THE PLANNING OF " MDLLE DE BELLE ISLE."

Otago Witness, Issue 2202, 14 May 1896, Page 50

THE PLANNING OF " MDLLE DE BELLE ISLE."

Personally Dumas pere was a Hercules ion enfant. ' His immense stature, broad shouldere, deep chest, fine throat and head m.»d< Mc'ielet say of him, with as much reevurl to bis physical as to his mental power, that he was "an element —one of Nature's forces." And like most giants he was gentle and benignant. No one ever appealed to him in vain ; bis motto was to do good in an absent sort of manner, without the least thought of recompense ; ha said 16" was the only way to avoid disillusion and to keep one's eoul in peace. His lavish expenditure, bo often blamed as extravagant profusion, was only the outward expression of a genial.

From time to time, week by week, month by month, year by year, tbe would-be collaborateur came back and asked, " Has it germinated 1 " and was given the same reply : " Not yet." But there came at last the bolutioß Dumas had waited for ; it came in a flash. He law his way out of th»j dfficulty ; act by act, scene by scene, arranged themselves in his mind ; all that was essential was perfectly complete. He chose a Saturday wben the committee of management met at the Theatre Fran cais, and presented himself; be was received with acclamations, and Vedel, then the director, inquired: "Have you brought us a comedy 1 " — " Yes." " Finished 1 " — " Oonld not be more so J " " Written 1 " — " Written ? No, not a word." " Then you don't apply for a reading 1 " — " Yes, I do." "You tell us your play is finished, when there is cot a word of it written ?" — "A play is always finished to me an coon as it is composed." There was a good deal of l&ugfaing, and then Dumas proposed that they should decide the matter at once, which, for the novelty of the situation, the committee agreed to do. He took bis place, leaning up against the chimney-piece, and told the story with all the salient parts of the dialogue. " I was in the humour," he relates. " I spoke well: there were rounds of applause after every act, and at the end of the fifth two roueds. ' Mademoiselle ' was received without a dissentient voice, but if I had fallen down dead on leaving the committee room the Theatre Francais would never have possessed the play." — Argosy.