Coote, the secretary of the Association, was asked if
Shakespeare had not written many very reprehensible passages. Mr.
Coote was obliged to admit that he had, and when asked why the
Association he represented did mot proceed against Shakespeare he
answered because Shakespeare wrote beautifully. A strangely immoral
doctrine, for if the license of expression that Shakespeare availed
himself of be harmful, Shakespeare should be prosecuted; that he wrote
beautifully is no defense whatever. Life comes before literature, and
the Vigilance Association lays itself open to a charge of neglect of
duty by not proceeding at once against Shakespeare and against all
those who have indulged in the same license of expression. The members
and their secretary have indeed set themselves a stiff job, but they
must not shrink from it if they would avoid shocking other people's
moral sense by exhibiting themselves in the light of mere busybodies
with a taste for what boys and old men speak of as "spicy bits."
Proceedings will have to be taken against all the literature that Mr.
Coote believes to be harmful (I accept him as the representative of
the ideas of his Association), and the plea must not be raised again
that because a reprehensible passage is well written it should be
acquitted.
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