The letter of protest which appeared in the _Times_ of June 30, 1903,
signed by Mr. Swinburne, Mr. Meredith, and Mr. Hardy, the three highest
names in contemporary English literature, will, I hope, have done
something to save the literary reputation of England from such a fate as
one eminent dramatic critic sees in store for it. "Once more," says the
_Athenæum_, "the caprice of our censure brings contempt upon us, and
makes, or should make, us the laughing-stock of Europe." The _Morning
Post_ is more lenient, and is "sincerely sorry for the unfortunate
censor," because "he has immortalised himself by prohibiting the most
beautiful play of his time, and must live to be the laughing-stock of
all sensible people."
Now the question is: which is really made ridiculous by this ridiculous
episode of the prohibition of Maeterlinck's "Monna Vanna," England or
Mr. Redford? Mr. Redford is a gentleman of whom I only know that he is
not himself a man of letters, and that he has not given any public
indication of an intelligent interest in literature as literature. If,
as a private person, before his appointment to the official post of
censor of the drama, he had expressed in print an opinion on any
literary or dramatic question, that opinion would have been taken on its
own merits, and would have carried only the weight of its own contents.
The official appointment, which gives him absolute power over the public
life or death of a play, gives to the public no guarantee of his fitness
for the post. So far as the public can judge, he was chosen as the
typical "man in the street," the "plain man who wants a plain answer,"
the type of the "golden mean," or mediocrity. We hear that he is honest
and diligent, that he reads every word of every play sent for his
inspection. These are the virtues of the capable clerk, not of the
penetrating judge. Now the position, if it is to be taken seriously,
must require delicate discernment as well as inflexible uprightness. Is
Mr. Redford capable of discriminating between what is artistically fine
and what is artistically ignoble? If not, he is certainly incapable of
discriminating between what is morally fine and what is morally ignoble.
It is useless for him to say that he is not concerned with art, but with
morals. They cannot be dissevered, because it is really the art which
makes the morality. In other words, morality does not consist in the
facts of a situation or in the words of a speech, but in the spirit
which informs the whole work. Whatever may be the facts of "Monna Vanna"
(and I contend that they are entirely above reproach, even as facts), no
one capable of discerning the spirit of a work could possibly fail to
realise that the whole tendency of the play is noble and invigorating.
All this, all that is essential, evidently escapes Mr. Redford. He
licenses what the _Times_ rightly calls "such a gross indecency as 'The
Girl from Maxim's.'" But he refuses to license "Monna Vanna," and he
refuses to state his reason for withholding the license. The fact is,
that moral questions are discussed in it, not taken for granted, and
the plain man, the man in the street, is alarmed whenever people begin
to discuss moral questions. "The Girl from Maxim's" is merely indecent,
it raises no problems. "Monna Vanna" raises problems. Therefore, says
the censor, it must be suppressed. By his decision in regard to this
play of Maeterlinck, Mr. Redford has of course conclusively proved his
unfitness for his post. But that is only one part of the question. The
question is: could any one man be found on whose opinion all England
might safely rely for its dramatic instruction and entertainment? I do
not think such a man could be found. With Mr. Redford, as the _Times_
puts it, "any tinge of literary merit seems at once to excite his worst
suspicions." But with a censor whose sympathies were too purely
literary, literary in too narrow a sense, would not scruples of some
other kind begin to intrude themselves, scruples of the student who
cannot tolerate an innocent jesting with "serious" things, scruples of
the moralist who must choose between Maeterlinck and d'Annunzio,
between Tolstoi and Ibsen? I cannot so much as think of a man in all
England who would be capable of justifying the existence of the
censorship. Is it, then, merely Mr. Redford who is made ridiculous by
this ridiculous episode, or is it not, after all, England, which has
given us the liberty of the press and withheld from us the liberty of
the stage?