Serge Panine | Page 5

hours. From, the first scene to the last, each tale must be posed
in the author's mind exactly as it will be proved to be at the end. It is
the author's aim and mission to place completely before his audience
the souls of the "agonists" laying bare the complications of motive, and

throwing into relief the delicate shades of motive that sway them. Often,
too, the play is produced before a numerous audience--an audience
often distrait, always pressed for time, and impatient of the least delay.
Again, the public in general require that they shall be able to
understand without difficulty, and at first thought, the characters the
author seeks to present, making it necessary that these characters be
depicted from their most salient sides--which are too often vulgar and
unattractive.
In our comedies and dramas it is not the individual that is drawn, but
the type. Where the individual alone is real, the type is a myth of the
imagination--a pure invention. And invention is the mainspring of the
theatre, which rests purely upon illusion, and does not please us unless
it begins by deceiving us.
I believe, then, that if one seeks to know the world exactly as it is, the
theatre does not furnish the means whereby one can pursue the study. A
far better opportunity for knowing the private life of a people is
available through the medium of its great novels. The novelist deals
with each person as an individual. He speaks to his reader at an hour
when the mind is disengaged from worldly affairs, and he can add
without restraint every detail that seems needful to him to complete the
rounding of his story. He can return at will, should he choose, to the
source of the plot he is unfolding, in order that his reader may better
understand him; he can emphasize and dwell upon those details which
an audience in a theatre will not allow.
The reader, being at leisure, feels no impatience, for he knows that he
can at any time lay down or take up the book. It is the consciousness of
this privilege that gives him patience, should he encounter a dull page
here or there. He may hasten or delay his reading, according to the
interest he takes in his romance-nay, more, he can return to the earlier
pages, should he need to do so, for a better comprehension of some
obscure point. In proportion as he is attracted and interested by the
romance, and also in the degree of concentration with which he reads it,
does he grasp better the subtleties of the narrative. No shade of
character drawing escapes him. He realizes, with keener appreciation,
the most delicate of human moods, and the novelist is not compelled to
introduce the characters to him, one by one, distinguishing them only
by the most general characteristics, but can describe each of those little

individual idiosyncrasies that contribute to the sum total of a living
personality.
When I add that the dramatic author is always to a certain extent a slave
to the public, and must ever seek to please the passing taste of his time,
it will be recognized that he is often, alas! compelled to sacrifice his
artistic leanings to popular caprice-that is, if he has the natural desire
that his generation should applaud him.
As a rule, with the theatre-going masses, one person follows the fads or
fancies of others, and individual judgments are too apt to be irresistibly
swayed by current opinion. But the novelist, entirely independent of his
reader, is not compelled to conform himself to the opinion of any
person, or to submit to his caprices. He is absolutely free to picture
society as he sees it, and we therefore can have more confidence in his
descriptions of the customs and characters of the day.
It is precisely this view of the case that the editor of the series has taken,
and herein is the raison d'etre of this collection of great French
romances. The choice was not easy to make. That form of literature
called the romance abounds with us. France has always loved it, for
French writers exhibit a curiosity--and I may say an indiscretion--that is
almost charming in the study of customs and morals at large; a quality
that induces them to talk freely of themselves and of their neighbors,
and to set forth fearlessly both the good and the bad in human nature.
In this fascinating phase of literature, France never has produced
greater examples than of late years.
In the collection here presented to American readers will be found
those works especially which reveal the intimate side of French social
life- works in which are discussed the moral problems that affect most
potently the life of the world