truth, all the truth. Let me add quickly that they have an excuse, which
is that they do not know the truth;--they have rarely been told it. They
therefore wish to be flattered, pitied, consoled, taken away from their
preoccupations and their worries, which are nearly all due to ignorance,
but which they consider the greatest and most unmerited to be found
anywhere, because their own.

This is not all; by a curious optical effect, the spectators always see
themselves in the personages who are good, tender, generous, heroic whom
we place on the boards; and in the personages who are vicious or
ridiculous they never see anyone but their neighbors. How can you expect
then that the truth we tell them can do them any good?

But I see that I am not answering your question at all.

You ask me to tell you how a play is made, and I tell you, or rather I
try to tell you, what must be put into it.

Well, my dear friend, if you want me to be quite frank, I'll own up
that I don't know how to write a play. One day a long time ago, when I
was scarcely out of school, I asked my father the same question. He
answered: "It's very simple; the first act clear, the last act short,
and all the acts interesting."

The recipe is in reality very simple. The only thing that is needed in
addition is to know how to carry it out. There the difficulty begins.
The man to whom this recipe is given is somewhat like the cat that has
found a nut. He turns it in every direction with his paw because he
hears something moving in the shell--but he can't open it. In other
words, there are those whom from their birth know how to write a play (I