evitably be confronted, as those of Mrs Warren's group are in my
play, with the insoluble problem of their own possible consanguinity.
In short, by depending wholly on the coarse humors and the physical
fascination of sex, they comply with all the formulable requirements of
the Censorship, whereas plays in which these humors and fascinations are
discarded, and the social problems created by sex seriously faced and
dealt with, inevitably ignore the official formula and are suppressed.
If the old rule against the exhibition of illicit sex relations on stage
were revived, and the subject absolutely barred, the only result would
be that Antony and Cleopatra, Othello (because of the Bianca episode),
Troilus and Cressida, Henry IV, Measure for Measure, Timon of Athens,
La Dame aux Camellias, The Profligate, The Second Mrs Tanqueray, The
Notorious Mrs Ebbsmith, The Gay Lord Quex, Mrs Dane's Defence, and
Iris would be swept from the stage, and placed under the same ban as
Tolstoy's Dominion of Darkness and Mrs Warren's Profession, whilst such
plays as the two described above would have a monopoly of the theatre as
far as sexual interest is concerned.

What is more, the repulsiveness of the worst of the certified plays
would protect the Censorship against effective exposure and criticism.
Not long ago an American Review of high standing asked me for an article
on the Censorship of the English stage. I replied that such an article
would involve passages too disagreeable for publication in a magazine
for general family reading. The editor persisted nevertheless; but
not until he had declared his readiness to face this, and had pledged
himself to insert the article unaltered (the particularity of the pledge
extending even to a specification of the exact number of words in the
article) did I consent to the proposal. What was the result?

The editor, confronted with the two stories given above, threw his
pledge to the winds, and, instead of returning the article, printed
it with the illustrative examples omitted, and nothing left but the
argument from political principles against the Censorship. In doing this
he fired my broadside after withdrawing the cannon balls; for neither
the Censor nor any other Englishman, except perhaps Mr Leslie Stephen
and a few other veterans of the dwindling old guard of Benthamism, cares
a dump about political principle. The ordinary Briton thinks that if
every other Briton is not kept under some form o