"Souled."

"By the pricking of my thumbs, Something evil this way comes." —Macbeth.

In the degenerate age in which we live, an immoral play (such as "Souled") runs a grave danger of not being regarded as immoral. It is the function of a Preface to avert this danger. The beauty of a Preface is that no one need read it—the mere fact of its having been written is a sufficient indication of immorality. For the morbidly curious let it be explained that the questions hereinafter dealt with may, by a suitable stretch of the imagination, be regarded as arising out of "Souled."

Are Professors People? A professor will tell you that it is wicked to poke fun at professors, who are the mildest men imaginable. But a student must do it in his own interests. It is essential to a student to ascertain at the earliest possible moment whether or not a professor can stand a joke. If he can, then the student may be confident that professors are people with whom he may properly associate. If he cannot— well, professors are a bad lot, anyway.

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Why Professors are Damned. This is not the first Capping play in which a professor has been consigned to Hell. Usually, however, it is a particular professor. In this case, the professor is not at all particular, or he wouldn't have found himself in Hell. Students love to conceive of a professor in Hell for various reasons. A poor over-worked student finds refreshment in the thought of a professor perspiring on his own account. There is considerable diversion to be obtained from speculating upon the reactions of a professor who discovers himself in a place which he doesn't believe in and cannot quite approve of. But, more than anything else, the introduction of Hell into a University has a pleasantly disturbing effect upon the highly conventionalised thought-patterns of University people.

Has a Professor a Soul? The play assumes that he has, even though it be only for sale. The professor's own opinion is no guide, for a professor would be the first to admit that, while he knows a lot about something, he doesn't know all there is to be known about everything.

Has a Politician a Soul? By incidentally conceding a soul to the politician, however, the play outrages all probability, for no one who is so mistaken as to be alive in these times can doubt that the politician is soulless. A professor who believed himself to possess a soul would never dream of selling it. A politician would sell his own and the souls of everybody else as well, and for no better reason than that he had the power to do so.

Why is the Private Secretary in Hell? The only possible answer to this is that somebody must do the dirty work.