THE FIGHT WITH THE CASTLE
In the summer of 1909 I went one day from London to Ayot St.
Lawrence, a Hertfordshire village, to consult Mr. Bernard Shaw on
some matters connected with our Theatre. When I was leaving, he gave
me a little book, _The Shewing up of Blanco Posnet_, which had just
been printed, although not published. It had, however, been already
rejected by the Censor, as all readers of the newspapers know; and
from that quiet cottage the fiery challenge-giving answers had been
sent out. I read the play as I went back in the train, and when at
St. Pancras Mr. Yeats met me to talk over the business that had taken
me away, I showed him the little book that had been given its black
ball, and I said, “Hypocrites.”
A little time afterwards Mr. Shaw offered us the play for the Abbey,
for the Censor has no jurisdiction in Ireland--an accidental freedom.
We accepted it and put it in rehearsal that we might produce it in
Horse Show week. We were without a regular stage manager at that
time, and thought to have it produced by one of the members of
the Company. But very soon the player who had taken it in charge
found the work too heavy and troublesome, and withdrew from the
stage management, though not from taking a part. I had a letter one
morning telling me this, and I left by the next train for Dublin.
As I left, I sent a wire to a London actor--a friend--asking if
he could come over and help us out of this knot. Meanwhile, that
evening, and before his answer came, I held a rehearsal, the first
I had ever taken quite alone. I thought out positions during the
night, and next morning, when I had another rehearsal, I began to
find an extraordinary interest and excitement in the work. I saw
that Blanco’s sermon, coming as it did after bustling action, was in
danger of seeming monotonous. I broke it up by making him deliver
the first part standing up on the Sheriff’s bench, then bringing him
down to sit on the table and speak some of the words into the face of
Elder Posnet. After that I sent him with a leap on to the table for
the last phrases. I was very much pleased with the effect of this
action, and by the time a telegram told me my London friend could
come, I was confident enough to do without him. We were very proud
and pleased when the whole production was taken to London later by
the Stage Society. I have produced plays since then, my own and a few
others. It is tiring work; one spends so much of one’s own vitality.
That is what took me away from home to Dublin in that summer time,
when cities are out of season. Mr. Yeats had stayed on at Coole at
his work, and my letters to him, and letters after that to my son and
to Mr. Shaw, will tell what happened through those hot days, and of
the battle with Dublin Castle, which had taken upon itself to make
the writ of the London Censor run at the Abbey.
I received while in Dublin, the following letter from a permanent
official in Dublin Castle:
“DEAR LADY GREGORY:
“I am directed by the Lord Lieutenant to state that His Excellency’s
attention has been called to an announcement in the Public Press that
a play entitled _The Shewing up of Blanco Posnet_ is about to be
performed in the Abbey Theatre.
“This play was written for production in a London theatre, and its
performance was disallowed by the Authority which in England is
charged with the Censorship of stage plays. The play does not deal
with an Irish subject, and it is not an Irish play in any other
sense than that its author was born in Ireland. It is now proposed
to produce this play in the Abbey Theatre, which was founded for
the express purpose of encouraging dramatic art in Ireland, and of
fostering a dramatic school growing out of the life of the country.
“The play in question does not seem well adapted to promote these
laudable objects or to belong to the class of plays originally
intended to be performed in the Abbey Theatre, as described in the
evidence on the hearing of the application for the Patent.
“However this may be, the fact of the proposed performance having
been brought to the notice of the Lord Lieutenant, His Excellency
cannot evade the responsibility cast upon him of considering whether
the play conforms in other respects to the conditions of the Patent.
“His Excellency, after the most careful consideration, has arrived
at the conclusion that in its original form the play is not in
accordance either with the assurances given by those interested when
the Patent was applied for, or with the conditions and restrictions
contained in the Patent as granted by the Crown.
“As you are the holder of the Patent in trust for the generous
founder of the Theatre, His Excellency feels bound to call
your attention, and also the attention of those with whom you
are associated, to the terms of the Patent and to the serious
consequences which the production of the play in its original form
might entail....”
