cene. I was absolutely wrong, and
I have suffered for it more than once. But at my age one doesn't reform.
When I have drawn up the plan, I no longer want to write the piece. You
see that I am a detestable collaborator. Say so, if you speak to me, but
don't hold me up as a model.

Edmond Gondinet.

* * * * *

VI.

FROM Eugene Labiche.

Everyone writes in accordance with his inspiration and his temperament.
Some sing a gay note, others find more pleasure in making people weep.

As for me, this is my procedure:

When I have no idea, I gnaw my nails and invoke the aid of Providence.

When I have an idea, I still invoke the aid of Providence,--but with
less fervor, because I think I can get along without it.

It is quite human, but quite ungrateful.

I have then an idea, or I think I have one.

I take a quire of white paper, linen paper--on any other kind I can
imagine nothing--and I write on the first page:

PLAN.

By the plan I mean the developed succession, scene by scene, of the
whole piece, from the beginning to the end.

So long as one has not reached the end of his play he has neither the
beginning nor the middle. This part of the work is obviously the most
laborious. It is the creation, the parturition.

As soon as my plan is complete, I go over it and ask concerning each
scene its purpose, whether it prepares for or develops a character or
situation, and then whether it advances the action. A play is a
thousand-legged creature which must keep on going. If it slows up, the
public yawns; if it stops, the public hisses.

To write a sprightly play you must have a good digestion. Sprightliness
resides in the stomach.

Eugene Labiche.

* * * * *

VII.

From Ernest Legouve.

You ask me how a play is made.

By beginning at the end.

A novel is quite a different matter.

Walter Scott, the great Walter Scott, sat down of a morning at his
study-table, took six sheets of paper and wrote 'Chapter One,' without
knowing anything else about his story than the first chapter. He set
forth his characters, he indicated the situation; then situation and
characters got out of the affair as best they could. They were lef