in dramatic power and (notwithstanding the gross indecency of many passages) in a certain large sanity, to the great work of Fielding.
The question of verbalindecency or grossness has really very little to do with the matter.
The whole body of a musical entertainment may reek with cockney indecency and witlessness, and yet no English mother will sniff offence, provided it is covered up with dances and songs.
In truth, Wycherley's indecency is protected against the critics as a skunk is protected against the hunters.
The asperity and indecency of some expressions which he had used during the debates on the Regency had annoyed even his warmest friends.
Many habit makers who run apron skirts of their own, insist on making riding coats far too long, of course with the object of hiding the indecency of the apron skirt when its wearer is on foot.
There are riding women who object so much to the indecency of apron skirts (Figs.
It seemed an indecency to scan the anguished page of her face.
He wanted to breathe in the space she had left, and he also wanted to be spared the indecency of recognizing his relief.
There's no Indecency in the Confession, the Design is modest and honourable, and all your Affectation cant disguise it.
It is not to be doubted but if this Failing were set in a proper Light, he would quickly perceive theIndecency and evil Consequences of it.
He complained earnestly of theindecency of the exhibitions of his time.
No matter where it may be drawn, decency is close to it on one side and indecency on the other.
It is impossible to eliminate the sense stimulus, or to establish a system of societal usage in which indecency shall be impossible.
We know that the mysteries were often in bad repute for theirindecency and realism, even in an age of low standards.
Out of this has come the notion of what is obscene, as the extreme of indecency and impropriety.
It is consciousness of a difference between fact and the rule set by the mores which makes indecency and produces harm, for that difference, if disregarded, is immorality.
I was even absurd enough, for a little while, to swear, by way of adorning and completing the shining character which I affected; but this folly I soon laid aside, upon finding berth the guilt and the indecency of it.
As for indecency of expression, he could perceive none, either in the petition, or in the arguments of the gentlemen who advocated its reference.
In the first place, he was charged with great indecency in bringing forward and commenting upon the gentleman's own speech.
When a northern clergyman marries a rich southern widow, country gossip hits off the indecency with this current phrase, "The cotton bags bought him.
It is sickening to reflect how indecency and immorality are thus unblushingly countenanced under the sacred name of religion.
The witnesses for the defence were further subject to cross-examination which, at least in the earlier period, could be conducted by the fiscal--an indecency almost incredible in view of the crippling restrictions placed on the defence.
They arrested on the spot several of the highest officials, including two members of the great house of Ponce de Leon and, in spite of the indecency of sitting as judges in their own case, they prosecuted their prisoners.
Whether from a growing sense of their indecency or from a lack of material, the custom of imposing pecuniary penances rapidly declined in the eighteenth century.
The indecencyof God, the obscenity of a new-born Babe is too much!
The grotesque indecency of such an address throws into shade the subordinate absurdities of the passage, the unfurling of whirlwinds, the unrolling of thunder, and the upheaving of worlds.
He had no artistic appreciation of the subject he discussed, and he mistook cause for effect in asserting that the decline in public morality was due to the flagrant indecency of the stage.
I believe all this indecency started with those old scriptural purifications, and I wish it hadn't.
I hold," he said, authoritatively, "that indecency can only exist where beauty is wanting.
This young wretch admitted to acts of the grossest indecencywith Oscar Wilde.
Wilde denied all the allegations of indecency though he admitted the other parts of the young man's story.
If the evidence was to be credited, these acts of gross indecency which culminated in actual crime were done in so open a manner as to compel the attention of landladies and housemaids.
Against the grosser faults of immorality andindecency Steele and Addison preached.
In private they had perpetual squabbles, and they quarrelled with equal virulence and indecency before the world.
Its sulkiness and eccentricity and occasional indecency are just what one would expect from a Sub-Consciousness, whose thoughts have no central I to keep them in order.
In short, the only excuse for indecency is to have none.
Almost every farcical comedy or comic opera--to leave the music-hall alone--is vitiated by a vein of vulgar indecency which is simply despicable.
