I am not announcing any book, for neither of these two ladies ever mentioned to me that she was preparing a book of memoirs, but I wish they would, and I have simply named them as being both capable of writing books of unsurpassed interest.
In order to write a good and trustworthy book of reminiscences, you must, above all, be an observer and a listener, besides a good story-teller. You must be modest enough to know how to efface yourself, remain hidden behind the scenes, and put all your personages on the stage without hardly appearing yourself.
You must be satisfied with sharing the honours of the book with all your dramatis personæ, and not cause the printing of the volume to be stopped for want of a sufficient supply of 'I's' and 'me's.'
I knew a famous actor whose reminiscences were published some years ago by a literary man. Once I congratulated that actor on the success of the book.
'Yes,' he said, 'the book has done me good, because X., you know, mentions my name once or twice in that book.'
And many books of reminiscences that I know are full of the sayings and doings of the author, with an occasional mention of people of whom we should like to hear a great deal.
I have met these men in private, and sometimes found them clever, and invariably fatiguing bores, and their books are not more entertaining than their conversation. Many of them reminded me of the first visit that Diderot paid to Voltaire, on which occasion he talked the great French wit deaf and dumb.
'What do you think of Diderot?' asked a friend of Voltaire a few days after that visit.
'Well,' replied Voltaire, 'Diderot is a clever fellow, but he has no talent for dialogue.'