not the light of the generating stations, which exposes the depths of our
infatuation where our mere cleverness is permitted for a while to grope
for the unessential among invincible shadows.



THE CENSOR OF PLAYS--AN APPRECIATION--1907


A couple of years ago I was moved to write a one-act play--and I lived
long enough to accomplish the task. We live and learn. When the play
was finished I was informed that it had to be licensed for performance.
Thus I learned of the existence of the Censor of Plays. I may say
without vanity that I am intelligent enough to have been astonished by
that piece of information: for facts must stand in some relation to time
and space, and I was aware of being in England--in the twentieth-century
England. The fact did not fit the date and the place. That was my first
thought. It was, in short, an improper fact. I beg you to believe that
I am writing in all seriousness and am weighing my words scrupulously.

Therefore I don't say inappropriate. I say improper--that is: something
to be ashamed of. And at first this impression was confirmed by the
obscurity in which the figure embodying this after all considerable fact
had its being. The Censor of Plays! His name was not in the mouths of
all men. Far from it. He seemed stealthy and remote. There was about
that figure the scent of the far East, like the peculiar atmosphere of a
Mandarin's back yard, and the mustiness of the Middle Ages, that epoch
when mankind tried to stand still in a monstrous illusion of final
certitude attained in morals, intellect and conscience.