I tell what followed in letters written to Coole:
“Thursday, August 12th. At the Theatre this morning the Secretary
told me Whitney & Moore (our solicitors) had telephoned that they had
a hint there would be interference with the production of _Blanco
Posnet_ by the Castle, and would like to see me.
“I went to see Dr. Moore. He said a Castle Official, whose name he
would not give, had called the day before yesterday and said, ‘As
a friend of Sir Benjamin Whitney, I have come to tell you that if
this play is produced it will be a very expensive thing for Miss
Horniman.’ Dr. Moore took this to mean the Patent would be forfeited.
I talked the matter over with him and asked if he would get further
information from his friend as to what method they meant to adopt,
for I would not risk the immediate forfeiture of the Patent, but
would not mind a threat of refusal to give a new Patent, as by that
time--1910--perhaps neither the present Lord Lieutenant nor the
present Censor would be in office.
“Dr. Moore said he would go and see his friend, and at a quarter past
two I had a message on the telephone from him that I had better see
the Castle Official or that he wished to see me (I didn’t hear very
well) before 3 o’clock. I went to the Castle and saw the Official. He
said, ‘Well.’ I said, ‘Are you going to cut off our heads?’ He said,
‘This is a very serious business; I think you are very ill-advised
to think of putting on this play. May I ask how it came about?’ I
said, ‘Mr. Shaw offered it and we accepted it.’ He said, ‘You have
put us in a most difficult and disagreeable position by putting on
a play to which the English Censor objected.’ I answered, ‘We do
not take his view of it, and we think it hypocrisy objecting to a
fallen woman in homespun on the stage, when a fallen woman in satin
has been the theme of such a great number of plays that have been
passed.’ He said, ‘It is not that the Censor objected to; it is the
use of certain expressions which may be considered blasphemous. Could
not they be left out?’ ‘Then there would be no play. The subject of
the play is a man, a horse-thief, shaking his fist at Heaven, and
finding afterwards that Heaven is too strong for him. If there were
no defiance, there could be no victory. It is the same theme that
Milton has taken in Satan’s defiance in _Paradise Lost_. I consider
it a deeply religious play, and one that could hurt no man, woman,
or child. If it had been written by some religious leader, or even
by a dramatist considered “safe,” nonconformists would admire and
approve of it.’ He said, ‘We have nothing to do with that, the fact
for us is that the Censor has banned it.’ I said, ‘Yes, and passed
_The Merry Widow_, which is to be performed here the same week, and
which I have heard is objectionable, and _The Devil_, which I saw in
London.’ He said, ‘We would not have interfered, but what can we do
when we see such paragraphs as these?’ handing me a cutting from the
_Irish Times_ headed, ‘Have we a Censor?’ I replied, ‘We have not
written or authorised it, as you might see by its being incorrect.
I am sole Patentee of the Theatre.’ He said, ‘Dublin society will
call out against us if we let it go on.’ ‘Lord Iveagh has taken six
places.’ ‘For that play?’ ‘Yes, for that play, and I believe Dublin
society is likely to follow Lord Iveagh.’ He went on, ‘And Archbishop
Walsh may object.’ I was silent. He said, ‘It is very hard on the
Lord Lieutenant. You should have had more consideration for him.’ I
replied, ‘We did not know or remember that the power rested with him,
but it is hard on him, for he can’t please everybody.’ He said, ‘Will
you not give it up?’ ‘What will you do if we go on?’ ‘Either take no
notice or take the Patent from you at once.’ I said, ‘If you decide
to forfeit our Patent, we will not give a public performance; but if
we give no performance to be judged by, we shall rest under the slur
of having tried to produce something bad and injurious.’ ‘We must not
provoke Public opinion.’ ‘We provoked Nationalist public opinion in
_The Playboy_, and you did not interfere.’ ‘Aye,’ said he, ‘exactly
so, that was quite different; that had not been banned by the
Censor.’ I said, ‘Time has justified us, for we have since produced
_The Playboy_ in Dublin and on tour with success, and it will justify
us in the case of this play.’ ‘But _Blanco Posnet_ is very inferior
to _The Playboy_.’ I said, ‘Even so, Bernard Shaw has an intellectual
position above that of Mr. Synge, though he is not above him in
imaginative power. He is recognised as an intellectual force, and
his work cannot be despised.’ ‘Lord Aberdeen will have to decide.’
