already half-accepted an inverted order, allowing that all the good
tunes are his and attributing to him things which he knows well enough
he has no right to call his own. In a few years we shall neither use
tobacco nor the grape, gifts of the good God, nor dance nor choose our
own clothes nor laugh nor think. We shall scurry hither and thither
before the flick of the devil's tail and be ready for the burning. We
shall have sold our birthright of daring for an insipid mess of
pottage: sold our right to choose and to spare, to slay and to leave
alive, to be glad and to be sorry, to be martyrs if we would be, to
explore, to risk, to win. We shall be docile and respectable, and the
standard of our docility and respectability will have been set by men
no better and no worse than we are. We shall be sober by act of
Parliament, and moral--if it be morality--because we have lost the
notion of being anything else. We shall be of no use whatever to God,
and precious small beer for the devil.

And is there no way of escape? There truly is, Let any man ask the
first censor that he sees by what authority he is censoring and who
gave him that authority. Let him ask by what standards he is judging
and in whose interests, and let him tell him what he thinks of his
standards and interests. Let him say BOO and see how foolish the goose
can look. Laugh, for Neo-Puritanism cannot stand laughter. Much else
it can stand, but not that. Don't argue; the old enemy is mighty good
at words. Don't hit; there are few of you strong enough. But laugh,
laugh honestly, and go on laughing, for it is the only invincible
weapon in the world. There is no more merry music either, and it is
the melody for--Men.