the other. In reading one of M. Meilhac's works we should feel no doubt
as to the author, while M. Halevy's clever pictures of Parisian society,
wanting in personal distinctiveness, would impress us simply as a
product of the "Modern French School."

Before finally joining with M. Halevy, M. Meilhac wrote two comedies in
five acts of high aim and skilful execution, and two other five-act
pieces have been written by MM. Meilhac and Halevy together. The _Vertu
de Celimene_ and the _Petit fils de Mascarille_ are by the elder
partner--_Fanny Lear_ and _Froufrou_ are the work of the firm. Yet in
these last two it is difficult to see any trace of M. Halevy's
handiwork. Allowing for the growth of M. Meilhac's intellect during the
eight or ten years which intervened between the work alone and the work
with his associate, and allowing for the improvement in the mechanism of
play-making, I see no reason why M. Meilhac might not have written
_Fanny Lear_ and _Froufrou_ substantially as they are had he never met
M. Halevy. But it is inconceivable that M. Halevy alone could have
attained so high an elevation or have gained so full a comic force.
Perhaps, however, M. Halevy deserves credit for the better technical
construction of the later plays: merely in their mechanism the first
three acts of _Froufrou_ are marvellously skilful. And perhaps, also,
his is a certain softening humor, which is the cause that the two later
plays, written by both partners, are not so hard in their brilliance as
the two earlier comedies, the work of M. Meilhac alone.

It may seem something like a discussion of infinitesimals, but I think
M. Halevy's co-operation has given M. Meilhac's plays a fuller ethical
richness. To the younger writer is due a simple but direct irony, as
well as a lightsome and laughing desire to point a moral when occasion
serves. Certainly, I shall not hold up a play written to please the
public of the Palais Royal, or even of the Gymnase, as a model of all
the virtues. Nor need it be, on the other hand, an embodiment of all the
cardinal sins. The frequenters of the Palais Royal Theatre are not
babes; young people of either sex are not taken there; only the
emancipated gain admittance; and to the seasoned sinners who haunt
theatres of this type these plays by MM. Meilhac and Halevy are
harmless. Indeed, I do not recall any play of theirs which could hurt
any one capable of understanding it. Most of their plays are not to be
recom