illusion of final
certitude attained in morals, intellect and conscience.

It was a disagreeable impression. But I reflected that probably the
censorship of plays was an inactive monstrosity; not exactly a survival,
since it seemed obviously at variance with the genius of the people, but
an heirloom of past ages, a bizarre and imported curiosity preserved
because of that weakness one has for one's old possessions apart from any
intrinsic value; one more object of exotic _virtu_, an Oriental
_potiche_, a _magot chinois_ conceived by a childish and extravagant
imagination, but allowed to stand in stolid impotence in the twilight of
the upper shelf.

Thus I quieted my uneasy mind. Its uneasiness had nothing to do with the
fate of my one-act play. The play was duly produced, and an
exceptionally intelligent audience stared it coldly off the boards. It
ceased to exist. It was a fair and open execution. But having survived
the freezing atmosphere of that auditorium I continued to exist,
labouring under no sense of wrong. I was not pleased, but I was content.
I was content to accept the verdict of a free and independent public,
judging after its conscience the work of its free, independent and
conscientious servant--the artist.

Only thus can the dignity of artistic servitude be preserved--not to
speak of the bare existence of the artist and the self-respect of the
man. I shall say nothing of the self-respect of the public. To the self-
respect of the public the present appeal against the censorship is being
made and I join in it with all my heart.

For I have lived long enough to learn that the monstrous and outlandish
figure, the _magot chinois_ whom I believed to be but a memorial of our
forefathers' mental aberration, that grotesque _potiche_, works! The
absurd and hollow creature of clay seems to be alive with a sort of
(surely) unconscious life worthy of its traditions. It heaves its
stomach, it rolls its eyes, it brandishes a monstrous arm: and with the
censorship, like a Bravo of old Venice with a more carnal weapon, stabs
its victim from behind in the twilight of its upper shelf. Less
picturesque than the Venetian in cloak and mask, less estimable, too, in
this, that the assassin plied his moral trade at his own risk deriving no
countenance from the powers of the Republic, it stands more malevolent,
inasmuch that the Bravo striking in the dusk killed but the body, whereas
the grotesque thing nodding it