re in the darkness
with those eyes that I can hardly bear to look at? Who are you?"

And the woman answered: "Friend, I am your Conscience; I am the Truth as
best it may be seen by you. I am she whom you exist to serve." With
those words she vanished, and the writer woke. A boy was standing before
him with the evening papers.

To cover his confusion at being caught asleep he purchased one and began
to read a leading article. It commenced with these words: "There are
certain playwrights taking themselves very seriously; might we suggest to
them that they are in danger of becoming ridiculous . . . ."

The writer let fall his hand, and the paper fluttered to the ground. "The
Public," he thought, "I am not able to take seriously, because I cannot
conceive what it may be; myself, my conscience, I am told I must not take
seriously, or I become ridiculous. Yes, I am indeed lost!"

And with a feeling of elation, as of a straw blown on every wind, he
arose.
1910.

STUDIES AND ESSAYS

By John Galsworthy

"Je vous dirai que l'exces est toujours un mal."
--ANATOLE FRANCE

TABLE OF CONTENTS:
ABOUT CENSORSHIP
VAGUE THOUGHTS ON ART

ABOUT CENSORSHIP

Since, time and again, it has been proved, in this country of free
institutions, that the great majority of our fellow-countrymen consider
the only Censorship that now obtains amongst us, namely the Censorship of
Plays, a bulwark for the preservation of their comfort and sensibility
against the spiritual researches and speculations of bolder and too
active spirits--it has become time to consider whether we should not
seriously extend a principle, so grateful to the majority, to all our
institutions.

For no one can deny that in practice the Censorship of Drama works with a
smooth swiftness--a lack of delay and friction unexampled in any public
office. No troublesome publicity and tedious postponement for the
purpose of appeal mar its efficiency. It is neither hampered by the Law
nor by the slow process of popular election. Welcomed by the
overwhelming majority of the public; objected to only by such persons as
suffer from it, and a negligible faction, who, wedded pedantically to
liberty of the subject, are resentful of summary powers vested in a
single person responsible only to his own 'conscience'--it is amazingly,
triumphantly, successful.

Why, then, in a democratic State, is s