Then, as to public amusements, we have to look quite as closely and distrustfully at the action of the reformers as we have at the action of the kind gentlefolk who are going to give us “Daniel Deronda” and the highly entertaining works of Mr. William Deans Howells in place of the dear welcome stories that pass away the long hours.  Let it be understood that I do not wish to say one word likely to be construed into a jeer at real culture; but I must, as a matter of mercy, say something in defence of those who cannot understand or win emotions from such things as classical music or the “advanced” drama.  Pray, in pity’s name, what is to be said against the commonplace man who hears an accomplished musician play Beethoven, Bach, or Chopin in his—­the commonplace one’s—­drawing-room, and who says in agony, “Very fine!  Very deep!  Very profound—­profound indeed, sir!  Full of breadth and symmetry and that sort of thing!  Now do you think we might vary that noble masterpiece with a waltz?” Can we blame the poor fellow?  Wagner represents a noise to him, and the awful scorn and despair of the first movement in the “Moonlight Sonata” only lead him to say, “Heavy play with that left hand.  Can’t he go faster over the treble, or whatever they call it?” He wants intelligible musical ideas, and we have no right to begin “level-raising” with the unhappy and remonstrant man.  The music halls in London are now under strict supervision, and some of them used to need it very much in days gone by.  Personally I should suppress the male comic singer who tries to win a laugh from degraded listeners by unseemly means, and I should not scruple to draft a short Act ensuring imprisonment for such as he; but, so long as the entertainment remains inoffensive to the general good sense of the community, we need not weep greatly if it is sometimes just a trifle stupid.  No one who does not know the inner life of the working-classes can imagine how restricted are their interests.  Moreover, I shall venture on making a somewhat startling statement which may surprise those who look on the surface of things as indicated in the newspapers.  The working-classes of a certain grade cherish a certain convention regarding themselves, but they do not understand their own set at all.  If they heard a real mechanic or labourer spouting sentiment in the shop or the club, they would silence him very summarily; but the stage working-man, the stage hawker, the stage tinker may utter any claptrap that he likes, and the audience try to believe that they might possibly have been able to talk in the same way but for circumstances.  It is not at any time pleasant to see people going on under a delusion; but, supposing the delusion is no worse than that of the man who thinks himself handsome or witty or fascinating while he is really plain or silly or a bore, what can the mistake matter to anybody?  We smile at the little vanity, and perhaps pride ourselves a little on our own remarkable superiority, and there