‘I should like him to know,’ I said, ‘that from a business point of
view the refusal to allow this play, already announced, to be given
would do us a serious injury.’ He said, ‘No advertisements have been
published.’ ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘the posters have been out some days, and
there is a good deal of booking already from England as well as here.
We are just beginning to pay our way as a Theatre. We should be able
to do so if we got about a dozen more stalls regularly. The people
who would take stalls will be frightened off by your action. The
continuance of our Theatre at all may depend on what you do now. We
are giving a great deal of employment, spending in Dublin over £1500
a year, and our Company bears the highest possible character.’ He
said, ‘I know that well.’ I said, ‘I know Lord Aberdeen is friendly
to our Theatre, though he does not come to it, not liking the colour
of our carpets.’ He said ‘He is a supporter of the drama. He was
one of Sir Henry Irving’s pall-bearers.’ ‘When shall we know the
decision?’ ‘In a day or two, perhaps to-morrow. You can produce it in
Cork, Galway, or Waterford. It is only in Dublin the Lord Lieutenant
has power.’ He read from time to time a few lines from the Patent or
Act of Parliament before him, ‘just to get them into your head.’ The
last words he read were, ‘There must be no profane representation of
sacred personages’; ‘and that,’ he said, ‘applies to Blanco Posnet’s
representations of the Deity.’ I told him of the Censor’s note on
_The Playboy_, ‘The expression “Khaki cut-throats” must be cut out,
together with any others that may be considered derogatory to His
Majesty’s Forces,’ and he laughed. Then I said, ‘How can we think
much of the opinion of a man like that?’ He said, ‘I believe he was a
bank manager.’ We then said good-bye.”
“Friday, 5 o’c. Dr. Moore sent for me at 4 o’clock. I went with W.
B. Yeats, who had arrived. The Crown Solicitor at the Castle, Sir
B. Whitney’s ‘friend,’ had called and told him the Lord Lieutenant
was ‘entirely opposed to the play being proceeded with and would use
every power the law gave him to stop it,’ and that, ‘it would be much
better for us to lay the play aside.’
“We decided to go on with the performance and let the Patent be
forfeited, and if we must die, die gloriously. Yeats was for this
course, and I agreed. Then I thought it right to let the Permanent
Official know my change of intention, and, after some unsuccessful
attempts on the telephone, W. B. Y. and I went to see him at the
Castle. He was very smiling and amiable this time, and implored
us, as we had understood him to do through the telephone, to save
the Lord Lieutenant from his delicate position. ‘You defy us, you
advertise it under our very nose, at the time everyone is making
a fight with the Censor.’ He threatened to take away our Patent
before the play came on at all, if we persisted in the intention.
I said that would give us a fine case. Yeats said we intended to
do _Œdipus_, that this also was a censored play, although so
unobjectionable to religious minds that it had been performed
in the Catholic University of Nôtre Dame, and that we should be
prevented if we announced it now. He replied, ‘Leave that till the
time comes, and you needn’t draw our attention to it.’ We said the
_Irish Times_ might again draw his attention to it. He proposed our
having a private performance only. I said, ‘I had a letter from Mr.
Shaw objecting to that course.’ He moaned, and said, ‘It is very
hard upon us. Can you suggest no way out of it?’ We answered, ‘None,
except our being left alone.’ ‘Oh, Lady Gregory,’ he said, ‘appeal
to your own common sense.’ When I mentioned Shaw’s letter, he said,
‘All Shaw wants is to use the Lord Lieutenant as a whip to lay upon
the Censor.’ Yeats said, ‘Shaw would use him in that way whatever
happens.’ ‘I know he will,’ said the Official. At last he asked if we
could get Mr. Shaw to take out the passages he had already offered to
take out for the Censor. We agreed to ask him to do this, as we felt
the Castle was beaten, as the play even then would still be the one
forbidden in England.”
This is the letter I had received from Mr. Shaw:
“10 Adelphi Terrace, W. C. 12th August, 1909.
