Page:The life and writings of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) (IA lifewritingsofal00spurrich).pdf/185

 It didn't amuse the fircman: I have destroyed it. But I see exactly what it wants.'

"And he rewrote it, there and then."

The day before the production of his comedy "Halifax," at the dress-rehearsal, Dumas decided that the piece needed a prologue. He told the actors that if they would learn the parts straightway, he would write it. They were willing the prologue was written, learnt, and acted in twenty-four hours. "Read it," says Blaze de Bury, "it is a gem!"

Dumas and Rossini were present at the first night of a play called "La Jeune Vieillesse." The piece was a shocking failure, and as it proceeded dolorously, to the tune of laughter and hisses, Dumas muttered "What a fool the man is! He has gone right past a splendid subject! I'll make a note of it." And from this germ grew "Le Comte Hermann," one of the most notable of its author's later plays.

Whenever he felt his dramatic energies flagging, he tells us, he opened Schiller or Shakespeare at random, to refresh and revive his powers by reading. But the slightest opportunity or impulse was sufficient to arouse the creative faculty and set it in action.

One day Dumas had been out shooting since six in the morning, and had killed twenty-nine birds.

"I'll just make it thirty," he said, "then I'll go