"'It is not all the world who could appreciate that; but you, who have mind, and a clearness of perception,—you must be enchanted with it.' 'I am so, doubtless,' replied the comic author, smiling contemptuously; 'nothing can be more beautiful; and I am persuaded you will not fail to describe, in your tragedy, the care taken by Thetis to drive away the Trojan flies which approach the body of Patroclus.' 'You may spare your jests as to that,' replied the tragic poet;—'an author who has talent may venture everything. The very incident you mention is perhaps the one most capable of being rendered into heroic verse; and I shall not lose the opportunity, you may depend upon it.
"'All my works,' he continued complacently, 'bear the impress of genius; so that when I read them it would delight you to witness the applause they elicit: I am compelled to stop after every verse, to receive its laudatory tribute. I remember that one day, at Paris, I was reading a tragedy in the house of a wealthy patron of literature, in which all the wits of the capital generally assemble about dinner-time, and in which I may say, without vanity, that I do not pass for a Pradon. The dowager countess of Vieille-Brune was there, a lady of exquisite taste—I am her favourite poet. Well, at the first scene, the hot tears ran down her cheeks; during the reading of my second act, she was obliged to change her handkerchief; her sobs were beyond her control in the third; at the end of the fourth she was nearly in hysterics; and I expected, at the catastrophe, that she would have absolutely died with the hero of my piece.'
"At these words, although the comic author endeavoured strenuously to preserve his gravity, a burst of laughter escaped him. 'Ah!' he exclaimed, 'how well do I recognize her ladyship by your description! The good countess is one who cannot endure comedy: so strong is her aversion for the merry muse, that she hurries from her box after the dagger or the bowl has done its work, that she may not lose an atom of her mimic grief. Tragedy is her pet passion; and be it good or bad, so long as it presents unhappy love, so surely may you bid her tears to flow. Honestly, did I pretend to the heroics, I should wish for other admirers than the countess.'
"'Oh! as to that, I have others too,' replied the tragic poet. 'I am the approved of thousands, male and female, of the highest rank——' 'I should also mistrust the suffrages of the quality,' interrupted the comic author; 'I should have no great confidence in their judgment: I will tell you why. Auditors of this description are, for the most part, too much occupied with themselves to pay great attention to the reading of a poem; or are caught for the moment by high-sounding verse, or the feeble delicacy of some sickly sentiment. Either is sufficient to induce their praise of an author's labours, whatever else of better they may lack. On the contrary, let but a line rustle their gentle ears too harshly, and it is enough that they exclaim against the piece, however good.'
"'Well!' resumed the lachrymose inditer, 'since you would have me suspicious of this tribunal, I rely on the applauses of the pit.' 'Bah! talk not to me of your pit,' replied the other; 'its judgment is guided by caprice. Stupidly won by the novelty of a first representation, it will be for months enraptured by a wretched piece. It is true that in the end it discovers its folly; and, then, it never forgives an author for having received from it an undeserved renown, or cheated it into mercy.'
"'That is a misfortune for which I have nothing to fear,' said the tragic poet; 'my pieces are reprinted as often as they are played. This, now, never occurs with comedies; printing exhibits their feebleness. Comedies being but trifles,—the lighter productions of mind....' 'Softly! my tragic friend; softly!' interrupted the other: 'you are getting somewhat warm. Speak, I beg of you, of comedy with less irreverence to me. Do you think, now, a comic piece less difficult to write than tragedy? Undeceive yourself! It is far less easy to make good men laugh, than it is to make them weep. Learn that a subject drawn from ordinary life requires talent of as high an order as do the stilted heroes of antiquity.'
"'I'faith,' cried the tragic poet with an air of raillery, 'I am delighted to hear you so express yourself.' 'Well! monsieur Calidas, to avoid disputation, I agree henceforth to as greatly admire your productions as I have heretofore despised them.' 'I care little for your contempt, monsieur Giblet,' hastily replied the comic author; 'and in return for your insolence, I will plainly tell you my opinion of the rubbish you have just been inflicting on me: your verse is a mixture of bombast and absurdity, and the ideas, although borrowed from Homer, have, in passing through your brain, become tinctured with its vulgarity. Achilles talks to his horses, and his horses reply to him; what nonsense! It is a pity they were not asses, for then you could have put into their mouths with propriety your splendid comparison of the village bonfire on the top of a mountain. It is doing no honour to the ancients to pillage them after this fashion: their works are undoubtedly filled with beauties; but it requires greater taste than you possess to make of them a fitting use, or to enable you to borrow from them to advantage.'
"'Since you have not sufficient elevation of soul,' retorted Giblet, 'to appreciate the merits of my poetry, and to punish you for having dared to criticise my scene, I will not read to you the remainder.' 'What, I wonder, have I done, that I should have been punished by being compelled to listen to the beginning?' replied Calidas. 'It well becomes you indeed to despise my comedies! Learn that the very worst that I could write will be clever compared with anything that you can compose, and that it is much easier to inflate the cheeks with hollow sentiments and sounding words, than it is to enlighten the mind by pointed wit or a delicate irony.'