e would try to define it, and he began by
remarking that it seemed to be largely composed of the kind of persons
who at the theatre audibly interpret the action to one another. The
present company must have heard them?

His listeners again assented. Was the new reading public drawn from the
theatre-going, or more definitely speaking, the matinee class?

There was something odd, there, the philosopher returned. The matinee
class was as large as ever: larger; while the new reading public,
perfectly interchangeable with it in its intellectual pleasure and
experiences, had suddenly outnumbered it a thousandfold. The popular
novel and the popular play were so entirely of one fibre and texture,
and so easily convertible, that a new novel was scarcely in every one's
bread-trough before it was on the boards of all the theatres. This led
some to believe that we were experiencing a revival of the drama, and
that if we kept on having authors who sold half a million copies we
could not help having a Shakespeare by-and-by: he must follow.

One of those listening asked, But how had these people begun so
instantaneously to form themselves into this new innumerable reading
public? If they were of that quality of mind which requires the
translation of an unmistakable meaning from the players to the
playgoers, they must find themselves helpless when grappling in solitude
with the sense of a book. Why did not they go increasingly to the
theatre instead of turning so overwhelmingly to the printed word?

The philosopher replied that they had not now begun to do this, but only
seemed to have begun, since there really was no beginning in anything.
The readers had always been in the immense majority, because they could
read anywhere, and they could see plays only in the cities and towns. If
the theatre were universal, undoubtedly they would prefer plays, because
a play makes far less draft upon the mental capacities or energies than
the silliest book; and what seemed their effort to interpret it to one
another might very well be the exchange of their delight in it. The
books they preferred were of the nature of poor plays, full of "easy
things to understand," cheap, common incidents, obvious motives, and
vulgar passions, such as had been used a thousand times over in
literature. They were fitted for the new reading public for this reason;
the constant repetition of the same characters, events, scenes, plots,
gave their infantile minds the p