As a man has no right to kill one of his children if it is diseased or insane, so a man who has made the gradual and conscious expression of his personality in literature the aim of his life, has no right to suppress himself any carefully considered work which seemed good enough when it was written. Suppression, if it is deserved, will come rapidly enough from the same causes that suppress the unworthy members of a man’s family.
ATTRIBUTION:
J.M. (John Millington) Synge (1871–1909), Irish poet, dramatist. Quoted in The Collected Works of J.M. Synge, vol. 1, Introduction (1962).
Draft of a preface in “Notebook 16”; some punctuation has been added to facilitate understanding.
