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; the influential reporters of the great morning papers, fortunately, are animated by a love of truth and justice.”

Monsieur Sandeau looked at me, and smiled as be remarked,—­

“Oh! as for them, they don’t care a whit for piece or author or public.  They think of nothing but showing off themselves.  Monsieur Theophile Gautier has no care except to display the wealth of a palette which mistook its vocation when it sought to obtain from pen, ink, and paper those colors which pencil and canvas alone can give.  He discards sentiments, ideas, characters, dialogue, probability, intellectual delicacy, everything which raises man above wood or stone.  He would be the very first writer of the age, if the world would agree to suppress everything like heart and soul.  He is never more at ease than when he has to report a piece whose literary beauties are its splendid scenery and costumes.