and Ascot. A brief space,
indeed, yet one that to me seemed longer than the whole of my previous
life, so crowded was it every hour with new and marvellous experiences.
Worldly experiences, I mean. Intellectually, I am not sure that I
acquired much.

Indeed, to a little brain teeming with memories of the Theatres
Beaumarchais, Voltaire, Moliere, Feuillet, Sardou, Sandeau, &c., which
I had heard read so continually at the Dower-House amongst the Fens, the
views of dramatic literature held at the Coronet appeared of the most
extraordinary character. They certainly had one merit--simplicity.

The verb "to steal" was the only one that a successful dramatic author
appeared to be required to conjugate.

For your music steal from the music-halls; for your costumes steal from
_Le Follet_; for your ideas steal from anybody that happens to carry
such a thing about him; for your play, in its entirety, steal the plot,
the characters, the romance, the speeches, and the wit, if it have any,
of some attractive novel; and when you have made up your parcel of
thefts, tie it together with some string of stage directions, herald it
as entirely original, give a very good supper to your friends on the
press, and bow from your box as the "Author."

You will certainly be successful: and if the novelist ever object,
threaten him with an action for interference with _your_ property.

These I found were the laws laid down by London dramatists; and they
assuredly were so easy to follow and so productive to obey, that if any
Ben Jonson or Beaumarchais, Sheridan or Marivaux, had arisen and
attempted to infringe them, he would have infallibly been regarded as a
very evil example, and been extinguished by means of journalistic
slating and stall-siflage.

* * *

By the way, permit me, in parenthesis, to say that one of the chief
causes of that preference for the _demi-monde_ which you daily and
hourly discover more and more, is the indulgence it shows to idleness.
Because your lives are so intense now, and always at high pressure--for
that very reason are you more indolent also in little things. It bores
you to dress; it bores you to talk; it bores you to be polite. Sir
Charles Grandison might find ecstasy in elaborating a bow, a wig, or a
speech; you like to give a little nod, cut your hair very short, and
make "awfully" do duty for all your adjectives.

"_Autres temps, autres maeurs._" You are a very odd mixture. You will