The reason is that success, though organized by fraudulent means, possesses a powerful attraction for the throng, even the literary throng. Assuredly, the theatrical public was, in 1677, far superior, in point of intelligence, education and taste, to the average public to-day. Yet it is seen applauding decidedly commonplace plays, while disdaining those of the first quality. The reason is that success, and especially theatrical success, can spring spontaneously from an accident,--from the agreeable face of an actress, from a fine gesture, from a well-timed bit of applause, from the caprice or emotion of a small group of spectators. The herd follows--since all men who come together are herds--and history numbers one more name and date. The Americans--of the North, for in the South they have more finesse--never hesitate before success. What dramatic poem is it whose success has surpassed the enthusiasm aroused even by the _Cid_ and by _Hernani_? _Cyrano de Bergerac_. Then this work is worthy of admiration, and they have it, as well as _l'Aiglon_, learned by heart in the schools where, though themselves illiterate, they cultivate learned wives. To repeat once more my real thought, I do not find that unreasonable. Let us not confound history, which is a complete or at least a consecutive novel, with the present, which appears to us in fragments, like a newspaper torn into a thousand pieces. How are these to be arranged, in what order? We have not the slightest idea. Our wisest and sanest contemporary judgment will be ridiculous in twenty years, because we lacked patience to reconstitute the entire sheet, or because the fire or the wind snatched away a number of the tiny squares. In this hazy state of our ideas, success gleams like an electric moon. Something undeniable is shining--something that the professors of philosophy call a criterium. But let us call it simply a fact, just as a flower is a fact, or a shower, or a conflagration. And what can be opposed to this fact, to contradict it? Almost nothing--the product of a judgment, certain men's notion of literary beauty. Moreover, this opposition is not radical, since beauty does not at all, in principle, exclude the chances of success. No bets should be placed on beauty. It would be imprudent to back her on even terms; but there are historic instances where the most beautiful work has also been the most warmly welcomed. In such cases success is adorable, like the sun which comes at just the right moment to ripen the crops, or the storm to fill the brooks and springs to overflowing. What is a beautiful book of which not a single copy remains known to us? What was an armless Venus before M. de Marcellus had summoned her from the abysses? Success is like daylight and, once again, if it does not create the work, it completes it by rending the shadowy veil by which it is encompassed.