A play is a railway journey by an express train--forty miles an hour,
and from time to time ten minutes stop for the intermissions; and if the
locomotive ceases rushing and hissing you hiss.

All this does not mean that there are no dramatic masterpieces which do
not run so fast or that there was not an author of great talent,
Molière, who often brought about his ending by the grace of God. Only,
let me add that to secure absolution for the last act of 'Tartuffe' you
must have written the first four.

Ernest Legouvé.

* * * * *




VIII.

From Édouard Pailleron.


You ask me how a play is made, my dear Dreyfus. I may well astonish you,
perhaps, but on my soul and honor, before God and man, I assure to you
that I know nothing about it, that you know nothing, that nobody knows
anything, and that the author of a play knows less about it than any one
else.

You don't believe me?