“Your news is almost too good to be true. If the Lord Lieutenant
would only forbid an Irish play without reading it, and after it had
been declared entirely guiltless and admirable by the leading high
class journal on the side of his own party [_The Nation_], forbid
it at the command of an official of the King’s household in London,
then the green flag would indeed wave over Abbey Street, and we
should have questions in Parliament and all manner of reverberating
advertisement and nationalist sympathy for the Theatre.
“I gather from your second telegram that the play has, perhaps, been
submitted for approval. If so, that will be the worse for us, as
the Castle can then say they forbade it on its demerits without the
slightest reference to the Lord Chamberlain.
“In any case, do not threaten them with a contraband performance.
Threaten that we shall be suppressed; that we shall be made martyrs
of; that we shall suffer as much and as publicly as possible. Tell
them that they can depend on me to burn with a brighter blaze and
louder yells than all Foxe’s martyrs.”
Mr. Shaw telegraphed his answer to the demand for cuts:
“The _Nation_ article gives particulars of cuts demanded, which I
refused as they would have destroyed the religious significance of
the play. The line about moral relations is dispensable as they are
mentioned in several other places; so it can be cut if the Castle is
silly enough to object to such relations being called immoral, but
I will cut nothing else. It is an insult to the Lord Lieutenant to
ignore him and refer me to the requirements of a subordinate English
Official. I will be no party to any such indelicacy. Please say I
said so, if necessary.”
I give in the Appendix the _Nation_ article to which he refers. My
next letter home says:
“August 14. Having received the telegram from Shaw and the _Nation_
article, we went to the Castle to see the Official, but only found
his secretary, who offered to speak to him through a telephone, but
the telephone was wheezy, and after long trying, all we could arrive
at was that he wanted to know if we had seen Sir H. Beerbohm Tree’s
evidence, in which he said there were passages in _Blanco_ that would
be better out. Then he proposed our going to see him at his house, as
he has gout and rheumatism and couldn’t come to us.
“We drove to his house. He began on Tree, but Yeats told him Tree was
the chief representative of the commercial theatre we are opposed
to. He then proposed our giving a private performance, and we again
told him Shaw had forbidden that. I read him the telegram refusing
cuts, but he seemed to have forgotten that he had asked for cuts,
and repeated his appeal to spare the Lord Lieutenant. I showed him
the _Nation_ article, and he read it and said ‘But the _Book of Job_
is not by the same author as _Blanco Posnet_.’ Yeats said, ‘Then if
you could, you would censor the Deity?’ ‘Just so,’ said he. He asked
if we could make no concession. We said, ‘no,’ but that if they
decided to take away the Patent, we should put off the production
till the beginning of our season, end of September, and produce it
with _Œdipus_; then they would have to suppress both together. He
brightened up and said, if we could put it off, things would be much
easier, as the Commission would not be sitting then or the Public
be so much interested in the question. I said ‘Of course we should
have to announce at once that it was in consequence of the threatened
action of the Castle we had postponed it.’ ‘Oh, you really don’t mean
that! You would let all the bulls loose. It would be much better
not to say anything at all, or to say the rehearsals took longer
than you expected.’ ‘The public announcement will be more to our own
advantage.’ ‘Oh, that is dreadful!’ I said, ‘We did not give in one
quarter of an inch to Nationalist Ireland at _The Playboy_ time, and
we certainly cannot give in one quarter of an inch to the Castle.’
“‘We must think of Archbishop Walsh!’ I said, ‘The Archbishop would
be slow to move, for if he orders his flock to keep away from our
play, he can’t let them attend many of the Censor’s plays, and the
same thing applies to the Lord Lieutenant.’ The Official said, ‘I
know that.’ We said ‘We did not give in to the Church when Cardinal
Logue denounced the _Countess Cathleen_. We played it under police
protection.’ ‘I never heard of that. Why did he object?’ Yeats
said, ‘For exactly the same objection as is made to the present one,
speeches made by demons in the play.’
