Books and Persons; Being Comments on a Past Epoch, 1908-1911 Part 9

CENSORSHIP BY THE LIBRARIES

[_13 Jan. '10_]

A number of people have been good enough to explain to me that the project of the Circulating Libraries Censorship (now partially "in being") did not originally concern itself with novels, and that, in the first place, it was directed against books of more or less scandalous memoirs. Of this I was well aware. But in writing about the matter I expressly tried to centre its interest on the novel, because the novel is the only important part of the affair. For a year past I have been inveighing against the increasing taste for feeble naughtiness concerning king's mistresses and all that sort of tedious person. And I have remarked on the growing frequency of such words as "fair," "frail," "lover," "enchantress," etc., in the supposed-to-be-alluring t.i.tles of books of historical immorality.

(I presume that these volumes are called for by the respectable, as the _cocotte_ calls for a _creme de menthe_ at a fashionable seaside hotel on a winter Sunday afternoon.) Apparently the circulating libraries also have noticed the growing frequency of such words in their lists. But what they have noticed with more genuine alarm is the growing prices which clever publishers have been putting on such books. It has not escaped the observation of clever publishers that the demand by library subscribers for such books is a very real demand, and clever publishers therefore thought that they might make a little bit extra in this connexion by charging high for volumes brief but scandalous. The libraries thought otherwise. Hence, in truth, the attempted censorship. The now famous moral crusade of the libraries would certainly not have occurred had not the libraries perceived, in the moral pressure which was exercised upon them from lofty regions, the chance of effecting economies. And there is not a circulating library that does not feel an authentic need of economies.

I should have objected to a censorship even of scandalized history, for no censorship ever cured a population of bad taste. But naturally the libraries could not stop at memoirs. They had, in order to be consistent and to talk big about morality, to include novels in their scheme of scavenging. At this point the libraries pa.s.s from futile foolishness to active viciousness, and so encounter the opposition of persons like myself, whose business it is to keep an eye on things.

I can tell a true tale about one of the three great circulating libraries.

A certain man of taste was directing the education in literature of a certain woman. The time came when the woman had to study Balzac. The man gave her a list of t.i.tles of novels by Balzac which she was to read. She went to her library, but could not find, in the list of Balzac's complete "Comedie Humaine" furnished by the library, one of the works which she had been instructed to peruse. Hearing of this, the man, whose curiosity was aroused, called at the library to conduct an inquiry. He had an interview with one of the managers, and the manager at once admitted that their complete list was not complete. "We cannot supply a work with such a t.i.tle," the manager explained. The book was one of the most famous and one of the finest of nineteenth-century novels, "Splendeurs et Miseres des Courtisanes," issued by Messrs. Dent and Co. (surely a respectable firm), with a preface by Professor George Saintsbury (surely a respectable mandarin), under the t.i.tle, "The Harlot's Progress." The man of taste asked, "Have you read the book?" "No," said the manager. "Have you read any of Balzac's novels?" "No," said the manager. "Do you prohibit Galsworthy's 'Man of Property'?" "No," said the manager. "Have you read it?" "No," said the manager. "Do you prohibit Jacob Tonson's last novel?"

"No," said the manager. "Have you read it?" "No," said the manager.

"Well," said the man of taste, "you'd better read one or two of these later writers, and then think over the Balzac question." The manager discreetly replied that he would consult the princ.i.p.al proprietor. The next morning "The Harlot's Progress," in two volumes, was sent round from the library.

But imagine it! Imagine one of the largest circulating libraries in the world, in the year 1909, refusing to supply an established, world-admired, cla.s.sical work of genius because its t.i.tle contains the word "harlot"! In no other European capital, nor in any American capital, could such a monstrously idiotic and disgusting thing happen. It is so preposterous that one cannot realize it all at once. I am a tremendous admirer of England. I have lived too long in foreign parts not to see the fineness of England. But in matters of hypocrisy there is really something very wrong with this island, and the atmosphere of this island is thick enough to choke all artists dead. You can walk up and down the Strand and see photographs of celebrated living harlots all over the place. You can buy them on picture post cards for your daughter. You can see their names even on the posters of high-cla.s.s weekly papers. You can entertain them at the most select fashionable restaurants. Indeed, the shareholders of fashionable restaurants would look very blue without the said harlots.

