urely accidental; it is not that of age or
of merit.) It is always entertaining to encounter M. Francisque Sarcey,
and the reader who, during a Paris winter, has been in the habit, of a
Sunday evening, of unfolding his "Temps" immediately after unfolding
his napkin, and glancing down first of all to see what this sturdy
_feuilletoniste_ has found to his hand--such a reader will find him in
great force in the pages before us. It is true that, though I myself
confess to being such a reader, there are moments when I grow rather
weary of M. Sarcey, who has in an eminent degree both the virtues and
the defects which attach to the great French characteristic--the habit
of taking terribly _au serieux_ anything that you may set about doing.
Of this habit of abounding in one's own cause, of expatiating,
elaborating, reiterating, refining, as if for the hour the fate of
mankind were bound up with one's particular topic, M. Sarcey is a
capital and at times an almost comical representative. He talks about
the theatre once a week as if--honestly, between himself and his
reader--the theatre were the only thing in this frivolous world that
is worth seriously talking about. He has a religious respect for his
theme, and he holds that if a thing is to be done at all, it must be
done in detail as well as in the gross.

It is to this serious way of taking the matter, to his thoroughly
businesslike and professional attitude, to his unwearying attention to
detail, that the critic of the "Temps" owes his enviable influence and
the weight of his words. Add to this that he is sternly incorruptible.
He has his admirations, but they are honest and discriminating; and
whom he loveth he very often chasteneth. He is not ashamed to commend
Mlle. X., who has only had a curtsey to make, if her curtsey has been
_the_ curtsey of the situation; and he is not afraid to overhaul M. A.,
who has delivered the _tirade_ of the play, if M. A. has failed to hit
the mark. Of course his judgment is good; when I have had occasion to
measure it, I have usually found it excellent. He has the scenic
sense--the theatrical eye. He knows at a glance what will do, and what
won't do. He is shrewd and sagacious and almost tiresomely in earnest,
but this closes the list of his attractions. He is not witty--to speak
of; and he is not graceful; he is heavy and common, and above all what
is familiarly called "shoppy." He leans his elbows on his desk, and
does up his weekly budge