rt and the peace of my conscience that he must
be either an extreme megalomaniac or an utterly unconscious being.

He must be unconscious. It is one of the qualifications for his
magistracy. Other qualifications are equally easy. He must have done
nothing, expressed nothing, imagined nothing. He must be obscure,
insignificant and mediocre--in thought, act, speech and sympathy. He
must know nothing of art, of life--and of himself. For if he did he
would not dare to be what he is. Like that much questioned and
mysterious bird, the phoenix, he sits amongst the cold ashes of his
predecessor upon the altar of morality, alone of his kind in the sight of
wondering generations.

And I will end with a quotation reproducing not perhaps the exact words
but the true spirit of a lofty conscience.

"Often when sitting down to write the notice of a play, especially when I
felt it antagonistic to my canons of art, to my tastes or my convictions,
I hesitated in the fear lest my conscientious blame might check the
development of a great talent, my sincere judgment condemn a worthy mind.
With the pen poised in my hand I hesitated, whispering to myself 'What if
I were perchance doing my part in killing a masterpiece.'"

Such were the lofty scruples of M. Jules Lemaitre--dramatist and dramatic
critic, a great citizen and a high magistrate in the Republic of Letters;
a Censor of Plays exercising his august office openly in the light of
day, with the authority of a European reputation. But then M. Jules
Lemaitre is a man possessed of wisdom, of great fame, of a fine
conscience--not an obscure hollow Chinese monstrosity ornamented with Mr.
Stiggins's plug hat and cotton umbrella by its anxious grandmother--the
State.

Frankly, is it not time to knock the improper object off its shelf? It
has stood too long there. Hatched in Pekin (I should say) by some Board
of Respectable Rites, the little caravan monster has come to us by way of
Moscow--I suppose. It is outlandish. It is not venerable. It does not
belong here. Is it not time to knock it off its dark shelf with some
implement appropriate to its worth and status? With an old broom handle
for instance.

PART II--LIFE

AUTOCRACY AND WAR--1905

From the firing of the first shot on the banks of the Sha-ho, the fate of
the great battle of the Russo-Japanese war hung in the balance for more
than a fortnight. The famous three-day battles, for which history has
rese