Were it otherwise, one would be amazed. The French always have been, and still are, very candid in the use of language; whilst we for a long time past have been prudish to an extent sometimes comic. Readers of Laurence Sterne can hardly deny that the English tongue enables one to be indelicate in idea whilst decent in expression, and it is noteworthy that this writer, so often censured for the immodest salt of his wit, is one of those who comment with surprise upon the simple frankness of the French of his time. There is an episode in "Tristram Shandy," or "The Sentimental Journey" concerning a lady, the author and a carriage drive, which shows this very well; but the printers would strike if asked to set it up in these chaste pages.
Our own native prudery, enriched by a quantity imported from the United States, has led to an immense hypocrisy of language, and consequently to an extraordinary facility in hinting unseemly ideas which on the French stage would be expressed bluntly. It is true that, so far as love is concerned, the French have invented a funny little language of prudery for the benefit of schoolgirls, and countless books have been printed, and received the benediction of Monseigneur l'Archevêque de Tours, in which the word tambour is printed instead of the word amour, and so on. By-the-by, it is rather 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 representatives of English cant, hypocrisy and prudery, and one advantage that must follow from the abolition, if it comes, will be the ousting of the comedy of indecent suggestion by the drama of honest candour. He possesses his little vocabulary in which tambour passes for amour, and in fact his office has been worked on the ostrich head-in-the-sand system for many years past. The chief duty of the official has been to prevent people from calling a spade a spade, and most, though not all, of the pieces banned would have obtained a licence if in place of straightforward phrase the author had employed some hypocritical, prudish suggestion.
Who doubts that a licensed English version of Monna Vanna could have been prepared, although fully giving to the audience the meaning of the awful line, "Nue sous son manteau"? One may doubt the comic story that Mr Redford mistook the sous for sans. The motto for the office, if it has a crest, should be the famous line from a music-hall song: "It ain't exac'ly wot 'e sez, it's the narsty way 'e sez it."
No wonder foreigners are puzzled by our theatre. The Parisian sees a Palais Royal farce played before an audience of which many members are girls in the bread-and-butter stage. In his great city maidens are—or, at least, were—not allowed to enter the theatre so long famous for its naughty farces. He gasps; he wonders whether the English mees is as innocent as she looks—or used to look—and does not know the perfide tongue of the perfide Albion well enough to be aware that nothing shocking is said, and that it is pretended that the cocotte is a mere kindly friend, the collage a trifling flirtation, the debauche a viceless lark, and that the foulest conduct of husband or wife does not reach a real breach of the commandment more often broken in England than the rest of the sacred ten.
The real sin of the Censor's office lies as much in what it permits as in what it forbids; and a growing sense of decency in the public is displacing prudery so that the abolition of the office will not cause the ill-results announced by the managers, who regard the existence of the Censor as valuable to them, because it frees them from responsibility and enables them to gratify the taste of the prurient prude, the person who revels in and blushes at the indelicacy of his own thoughts.
[Moral Effect on Audience ]
There was quite a pretty hubbub in theatredom caused by a circular letter of "The Church Pastoral Aid Society," calling upon incumbents and curates to regard theatrical performances as "a serious menace to the spiritual influence of the Church," and suggesting that in future they should refuse to take money raised by means of theatrical performances, or by bazaars or whist-drives or dances. Of course, all people connected with the theatres were very indignant at the insult implied; whilst, on the other hand, many parsons and Nonconformist ministers rushed into print and said very unflattering things about the stage.