ank, I'll own up
that I don't know how to write a play. One day a long time ago, when I
was scarcely out of school, I asked my father the same question. He
answered: "It's very simple; the first act clear, the last act short,
and all the acts interesting."

The recipe is in reality very simple. The only thing that is needed in
addition is to know how to carry it out. There the difficulty begins.
The man to whom this recipe is given is somewhat like the cat that has
found a nut. He turns it in every direction with his paw because he
hears something moving in the shell--but he can't open it. In other
words, there are those whom from their birth know how to write a play (I
do not say that the gift is hereditary); and there are those who do not
know at once--and these will never know. You are a dramatist, or you are
not; neither will-power nor work has anything to do with it. The gift is
indispensable. I think that every one whom you may ask how to write a
play will reply, if he really can write one, that he doesn't know how it
is done. It is a little as if you were to ask Romeo what he did to fall
in love with Juliet and to make her love him; he would reply that he did
not know, that it simply happened.

Truly yours,

A. Dumas _fils_.

* * * * *

V.

From Edmond Gondinet.

My dear friend:

What is my way of working? It is deplorable. Do not recommend it to any
one. When the idea for a play occurs to me, I never ask myself whether
it will be possible to make a masterpiece out of it; I ask whether the
subject will be amusing to treat. A little pleasure in this life tempts
me a great deal more than a bust, even of marble, after I am gone. With
such sentiments one never accomplishes anything great.

Besides, I have the capital defect for a man of the theater of never
being able to beat it into my head that the public will be interested in
the marriage of Arthur and Colombe; and nevertheless that is the key to
the whole situation. You simply must suppose the public a trifle
naif,--and be so yourself.

I should be so willingly, but I can't bring myself to admit that others
are.

For a long time I imagined that the details, if they were ingenious,
would please the public as much as an intrigue of which the ultimate
result is usually given in the first s