as beautiful and gratifying? The answer to this question, I fear, must
be a blunt Yes; for it seems impossible to root out of an Englishman's
mind the notion that vice is delightful, and that abstention from it
is privation. At all events, as long as the tempting side of it is kept
towards the public, and softened by plenty of sentiment and sympathy, it
is welcomed by our Censor, whereas the slightest attempt to place it in
the light of the policeman's lantern or the Salvation Army shelter
is checkmated at once as not merely disgusting, but, if you please,
unnecessary.

Everybody will, I hope, admit that this state of things is intolerable;
that the subject of Mrs Warren's profession must be either tapu
altogether, or else exhibited with the warning side as freely displayed
as the tempting side. But many persons will vote for a complete tapu,
and an impartial sweep from the boards of Mrs Warren and Gretchen and
the rest; in short, for banishing the sexual instincts from the stage
altogether. Those who think this impossible can hardly have considered
the number and importance of the subjects which are actually banished
from the stage. Many plays, among them Lear, Hamlet, Macbeth,
Coriolanus, Julius Caesar, have no sex complications: the thread of
their action can be followed by children who could not understand a
single scene of Mrs Warren's Profession or Iris. None of our plays rouse
the sympathy of the audience by an exhibition of the pains of maternity,
as Chinese plays constantly do. Each nation has its own particular set
of tapus in addition to the common human stock; and though each of
these tapus limits the scope of the dramatist, it does not make drama
impossible. If the Examiner were to refuse to license plays with female
characters in them, he would only be doing to the stage what our tribal
customs already do to the pulpit and the bar. I have myself written a
rather entertaining play with only one woman in it, and she is quite