The Invisible Censor

This is possibly why Samuel Butler, in his autobiographical way, is so remarkable as a Victorian. In the midst of innumerable edifying figures, he declined to edify. When people said to him, “Honor thy father and thy mother”, he answered in effect that his father was a pinhead theologian who had wanted to cripple his mentality, and his mother was, to use his own phrase, full of the seven deadly virtues. This was not decorous but it had the merit of being true. And all the people whose unbidden censors had been forcing good round impulses into stubborn parental polygons immediately felt the relief of this revelation. Not all of them confess it. When they have occasion to speak or write about “mothers”—as if the biological act of parturition brings with it an unquestionable “mother” psyche—most of them still allow the invisible censor to govern them and represent them as having feelings not really their own. But even this persistence of the censor could not deprive Samuel Butler of his effectiveness. He has spoken out, regardless of edification, and that sort of work cannot be undone.