"My view, perhaps, is narrower than yours, Roger," Henry said, "but I see all these people chiefly as men and women who are shut out of things: books and pictures and plays and music and all the decent things. I don't believe that if they had the chance they would all read Meredith and admire Whistler and go to see Shaw's plays and want to listen to Wagner ... that's not the point, and anyhow the middle and the upper classes are not all marvellously cultured. My point is that their lives are such that they don't even know of Meredith and Whistler and Shaw and Wagner. They don't even know of the second-rate people or the third rate. Magnolia, for instance ... I suppose she reads novelettes, and when she grows out of novelettes, she won't read anything. And she can't afford to go to a West End theatre.... When I think of these people, millions of 'em, I think of them as people like Magnolia, completely shut out of things like that, not even aware of them...." They spent the remainder of the evening in argument, their talk ranging over the wide field of human activity. They established a system of continual criticism of existing institutions. "Challenge everything," said Gilbert; "make it justify its existence." They tried to discover the truth about things, to shed their prejudices and to see the facts of life exactly as they were. "The great thing is to get rid of Slop!" said Roger. "We've got to convince the judge as well as move the jury. It isn't enough to make the jury feel sloppy ... any ass can do that. You've got to convince the old chap on the bench or you won't get a verdict. That's my belief, and I believe, too, that the jury is more likely to listen to reason than people imagine!" They did not finish their argument that evening nor on any particular evening. They were spread over a long period, and were part of the process of clearing their minds of cobwebs.