a of his life when it comes into conflict with his nature. The
result of this conflict is tragic in Mrs Warren's case, and comic in the
clergyman's case (at least we are savage enough to laugh at it); but
in both cases it is illogical, and in both cases natural. I repeat,
the critics who accuse me of sacrificing nature to logic are so
sophisticated by their profession that to them logic is nature, and
nature absurdity.

Many friendly critics are too little skilled in social questions and
moral discussions to be able to conceive that respectable gentlemen like
themselves, who would instantly call the police to remove Mrs Warren if
she ventured to canvass them personally, could possibly be in any way
responsible for her proceedings. They remonstrate sincerely, asking me
what good such painful exposures can possibly do. They might as well ask
what good Lord Shaftesbury did by devoting his life to the exposure
of evils (by no means yet remedied) compared to which the worst things
brought into view or even into surmise by this play are trifles.
The good of mentioning them is that you make people so extremely
uncomfortable about them that they finally stop blaming "human nature"
for them, and begin to support measures for their reform.

Can anything be more absurd than the copy of The Echo which contains a
notice of the performance of my play? It is edited by a gentleman who,
having devoted his life to work of the Shaftesbury type, exposes social
evils and clamors for their reform in every column except one; and that
one is occupied by the declaration of the paper's kindly theatre critic,
that the performance left him "wondering what useful purpose the play
was intended to serve." The balance has to be redressed by the more
fashionable papers, which usually combine capable art criticism with
West-End solecism on politics and sociology. It is very noteworthy,
however, on comparing the press explosion produced by Mrs Warren's
Profession in 1902 with that produced by Widowers' Houses about ten
years earlier, that whereas in 1892 the facts were frantically denied
and the persons of the drama flouted as monsters of wickedness, in
1902 the facts are admitted and the characters recognized, though it is
suggested that this is exactly why no gentleman should mention them in
public. Only one writer has ventured to imply this time that the poverty
mentioned by Mrs Warren has since been quietly relieved, and need
not have been dragged b