For this reason many of his contemporaries have doubted as to his being a really great orator, and only allowed his real sallies of wit and coups de théâtre in the tribune. It is now very difficult to judge him fairly in this respect. According to the testimony of men of his time who may still be questioned, the magic of his oratory lay more in his personal appearance than in his words. It was especially when he spoke slowly and deli-
heart and repeated. Yet it is very certain that the authors of these speeches could never, as orators, have been Mirabeaus. This leads to the truth that there is something so radically different in the French mind to the German or Anglo-Saxon or American that it is simply incomprehensible to us. Maquet did, with amanuenses or hacks, the greater, and even the most inventive part, of the work of Dumas the elder, yet Maquet never distinguished himself as a novelist. The revising "eye of the master" was needed. Shakespeare had to perfection this art of turning by the alchemy of genius the silver of others into gold. A stage manager and a very distinguished actress have both explained to me in detail that the most successful dramas are those in which the greater portion of the text is arranged, with the mise en scène, &c., by "the company," but where the author sketches the plot, writes the salient points of dialogues—which are generally cut down—and makes the characters. The innately dramatic character of the French mind explains this apparent contradiction. This paper by Heine is, me judice, throughout admirable, and prominent in it is his subtle perception of the true character of Mirabeau, which was in so many respects like his own. But Heine, like a German, always did his own work in full. It would have been practically better for him had, for example, his "Faust" and "Diana" been passed through the crucible of stage management.—Translator.
