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She is familiar with the Latin classics and with the Parisian feuilletons; she knows all about the newest religion, and can tell you Sarcey's opinion of the newest play. Miss Doran will discuss with you the merits of Sarah Bernhardt in 'La Dame aux Camelias, or the literary theories of the brothers Goncourt.
We need not follow the scene in the sentimental turning which it then takes, whereby it comes about, of course, that Bernard, not Leopold, marries Mile. Letellier. The point is that Augier has justified Sarcey's confidence by making the scene thoroughly and specifically dramatic; in other words, by charging it with emotion, and working up the tension to a very high pitch.
But before we can judge of the merits of M. Sarcey's theory, we must look into it a little more closely. I shall try, then, to state it in my own words, in what I believe to be its most rational and defensible form.
She had been looking at Sarcey's article in L'Opinion Nationale, and she now read me the following lines: "Mlle. Bernhardt who made her debut yesterday in the role of Iphigenie, is a tall, pretty girl with a slender figure and a very pleasing expression; the upper part of her face is remarkably beautiful. Her carriage is excellent, and her enunciation is perfectly clear.
Among the women, Marie Lloyd and Sophie Croizette, both friends of my childhood; the disagreeable Jouassain, who was nice only to me; and the adorable Marie Brohan, whose kindness delighted the soul, whose wit charmed the mind, and whose indifference rebuffed devotion. M. Perrin decided that I should make my debut in Mademoiselle de Belle-Isle, according to Sarcey's wish.
The public will swallow a camel, he would maintain, in the past, though they will strain at a gnat in the present. There is at least so much justification for Sarcey's favourite principle, that we are less apt to scrutinize things merely narrated to us than events which take place before our eyes. It is simply a special instance of the well-worn
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