“Yeats spoke very seriously then about the principle involved;
pointing out that we were trying to create a model on which a great
national theatre may be founded in the future, that if we accepted
the English Censor’s ruling in Ireland, he might forbid a play like
Wills’ _Robert Emmet_, which Irving was about to act, and was made
to give up for political reasons. He said, ‘You want, in fact, to
have liberty to produce all plays refused by the Censor.’ I said, ‘We
have produced none in the past and not only that, we have refused
plays that we thought would hurt Catholic religious feeling. We
refused, for instance, to produce Synge’s _Tinker’s Wedding_, much
as we uphold his work, because a drunken priest made ridiculous
appears in it. That very play was directly after Synge’s death asked
for by Tree, whom you have been holding up to us, for production in
London.’ He said, ‘I am very sorry attention was drawn to the play.
If no attention had been drawn to it by the papers, we should be all
right. It is so wrong to produce it while the Commission is actually
sitting and the whole question _sub judice_. We are in close official
relation with the English officials of whom the Lord Chamberlain
is one; that is the whole question.’ We said, ‘We see no way out
of it. We are determined to produce the play. We cannot accept the
Censor’s decision as applying to Ireland and you must make up your
mind what course to take, but we ask to be let known as soon as
possible because if we are to be suppressed, we must find places for
our players, who will be thrown out of work.’ He threw up his hands
and exclaimed, ‘Oh, my dear lady, but do not speak of such a thing
as possible!’ ‘Why,’ I asked, ‘what else have you been threatening
all the time?’ He said, ‘Well, the Lord Lieutenant will be here on
Tuesday and will decide. He has not given his attention to the matter
up to this’ (this does not bear out the Crown Solicitor’s story);
‘Perhaps you had better stay to see him.’ I told him that I wanted to
get home, but would stay if absolutely necessary. He said, ‘Oh, yes,
stay and you will probably see Lady Aberdeen also.’”
Mr. Shaw’s next letter was from Kerry where he was motoring. In it
he said: “I saw an _Irish Times_ to-day with _Blanco_ announced for
production; so I presume the Castle has not put its foot down. The
officials made an appalling technical blunder in acting as agents of
the Lord Chamberlain in Ireland; and I worded my telegram in such a
way as to make it clear that I knew the value of that indiscretion.
“I daresay the telegram reached the Castle before it reached you.”
Meanwhile on August 15th I had written to the Castle:
“I am obliged to go home to-morrow, so if you have any news for us,
will you very kindly let us have it at Coole.
“We are, as you know, arranging to produce _Blanco_ on Wednesday,
25th, as advertised and booked for, unless you serve us with a
‘Threatening notice,’ in which case we shall probably postpone it
till September 30th and produce it with the already promised _Œdipus_.
“I am very sorry to have given you so much trouble and worry, and,
as we told you, we had no idea the responsibility would fall on any
shoulders but our own; but I think we have fully explained to you
the reasons that make it necessary for us now to carry the matter
through.”
I received the following answer:
“I am sorry you have been obliged to return to Galway. His
Excellency, who arrived this morning, regrets that he has missed the
opportunity of seeing you and desires me to say that if you wished an
interview with him on Thursday, he would be glad to receive you at
the Viceregal Lodge.
“He will give the subject which has been discussed between us his
earliest attention.”
I received by the same post a long and very kind letter from the
Lord Lieutenant, written with his own hand. I am sorry that it was
marked “Private,” and so I cannot give it here. I may, however, quote
the words that brought us back to Dublin. “It would seem that some
further personal conference might be very desirable and therefore
I hope that it may be possible for you to revisit Dublin on the
earliest available day. I shall, of course, be most happy to have an
opportunity for a talk with Mr. Yeats.”
So my next letter home says: “Friday, 20th. We arrived at the
Broadstone yesterday at 2.15, and were met by the Official’s
secretary, who asked us to go to the Viceregal Lodge. Arrived there,
another secretary came and asked me to go and see the Lord Lieutenant
alone, saying Mr. Yeats could go in later.”
