Sir William
replied: "I should say there is a very wide distinction between
what is read and what is seen. In a novel one may read that
'Eliza stripped off her dressing-gown and stepped into her bath'
without any harm; but I think if that were presented on the stage
it would be shocking." All the stupid and inconsiderate people
seized eagerly on this illustration as if it were a successful
attempt to prove that without a censorship we should be unable to
prevent actresses from appearing naked on the stage. As a matter
of fact, if an actress could be persuaded to do such a thing (and
it would be about as easy to persuade a bishop's wife to appear
in church in the same condition) the police would simply arrest
her on a charge of indecent exposure. The extent to which this
obvious safeguard was overlooked may be taken as a measure of the
thoughtlessness and frivolity of the excuses made for the
censorship. It should be added that the artistic representation
of a bath, with every suggestion of nakedness that the law as to
decency allows, is one of the most familiar subjects of scenic
art. From the Rhine maidens in Wagner's Trilogy, and the bathers
in the second act of Les Huguenots, to the ballets of water
nymphs in our Christmas pantomimes and at our variety theatres,
the sound hygienic propaganda of the bath, and the charm of the
undraped human figure, are exploited without offence on the stage
to an extent never dreamt of by any novelist.
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