Art & Creativity Quote by John Harvey Kellogg

Kellogg is doing that neat late-19th-century maneuver: presenting delay as virtue, and self-interest as public-minded restraint. The line is built on bureaucratic specificity ("condemned", "set up ready to print", "held it in plates") that makes censorship feel mechanical, almost procedural, as if the controversy ran on rails long before any reader had a chance. He wants you to hear the absurdity: the book is judged not for what it says, but for the fact that it is about to exist.

The subtext is two-pronged. First, he casts himself as the rational adult in a room full of hysterics, patiently waiting for the "discussion" to resolve itself. Second, he’s quietly advertising the book’s potency. A text condemned at the typesetting stage sounds dangerous, maybe even necessary. The phrase "waiting to see what would come out" signals calculation as much as caution: Kellogg is monitoring the market, the moral climate, the institutional temperature. For a businessman, the ethics of publication and the economics of backlash aren’t separate problems.

Context matters because Kellogg’s world was saturated with reform crusades and purity campaigns, especially around the body, sexuality, and "proper" living. In that ecosystem, getting "condemned" could be a threat, a badge, or both. By emphasizing the early, preemptive nature of the condemnation, he reframes his opponents as reflexive gatekeepers and himself as a measured figure navigating public opinion. It’s a defense that doubles as a teaser: if the book scared them before ink hit paper, what, exactly, did it promise to reveal?