He may call his cook (Moliere used to do
that) from below and give her five acts to judge every morning as a
matter of constant practice and still remain the unquestioned destroyer
of men's honest work. He may have a glass too much. This accident has
happened to persons of unimpeachable morality--to gentlemen. He may
suffer from spells of imbecility like Clodius. He may . . . what might
he not do! I tell you he is the Caesar of the dramatic world. There has
been since the Roman Principate nothing in the way of irresponsible power
to compare with the office of the Censor of Plays.
Looked at in this way it has some grandeur, something colossal in the
odious and the absurd. This figure in whose power it is to suppress an
intellectual conception--to kill thought (a dream for a mad brain, my
masters!)--seems designed in a spirit of bitter comedy to bring out the
greatness of a Philistine's conceit and his moral cowardice.
But this is England in the twentieth century, and one wonders that there
can be found a man courageous enough to occupy the post. It is a matter
for meditation. Having given it a few minutes I come to the conclusion
in the serenity of my heart and the peace of my conscience that he must
be either an extreme megalomaniac or an utterly unconscious being.
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