Alas! I must be discreet and that conversation with the King’s
representative must not be given to the world, at least by me. I
can only mention external things: Mr. Yeats, until he joined the
conference, being kept by the secretary, whether from poetical or
political reasons, to the non-committal subject of Spring flowers; my
grieved but necessary contumacy; our joint and immovable contumacy;
the courtesy shown to us and, I think, also by us; the kindly offers
of a cup of tea; the consuming desire for that tea after the dust of
the railway journey all across Ireland; our heroic refusal, lest its
acceptance should in any way, even if it did not weaken our resolve,
compromise our principles.... His Excellency’s gracious nature has
kept no malice and he has since then publicly taken occasion to show
friendship for our Theatre. I felt it was a business forced upon him,
who had used his high office above all for reconcilement, as it was
upon me, who had lived under a peaceful star for some half a hundred
years. I think it was a relief to both of us when at last he asked
us to go on to the Castle and see again “a very experienced Official.”
I may now quote again from my letters: “We found the Official rather
in a temper. He had been trying to hear Lord Aberdeen’s account
of the interview through the telephone and could not. We gave our
account, he rather threatening in tone, repeating a good deal of what
he had said before. He said we should be as much attacked as they,
whatever happened, and that men connected with two newspapers had
told him they were only waiting for an opportunity of attacking not
only the Lord Lieutenant but the Abbey, if the play is allowed; so
we should also catch it. I said, ‘_Après vous_.’ He said Mr. Yeats
had stated in the Patent Enquiry, the Abbey was for the production of
romantic work. I quoted Parnell, ‘Who shall set bounds to the march
of a Nation?’ We told him our Secretary had reported, ‘Very heavy
booking, first class people, _a great many from the Castle_.’
“He said he would see the Lord Lieutenant on his way home. We went to
Dame Street Post Office and wired to Mr. Shaw: ‘Have seen Viceroy.
Deleted immoral relations, refused other cuts. He is writing to King,
who supports Censor.”
Then, as holder of the Patent, I took counsel’s opinion on certain
legal points, of which the most vital was this:
“Should counsel be of opinion that the Crown will serve notice
requiring the play to be discontinued, then counsel will please
say what penalty he thinks querist would expose herself to
by disregarding the notice of the Crown and continuing the
representation?”
The answer to this question was:
“If the theatre ceases to be licensed, as pointed out above, and
any performance for gain takes place there, the penalty under the
26. Geo. III. cap 57, sec. (2) _is £300 for each offence_, to be
recovered in a ‘_qui tam_’ action; one half of the £300 going to the
Rotunda Hospital, the other half to the informer who sues.”
Mr. Yeats and I were just going to a rehearsal at the Abbey on the
evening of August 21st when we received a letter from the Castle,
telling us that a formal legal document, forbidding the performance
of the play, would reach us immediately. The matter had now become
a very grave one. We knew that we should, if we went on and this
threat were carried out, lose not only the Patent but that the few
hundred pounds that we had been able to save and with which we could
have supported our players till they found other work, would be
forfeited. This thought of the players made us waver, and very sadly
we agreed that we must give up the fight. We did not say a word of
this at the Abbey but went on rehearsing as usual. When we had left
the Theatre and were walking through the lamp-lighted streets, we
found that during those two or three hours our minds had come to the
same decision, that we had given our word, that at all risks we must
keep it or it would never be trusted again; that we must in no case
go back, but must go on at any cost.
We wrote a statement in which we told of the pressure put upon us and
the objections made, but of these last we said: “there is nothing
to change our conviction that so far from containing offence for
any sincere and honest mind, Mr. Shaw’s play is a high and weighty
argument upon the working of the Spirit of God in man’s heart, or to
show that it is not a befitting thing for us to set upon our stage
the work of an Irishman, who is also the most famous of living
dramatists, after that work has been silenced in London by what we
believe an unjust decision.
“One thing” we continued, “is plain enough, an issue that swallows
up all else and makes the merit of Mr. Shaw’s play a secondary
thing. If our Patent is in danger, it is because the decisions of
the English Censor are being brought into Ireland, and because the
Lord Lieutenant is about to revive, on what we consider a frivolous
pretext, a right not exercised for a hundred and fifty years to
forbid, at the Lord Chamberlain’s pleasure, any play produced in any
Dublin theatre, all these theatres holding their Patents from him.
