al I had formed. Many and many a
time I had pictured him to myself tall and thin and pale, with large
black eyes raised heavenwards, and hair curling naturally on a forehead
shadowed by melancholy! In reality, Monsieur Jules Sandeau is a good
stout fellow, with broad, stalwart shoulders, a tendency to premature
obesity, small, bright, gentle, acute eyes, a head as bald as my knee,
rather thick lips, and a rubicund complexion; he has an air of
good-nature and simplicity which excludes everything like sentimental
exaggeration; he wears a black cravat tied negligently around a muscular
neck; in fine, he looks like a sub-lieutenant dressed in
citizen's-clothes. I got over this shock, and hunted all through the
bill of fare, (which, as you know, forms in Paris a duodecimo volume of
a good many pages,) trying my best to discover some romantic dish and
some supernal _liqueur_, until he cut short my chase by suggesting a
dinner of the most vulgar solidity; and when I tried to retrieve this
commonplace dinner by ordering for dessert some vapory _liqueurs_, such
as uncomprehended women sip, he proposed a glass of brandy. This was my
first literary deception.

A theatrical newspaper was lying on the table. It contained an account
of a piece played the evening before. The writer spoke of the play as a
masterpiece, and of the performance as being one of those triumphs which
form an epoch in the history of dramatic art. I read this panegyric with
avidity, and exclaimed,--

"Oh, what a glorious thing success is! How happy that author must be!"

"He!" replied Monsieur Sandeau, smiling; "he is mortified to death; his
play is execrable, and it fell flat."

"You must be mistaken!"

"I was present at the performance; and I have no reason to be pleased at
the miscarriage of the piece, for I am neither an enemy nor an intimate
friend of the author."

Monsieur Jules Sandeau then went on to explain to me how the theatrical
newspapers, which contain the lists of performers and of pieces in all
the theatres of Paris, (play-bills being unknown,) enter into a
contract, which is the condition precedent of their sale in the
theatres, stipulating that they will never speak otherwise than in
praise of the pieces brought out. The report of the new piece is often
written and set up before the performance takes place.

I blushed and said,--

"That is deplorable! But, thank Heaven! these are only the Grub-Street
writers, the mere penny-a-liners;