ment
Romantique_, or _la facon de M. Scribe de menager la situation_.

Why not write a comedy? So the thought came. I had never written anything
save a few ill-spelt letters; but no matter. To find a plot, that was the
first thing to do. Take Marshall for hero and Alice for heroine, surround
them with the old gentlemen who dined at the _table d'hote_, flavour
with the Italian countess who smoked cigars when there were not too many
strangers present. After three weeks of industrious stirring, the
ingredients did begin to simmer into something resembling a plot. Put it
upon paper. Ah! there was my difficulty. I remembered suddenly that I had
read "Cain," "Manfred," "The Cenci," as poems, without ever thinking of how
the dialogue looked upon paper; besides, they were in blank verse. I hadn't
a notion how prose dialogue would look upon paper. Shakespeare I had never
opened; no instinctive want had urged me to read him. He had remained,
therefore, unread, unlooked at. Should I buy a copy? No; the name repelled
me--as all popular names repelled me. In preference I went to the Gymnase,
and listened attentively to a comedy by M. Dumas _fils_. But strain my
imagination as I would, I could not see the spoken words in their written
form. Oh, for a look at the prompter's copy, the corner of which I could
see when I leaned forward! At last I discovered in Galignani's library a
copy of Leigh Hunt's edition of the old dramatists, and after a month's
study of Congreve Wycherley, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar, I completed a comedy
in three acts, which I entitled "Worldliness." It was, of course, very bad;
but, if my memory serves me well, I do not think it was nearly so bad as
might be imagined.

No sooner was the last scene written than I started at once for London,
confident I should find no difficulty in getting my play produced.

CHAPTER III

Is it necessary to say that I did not find a manager to produce my play? A
printer was more attainable, and the correction of proofs amused me for a
while. I wrote another play; and when the hieing after theatrical managers
began to lose its attractiveness my thoughts reverted to France, which
always haunted me; and which now possessed me as if with the sweet and
magnetic influence of home.

How important my absence from Paris seemed to me; and how Paris rushed into
my eyes!--Paris--public ball-rooms, _cafes_, the models in the studio
and the young girls painting, and Marshall, Alice, and