ather quaint that the Archbishop of Tours should
be chosen as godfather of these superchaste books, seeing that Touraine
has a rather famous reputation for naughty stories, and Balzac alleges
that his naughty "Contes Drolatiques" are "Colliges ez Abbayes de
Touraine." It would be remarkable if the French tongue lent itself as
easily as ours to the _double entente_.

We have a far larger vocabulary available and in common use, and we
possess slang not only of the different nations constituting the United
Kingdom, but also slang from the United States, and from our Colonies,
whilst we have a lawlessness in the use of our language not permitted to
the French. There are disadvantages as well as advantages from this, for
as a result our tongue is abominably rich in ambiguities, and it is a
common observation that French scientific works are clearer than ours,
not only because the nation is more logical, but also on account of the
fact that the language is more precise. Some people, no doubt, fancy
that the French dramatists are conveying indelicate ideas delicately,
because they do not exactly understand what is being said or sung.
Remarks have been made about the subtlety of French after speeches and
songs which, if literally translated, would have cleared the house. "_Ne
rien comprendre c'est tout gober_" is a convenient twist of language.
Did not Yvette Guilbert sing publicly in London the song with the
refrain "_Hors du mariage_" ... we must stop there.

Our stage has suffered because our dramatists have been able to get much
of the indelicate fun out of French farces by using, hypocritically,
decent phrases which all parties understand in a bad sense whilst
pretending to see nothing shocking in them; for without this elasticity
of our tongue British playwrights would have been thrown upon their own
resources. Nowadays our playwrights have to some extent abandoned their
subservience to France, and it is noticeable that those who take their
work seriously, and deal with the difficult questions of life sincerely,
are showing a tendency to abandon the language of suggestion, to give up
hinting, and to avoid the _double entente_. The result is that many
prudes are shocked, and people who have no real objection to certain
subjects or ideas denounce plays embodying them because this hypocrisy
of language has been abandoned.

The Censor, of course, is one obstacle to plain speaking. He and his
office are the superb representa