To all it uncurtains a world, not that in which they live and yet
not other than it--a world in which interest is heightened whilst the
conditions of truth are observed, in which the capabilities of men and
women are seen developed without losing their consistency to nature,
and developed with a curious and wholesome fidelity to simple and
universal instincts of clear right and wrong. Be it observed--and I
put it most uncompromisingly--I am not speaking or thinking of any
unrealizable ideal, not of any lofty imagination of what might be, but
of what is, wherever there are pit and gallery and foot-lights. More
or less, and taking one evening with another, you may find support
for an enthusiastic theory of stage morality and the high tone of
audiences in most theatres in the country; and if you fancy that it
is least so in the theatres frequented by the poor you make a great
mistake, for in none is the appreciation of good moral fare more
marked than in these.

In reference to the poorer classes, we all lament the wide prevalence
of intemperate drinking. Well, is it not an obvious reflection that
the worst performance seen on any of our stages cannot be so bad as
drinking for a corresponding time in a gin-palace? I have pointed this
contrast before, and I point it again. The drinking we deplore takes
place in company--bad company; it is enlivened by talk--bad talk. It
is relished by obscenity. Where drink and low people come together
these things must be. The worst that can come of stage pandering to
the corrupt tastes of its basest patrons cannot be anything like this,
and, as a rule, the stage holds out long against the invitation to
pander; and such invitations, from the publicity and decorum that
attend the whole matter, are neither frequent nor eager. A sort of
decency sets in upon the coarsest person in entering even the roughest
theatre. I have sometimes thought that, considering the liability to