ortune that befell the Reverend Mabel McCoy Irwin. The excellent lady
began to publish a paper advocating strict chastity for both sexes. It was
excluded from the mails on the ground that no allusion to sex 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 pass 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_.

* * * * *

Brieux is a man with moral ideas. I will admit even that he is dominated
by moral ideas, which, if they are sometimes crude, are certainly
righteous. He is a reformer and a passionate reformer. But a man can be a
passionate reformer, with a marked turn for eloquence, and yet not be a
serious dramatist. Dr. Clifford is a reformer; Mr. Henniker Heaton is a
passionate reform