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I should have objected to a censorship even of scandalized history, for no censorship ever cured a population of bad taste.  But naturally the libraries could not stop at memoirs.  They had, in order to be consistent and to talk big about morality, to include novels in their scheme of scavenging.  At this point the libraries pass from futile foolishness to active viciousness, and so encounter the opposition of persons like myself, whose business it is to keep an eye on things.

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I can tell a true tale about one of the three great circulating libraries.  A certain man of taste was directing the education in literature of a certain woman.  The time came when the woman had to study Balzac.  The man gave her a list of titles of novels by Balzac which she was to read.  She went to her library, but could not find, in the list of Balzac’s complete “Comedie Humaine” furnished by the library, one of the works which she had been instructed to peruse.  Hearing of this, the man, whose curiosity was aroused, called at the library to conduct an inquiry.  He had an interview with one of the managers, and the manager at once admitted that their complete list was not complete.  “We cannot supply a work with such a title,” the manager explained.  The book was one of the most famous and one of the finest of nineteenth-century novels, “Splendeurs et Miseres des Courtisanes,” issued by Messrs. Dent and Co. (surely a respectable firm), with a preface by Professor George Saintsbury (surely a respectable mandarin), under the title, “The Harlot’s Progress.”  The man of taste asked, “Have you read the book?” “No,” said the manager.  “Have you read any of Balzac’s novels?” “No,” said the manager.  “Do you prohibit Galsworthy’s ’Man of Property’?” “No,” said the manager.  “Have you read it?” “No,” said the manager.  “Do you prohibit Jacob Tonson’s last novel?” “No,” said the manager.  “Have you read it?” “No,” said the manager.  “Well,” said the man of taste, “you’d better read one or two of these later writers, and then think over the Balzac question.”  The manager discreetly replied that he would consult the principal proprietor.  The next morning “The Harlot’s Progress,” in two volumes, was sent round from the library.

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But imagine it!  Imagine one of the largest circulating libraries in the world, in the year 1909, refusing to supply an established, world-admired, classical work of genius because its title contains the word “harlot”!  In no other European capital, nor in any American capital, could such a monstrously idiotic and disgusting thing happen.  It is so preposterous that one cannot realize it all at once.  I am a tremendous admirer of England.  I have lived too long in foreign parts not to see the fineness of England.  But in matters of hypocrisy there is really something very wrong with this island, and