eclared that I never would write prefaces! But how can one
resist a fine fellow who brings one an attractive manuscript, signed with
a name popular among all his friends, who asks of one, in the most
engaging way, an opinion on the same--then a word, a simple word of
introduction, like a signal to saddle?

I have read your Zibeline, my dear friend, and this romance--your
first--has given me a very keen pleasure. You told me once that you felt
a certain timidity in publishing it. Reassure yourself immediately. A man
can not be regarded as a novice when he has known, as you have, all the
Parisian literary world so long; or rather, perhaps, I may more
accurately say, he is always a novice when he tastes for the first time
the intoxication of printer's ink.

You have the quickest of wits and the least possible affectation of
gravity, and you have made as well known in Mexico as in Paris your
couplets on the end of the Mexican conflict with France. 'Tout Mexico y
passera!' Where are they, the 'tol-de-rols' of autumn?

Yesterday I found, in a volume of dramatic criticism by that terrible and
charming Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly, an appreciation of one of your
comedies which bears a title very appropriate to yourself: 'Honor.' "And
this play does him honor," said Barbey d'Aurevilly, "because it is
charming, light, and supple, written in flowing verse, the correctness of
which does not rob it of its grace."

That which the critic said of your comedy I will say of your romance. It
is a pretty fairy-story-all about Parisian fairies, for a great many
fairies live in Paris! In fact, more are to be found there than anywhere
else! There are good fairies and bad fairies among them. Your own
particular fairy is good and she is charming. I am tempted to ask whether
you have drawn your characters from life. That is a question which was
frequently put to me recently, after I had published 'L'Americaine.' The
public longs to possess keys to our books. It is not sufficient for them
that a romance is interesting; it must possess also a spice of scandal.

Portraits? You have not drawn any--neither in the drawing-rooms where
Zibeline scintillates, nor in the foyer of the Comedie Francaise, where
for so long a time you have felt yourself at home. Your women are visions
and not studies from life--and I do not believe that you will object to
my saying this.

You should not dislike the "romantic romance," which every one in these
days advises u