s are
people of hatred and desire, and I submit that there is no freedom when
a minority of one in a nation of fifty millions is hampered in the
expression of his feelings. More than one opinion has been held by one
man and is now the belief of all the world. The beliefs of to-morrow
will be slain if we suppress to-day the opinion of one. I would
surrender all the rupees and virgins of Bengal for the sake of the atom
of truth which may, in another age, build up immortal understanding in
the heart of man.

All this has frightened publishers, so that they will now take no risks,
and even the shy sincerity of English writers is turned away. The public
subserve the Puritans, little mean people whom Mr Wells ideally
nicknamed 'Key-hole,' or 'Snuffles,' little people who form 'watch
committees' or 'vigilance societies'; who easily discover the obscene
because it hangs like a film before their eyes, little people who keep
the window shut. The police must obey, or be called corrupt; the courts
are ready to apply the law severely rather than leniently, for who shall
play devil's advocate at the Old Bailey? No wonder the publishers are
frightened; the combination of their timidity, of truculent Puritanism
and of a reluctantly vigilant police makes it almost impossible to
_publish_ a sincere work.

One result is that we are deprived of translations of foreign novels,
some of which are of the first rank. There is _Le Journal d'une Femme de
Chambre_; there is _Aphrodite_, the work of M. Pierre Louys, who is an
artist in his way; there is Mr Boylesve's delicate, inwrought _La Lecon
d'Amour dans un Parc_; there is the Parisian mischief of M. Prevost's
_Lettres de Femmes_, the elegance of M. Henri de Regnier. _Sanin_ got
through, how I do not know; I have not read the translation, and it may
very well be that it escaped only after the translator had thickly
coated it with the soapsuds of English virtue.

Small as their chances may be it is a pity that the publishers do not
adventure. It is true that Mr Vizetelly went to jail for publishing
translations of Zola's novels, but when we are told by Mr George Moore
that Mr W. T. Stead confided to him that the Vigilance Society
considered the prosecution of _Madame Bovary_, it seems necessary again
to test the law. For you will observe that in all the cases quoted the
publisher has not allowed himself to be committed for trial; he has
chosen the prudent and humble course of apologising and