You like only what is unreal,
and, when you are shown a character which is supposed in some
mysterious way to resemble you, you are more than delighted, and you
applaud a thing which is either a silly caricature or an utterly
foolish libel." The poor and lowly personage thus hailed with cutting
denunciation and logic might say, "Please mind your own business. Do
you pay my sixpence for the gallery? No; I find it myself, and I come
to have my bit of fun with my own money, in my own place, at my own
price. I have enough of workshops and streets and what you call real
things; so, when I come out to the play, I want them all unreal, and
as unreal as possible. Monday morning's time enough to go back to
reality." As often as ever fussy reformers try to do more than ensure
propriety in theatres, so often will they be beaten; and I am quite
sure that, if any attempt is made to go too far, we may have on any
day a repetition of the O.P. riots, which almost ended in the wrecking
of the patent playhouses. Let us be treated like grown beings, and not
as if we were still in short baby-frocks. Men resent many things, but
they resent being made ridiculous more than all.
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