him, the image is extravagant; yet if the fundamental theme is, as I suppose, that every atom of Romeo is precious, this mad but natural passion for the bits, even, of what she loves, is expressed truly. But this sort of sincere fiction, though it may put the Censor to sleep if he does not quite understand what it signifies, is the very opposite of his own shams; it is exuberance and these are suppression. If the Censor could have got at Juliet in time, she would have expressed herself quite differently. Wiping her prospective tears he would have said, "What is Romeo's body to me? Our spirits will be reunited in heaven!" This would have been a sham; because we should now not be led to understand that Juliet loved the eyes and the hands and the lips of Romeo--which was the fact to be expressed--but on the contrary her idolatrous infatuation would have been hushed up, and something else, an empty convention contradicting her true feeling, would have been substituted for it. The Censor may not be useless to the poet in the end, because the need of shamming develops sensitiveness in some directions, as in that, for instance, of self-consciousness. The vigour of art in England may depend on the possibility of using the fineness of perception which reticence enhances in order to invent new metaphors and allegories by which to express the heart. Could a vigorous English art, for instance, ever give expression to the erotic passion which, according to this latest psychology, plays such a great part in the Psyche? The comic vein of English writers commonly stops short at the improper. This is doubtless a wise modesty on their part, because every artist is a moralist, though he need not preach; like Orpheus he tames the simple soul to his persuasive measures; he insinuates his preferences and his principles, he teaches us what to love: and to discover what we truly love is the whole of ethics. Now if any passion were sinful and really shameful in itself, it ought not to enter at all into human life, either through the door of art or through any other door. Conceivably a perfect expression might still be given to it technically, although even this is improbable if the artist had a bad conscience and a leering eye; but this expression, good only from an abstracted point of view, would be on the whole an evil experience and an evil possession. If the early Christians and the Puritans and a whole cloud of mystics and ascetics everywhere have been right in thinking the flesh essentially sinful, the Censor must not be allowed to flinch; on the contrary, he must considerably extend his operations. If you renounce the flesh you must renounce the world; things called indecent or obscene are inextricably woven into the texture of human existence; there can be no completely honest comedy without them. Life itself would have to be condemned as sinful; we should deny that anything harmonious, merry, or sweet could be made of it, either in the world or on the stage.