(Only they aren't called harlots.) But if you desire to read a masterpiece of social fiction, some mirror of cra.s.s stupidity in a circulating library will try to save you from yourself.

[_24 Feb. '10_]

Up Yorkshire way the opponents of freedom have been dealing some effective blows at the Libraries Censorship. They doubtless imagine that they have been supporting the Libraries Censorship; but they are mistaken. Hull has distinguished itself. It is a strange, interesting place. I only set foot in it once; the day was Sunday, and I arrived by sea. I was informed that a man could not get a shave in Hull on Sunday. But I got one. At the last meeting of the Hull Libraries Committee, when "Ann Veronica" was under discussion, Canon Lambert procured for the name of Lambert a free advertis.e.m.e.nt throughout the length and breadth of the country by saying: "I would just as soon send a daughter of mine to a house infected with diphtheria or typhoid fever as put that book into her hands." I doubt it.

I can conceive that, if it came to the point, Canon Lambert's fear of infection and regard for his own canonical skin might move him to offer his daughter "Ann Veronica" in preference to diphtheria and typhoid fever.

Canons who give expression to this kind of babblement must expect what they get in the way of responses. Let the Canon now turn the other cheek, in a Christian spirit, and I will see what I can do for him.

Needless to say, "Ann Veronica" was banned from the Free Public Libraries of free Hull. But I cull the following from the _Hull Daily Mail_: "A local bookseller had thirteen orders for 'Ann Veronica' on Monday, thirty on Tuesday, and scores since. Previously he had no demand." A Canon Lambert in every town would demolish the censorship in less time than it took the Hebrew deity to create the world and the fig-tree.

Canon Lambert, doubtless unconsciously, went wide of the point. The point was not a code for the parental treatment of canons' daughters. England was not waiting for information as to what Canon Lambert would do to a Miss Lambert in a given dilemma. H.G. Wells did not turn up in Hull with a Gatling gun and, turning it on the Canon's abode, threaten to blow the ecclesiastical wigwam to pieces if the canon did not immediately buy a copy of "Ann Veronica" for his daughter to read. n.o.body wants to interfere between the Canon and a Miss Lambert. All that quiet people want is to be left alone to treat their daughters according to their lights. Does Canon Lambert hold that the Hull libraries are to contain no volumes which he would not care for his daughter to read?

The _Hull Daily Mail_ has, I regret to say, taken the side of the Canon.

This is a pity. The Hull paper should be a little more careful about the letters it prints. In a recent issue it allowed a correspondent to call "Ann Veronica" "p.o.r.nographic," which is most distinctly libellous. But possibly the correspondent and the newspaper felt themselves secure in Mr.

Wells's disdain. "Ann Veronica" is not p.o.r.nographic. It is not even indecent. It is utterly decent from end to end. It is also utterly honest.

It is not one of Mr. Wells's major productions. But if a work of an honourable and honoured artist is to be d.a.m.ned because it happens to be inferior to other works of the same artist, Hull ought to consider the awful case of "Measure for Measure." By the way, would Canon Lambert as soon send a Miss Lambert to a house infected with mumps as put "Measure for Measure" into her hands? The _Hull Daily Mail_, taken to task, sheltered itself behind Mr. Clement Shorter and the _Sphere_. I will not discuss Mr. Shorter's singular p.r.o.nouncement upon "Ann Veronica," because I am in a very good humour with him just now for his excellently acid remarks upon the "success" literature of Mr. Peter Keary. But I may remark that Mr. Shorter did not advocate the censoring of the book, nor did he come within seven Irish miles of describing it as p.o.r.nographic.

Canonical people have tried to make capital out of the fact that "Ann Veronica" is not to be found in the public libraries of sundry large towns. But the reason may not be connected with the iconoclasm of "Ann Veronica." In an interview, Mr. T.W. Hand, the librarian at Leeds, said: "I haven't read the book through (Why not?), though I have seen it, and we haven't got it in any of our libraries in Leeds. The reason for this is not the character of the book, but the fact that we never purchase our novels until they have become cheaper." Charming confession! A subscription ought to be opened for poverty-stricken Leeds, which must wait to buy an English book that is or will be translated into every European language, until it has become cheaper! A few weeks ago the country was laughing at little Beverley because its Fathers publicly decided to purchase no fiction less than a year old. But are the great towns any better off?

