It is just because public opinion is so potent, and, like all other
powers, so potent either for good or for evil, that its present
disastrous workings are the more deplorable. It is not unimaginable
that prudery might undergo a sort of transmutation. As I have said
before, we might make a eugenist of Mrs. Grundy, so that she might be as
much affronted by a criminal marriage as she is now by the spectacle of
a healthy and well-developed baby appearing unduly soon after its
parents' marriage. The power is there, and it means well, though it does
disastrously ill. Public opinion ought to be decided upon these matters;
it ought to be powerful and effective. We shall never come out into the
daylight until it is; we shall not be saved by laws, nor by medical
knowledge, nor by the admonitions of the Churches. Our salvation lies
only in a healthy public opinion, not less effective and not more
well-meaning than public opinion is at present, but informed where it is
now ignorant, and profoundly impressed with the importance of realities
as it now is with the importance of appearances.
So much having been said, what can one suggest in the direction of
remedy? First, surely it is something that we merely recognize the price
of prudery. Personally, I find that it has made all the difference to my
calculations to have had the thing pointed out by the clerical critic
whose eye these words may possibly meet.
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