“We are not concerned with the question of the English Censorship
now being fought out in London, but we are very certain that the
conditions of the two countries are different, and that we must not,
by accepting the English Censor’s ruling, give away anything of the
liberty of the Irish Theatre of the future. Neither can we accept
without protest the revival of the Lord Lieutenant’s claim at the
bidding of the Censor or otherwise. The Lord Lieutenant is definitely
a political personage, holding office from the party in power, and
what would sooner or later grow into a political Censorship cannot
be lightly accepted.”
Having sent this out for publication, we went on with our rehearsals.
In rehearsal I came to think that there was a passage that would
really seem irreverent and give offence to the genuinely religious
minds we respect. It was where Blanco said: “Yah! What about the
croup? I guess He made the croup when He was thinking of one thing;
and then He made the child when He was thinking of something else;
and the croup got past Him and killed the child. Some of us will have
to find out how to kill the croup, I guess. I think I’ll turn doctor
just on the chance of getting back on Him by doing something He
couldn’t do.”
I wrote to Mr. Shaw about this, and he answered in this very
interesting letter:
“Parknasilla, 19 August, 1909.
“I have just arrived and found all your letters waiting for me. I am
naturally much entertained by your encounters and Yeats’ with the
Castle. I leave that building cheerfully in your hands.
“But observe the final irony of the situation. The English Censorship
being too stupid to see the real blasphemy, makes a fool of itself.
But you, being clever enough to put your finger on it at once,
immediately proceed to delete what Redford’s blunders spared.
“To me, of course, the whole purpose of the play lies in the problem,
‘What about the croup?’ When Lady ----, in her most superior manner,
told me, ‘He is the God of Love,’ I said, ‘He is also the God of
Cancer and Epilepsy.’ That does not present any difficulty to me.
All this problem of the origin of evil, the mystery of pain, and
so forth, does not puzzle me. My doctrine is that God proceeds by
the method of ‘Trial and error,’ just like a workman perfecting an
aeroplane; he has to make hands for himself and brains for himself in
order that his will may be done. He has tried lots of machines--the
diphtheria bacillus, the tiger, the cockroach; and he cannot
extirpate them, except by making something that can shoot them, or
walk on them, or, cleverer still, devise vaccines and anti-toxins to
prey on them. To me the sole hope of human salvation lies in teaching
Man to regard himself as an experiment in the realisation of God,
to regard his hands as God’s hands, his brain as God’s brain, his
purpose as God’s purpose. He must regard God as a helpless longing,
which _longed_ him into existence by its desperate need for an
executive organ. You will find it all in _Man and Super Man_, as you
will find it all behind _Blanco Posnet_. Take it out of my play, and
the play becomes nothing but the old cry of despair--Shakespeare’s,
‘As flies to wanton boys, so we are to the Gods; they kill us for
their sport’--the most frightful blasphemy ever uttered.” Mr. Shaw
enclosed with this the passage rewritten, as it now appears in the
published play.
We put on _Blanco_ on the date announced, the 25th of August. We
were anxious to the last, for counsel were of the opinion that if we
were stopped, it would be on the Clause in the Patent against “Any
representation which should be deemed or construed immoral,” and that
if Archbishop Walsh or Archbishop Peacocke or especially the Head of
the Lord Lieutenant’s own Church, the Moderator of the Presbyterian
Assembly, should say anything which might be “deemed and construed”
to condemn the play, the threats made would be carried out. There
were fears of a riot also, for newspapers and their posters had kept
up the excitement, and there was an immense audience. It is a pity
we had not thought in time of putting up our prices. Guineas were
offered even for standing room in the wings.
The play began, and till near the end it was received in perfect
silence. Perhaps the audience were waiting for the wicked bits to
begin. Then, at the end, there was a tremendous burst of cheering,
and we knew we had won. Some stranger outside asked what was going
on in the Theatre. “They are defying the Lord Lieutenant” was the
answer; and when the crowd heard the cheering, they took it up and it
went far out through the streets.
There were no protests made on any side. And the play, though still
forbidden in England, is still played by us, and always with success.
And even if the protests hoped for had been made and we had suffered,
does not Nietzsche say “A good battle justifies every cause”?