thousand-legged creature which must keep on going. If it slows up, the
public yawns; if it stops, the public hisses.

To write a sprightly play you must have a good digestion. Sprightliness
resides in the stomach.

Eugène Labiche.

* * * * *




VII.

From Ernest Legouvé.


You ask me how a play is made.

By beginning at the end.

A novel is quite a different matter.

Walter Scott, the great Walter Scott, sat down of a morning at his
study-table, took six sheets of paper and wrote 'Chapter One,' without
knowing anything else about his story than the first chapter. He set
forth his characters, he indicated the situation; then situation and
characters got out of the affair as best they could. They were left to
create themselves by the logic of events.