"Ah! ah! ah!" he cried, "did Dumas compose that?" "Yes, he made it." "Are you sure he did not crib it from somewhere?" Then, with touching confidence, Adolphe replied-- "I am quite certain of it: I know every patriotic couplet that has been sung in every theatre in Paris, and I tell you this one has never yet been sung." "Then it is a fluke, and he will soon be undeceived." De la Ponce read the couplet too; it tickled his soldierly taste, remainding him of 1814, and he took an early opportunity to compliment me on it. Alas! poor couplet, but indifferently good though thou wert, accept nevertheless thy due meed of praise, at any rate from me. Whether gold or copper, thou wert, at all events, the first piece of literary coin I threw into the dramatic world! Thou wert the lucky coin one puts in a bag to breed more treasure therein! To-day the sack is full to overflowing: I wonder if the treasure that came and covered thee up was much better than thyself? The future alone will decide--that future which to poets assumes the superb form of a goddess and the proud name of Posterity! The reader knows what an amount of vanity I possessed. My pride did not need to be encouraged to come out of the vase in which it was enclosed and swell like the giant in the _Arabian Nights:_ I began to believe I had written a masterpiece. From that day I thought of nothing else but dramatic literature, and, as Adolphe was some day to return to Paris, we set ourselves to work, so that he could carry away with him a regular cargo of works of the style of the _Major de Strasbourg._ We never doubted that such distinguished works would meet with the success they deserved, from the enlightened public of Paris, and open out to me in the capital of European genius a path strewn with crowns and pieces of gold. What would the well-disposed people say then, who had declared to my mother that I was an idle lad and that I should never do anything? Go spin, you future Schiller! Spin, you future Walter Scott! spin!... From this time a great force awoke in my heart, which held its place against all comers: determination--a great virtue, which although certainly not genius, is a good substitute for it--and perseverance. Unluckily, Adolphe was not a very sure guide; he, like myself, was groping blindly. Our choice of subjects revealed that truth. Our second opera was borrowed from the venerable M. Bouilly's _Contes à ma fille._ It was entitled le _Dîner d'amis._ Our first drama was borrowed from Florian's _Gonzalve de Cordoue_: it was entitled _les Abencérages._ O dear Abencérages! O treacherous Zégris! with what crimes of like nature you have to reproach yourselves! O Gonzalve de Cordoue! what young poets you have led astray into the path upon which we entered so full of hope, from which we returned shattered and broken.