He spoke in the same
strain of many another eminent literary man. Around these illustrious
planets gravitated satellites. When new pieces were brought out, he told
me one could see between the acts the lieutenants go up to the
captain-critics and receive instructions from them; the consequence was,
the theatrical criticisms were either collective apotheoses or
collective executions. One day it was Mademoiselle Rachel they put on
the black list for three months, and they raised up against her Madame
Ristori, declaring that she was as superior to Rachel as Alfieri was to
Racine. Then 'twas the Gymnase Theatre they put in Coventry, for having
spoken disrespectfully of newspaper-writers. Another day Monsieur Scribe
was their victim, to punish him for fatiguing with his dramatic
longevity the young men, the new-comers, who are neither young men, nor
new men, nor men of talents. Monsieur Jules Sandeau had passed through
the thorny paths, the steppes, and the waste frontiers of literary life
in Paris, without losing his honor, but without retaining a particle of
illusion. He told me of his days of harsh and pernicious poverty, the
abyss of debt, the constable at the door, the agony of hunting after
dollar by dollar, "copy" hastily written to meet urgent wants, and the
sweet toil of literary exertion changed into torture.
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