[_3 Mar. '10_]

Literary censorship in the intellectual centre of the world: I need hardly say that I mean Boston, Ma.s.s. Boston is the city of Harvard University.

It is also the city of the _Atlantic Monthly_. It is also the city of Emerson, Lowell, Longfellow, and Holmes. Boston has a Public Library. It is supposed to be one of the finest public libraries 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 nincomp.o.o.ps 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 p.o.r.nographic 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 allowed a place.

Further, "Anna Karenina," "Resurrection," "Tess," "Jude the Obscure," and "Tono-Bungay" are banned. Further, and still more droll, in the words of a correspondent who has been good enough to send me all sorts of particulars: "A few days ago I applied at the Mitch.e.l.l Library (a reference library in the centre of the town) for Whitman's poems. The attendant procured the volume, but, before handing it to me, consulted one of the senior librarians. This official scrutinized me from a distance of about eight yards and finally nodded his head in acquiescence. The book was then given to me. On the back of it a little red label was affixed. I made inquiry and discovered that books with these labels are only given out to persons of (what shall I say?) good moral appearance."

Nevertheless, we ought to be thankful that we live in Britain. The case of the United States is in some respects far worse than ours. The egregious Sir Robert Anderson has just explained in _Blackwood_ how he established a sort of unofficial censorship of morals at the English Post Office. In the United States an official censorship of mailed matter exists, and the United States Post Office can and does regularly examine the literature entrusted to it, and can and does reject what it deems inimical to the morals of the native land of Jay Gould, James Gordon Bennett, J.D. Rockefeller, and the regretted Harriman. Among other matter which the United States Post Office censorship has recently excluded are the following items:

An extract from an article in the _Fortnightly Review_.

An extract from "Man and Superman."

An article in favour of freedom of the Press reprinted from the Boston's _Woman's Journal_.

An article by Lady Florence Dixie reprinted from a Scottish county paper.

On one occasion the editor of _Lucifer_ had occasion to mention that adultery and fornication had not been criminal offences in England since 1660. The authorities were so aghast at the idea of this information being allowed to creep out that they insisted on the pa.s.sage being deleted. It was.

Further. The Editor of an American paper, on it being suggested to him that he should reprint portions of a criticism of "Measure for Measure,"

by Mr. A.B. Walkley in the _Times_, refused to do so for fear of prosecution. Perhaps the most truly American instance of all is the misfortune that befell the Reverend Mabel McCoy Irwin. The excellent lady began to publish a paper advocating strict chast.i.ty for both s.e.xes. It was excluded from the mails on the ground that no allusion to s.e.x could be tolerated. I reckon this anecdote to be the most exquisitely perfect of all anecdotes that I have ever come across in the diverting history of moral censorships. There is a subtle flavour about that name, Mabel McCoy Irwin, which is indescribably apposite ... McCoy. It is a wonderful world!

I am much indebted to an American correspondent for these delights.

BRIEUX

[_17 Feb. '10_]

I foresee a craze in this country for Brieux. I first perceived its coming one day during an intellectual meal in a green-painted little restaurant in Soho. Whenever I go into Soho I pa.s.s through experiences which send me out again a wiser man. On this occasion I happened to speak lightly of Brieux to a friend of mine, a prominent and influential member of the Stage Society--one of those men in London who think to-day what London will think to-morrow, and what Paris thought yesterday. He was visibly shocked by my tone. His invincible politeness withstood the strain, but the strain was terrible. From this incident alone I was almost ready to prophesy a Brieux craze in London. And now a selection of Brieux's plays is to be published in English in one volume, with a preface by Bernard Shaw. Within a fortnight of the appearance of the book the Brieux craze will exist in full magnificence. Leading articles will contain learned off-hand allusions to Brieux, Brieux and Shaw will be compared and differentiated, and Brieux will be the most serious dramatist in France. I doubt not that Mr. Shaw's preface will be a witty and illuminating affair, and that it will show me agreeable aspects of Brieux's talent which have hitherto escaped me; but if it persuades me that Brieux is an artistically serious dramatist worth twopence, then I will retire from public life and seek a post as third sub-editor on the _British Weekly_.