aries in this world or any
other. Great artists, such as Puvis de Chavannes and John Sargent, have
helped to decorate the Boston Library. In brief, Boston and its Library
are not to be sneezed at. A certain woman asked for George Moore's "Esther
Waters," recognized, I believe, as one of the most serious and superb of
modern novels. The work was included in the catalogue of the Library. In
reply to her request she was informed that she could not have "Esther
Waters" unless she obtained from the Chief Mandarin or Librarian special
permission to read it, on the ground that she was a "student of
literature." I doubt whether the imagination of nincompoops and boards of
management has ever devised anything more beautiful than this.

* * * * *

But the lady had a husband, and the husband, being a prominent journalist,
had the editorial use of a newspaper in Boston. He began to make
inquiries, and he discovered that many of the catalog cards were marked
with red stars, and that a star signified that the work described on the
card was not morally fit for general circulation. He further discovered
that works rankly and frankly pornographic and works of distinguished art
were starred with the same star. Lastly, he discovered that the Chief
Mandarin or Librarian, all out of his own head and off his own bat, had
appointed a reading committee for the dividing of modern fiction into
sheep and goats, and that the said committee consisted exclusively of
Boston dames mature in years. He exposed the entire affair in his
newspapers and made a very pleasing sensation. The first result was that
his wife was afterwards received at the Library with imperial honours and
given to understand by kotowing sub-mandarins that she might have the
whole red-star library sent home to her house if she so desired. There was
no other result. The rest of reading Boston remained under the motherly
but autocratic care of _ces dames_. Those skilled in the artistic records
of Boston may remember that the management of the same Library once
refused the offered gift of a statue of a woman holding a baby, on the
sole ground that the woman was not attired.

[_26 May '10_]

More interesting information has accrued to me concerning literary
censorship in the British provinces. Glasgow has about a dozen lending
libraries, chiefly, I believe, of the Carnegie species. In none of these
are the works of Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett