The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-08-29

seem to bear the impress of genuine confession are a little pesslmistic. Theophile Gautier has already said that fin order to forget the brutalities and bitternesses of the present time, one must look back to the past and con- sole ones self by thinking of the ideal one had at twenty years of age" Bar bey d'Aurevilly exclaimed: "The ideal at twenty years of age! The star which always shines over our head, in spite of the mists of senility." Thanks, then, to the Figaro, we know now what was the ideal at twenty years of age of those remarkable personages, NM. Aurelien Scholl, Hyacinthe Loyson, Carolus Duran, Victorien Sardou, Henri Becue, Rodin, Armand Silvestre, Charles Lecooq Francisque Sarcey and Mime Judic. Sardou, that great uphol- sterer of modern melodrama, who would have turned Moliere into limi- ted liability company, with branches in all parts of the globe, wandered, at the age Of twenty, among the old trees of the LuXembourg-since replaced by younger ones, which are not worthy of their predecessors-and his ideal was success and celebrity with we hundred pounds a year, a library of ten to twelve hundred books, aand cottage in the country similar to the guardians lodge aat the iron gate of the Rue de Naugirard, with it's puddle of dirty water in front, where the ducks splashed about. And in addition, of course, decorations, and the Academy, and honoric functions, and what not. All of which things M. Victorien Sardou has most ideally achieved, and he is very happy, Not so M. Henri Becue, who has never thought much of M. Sar- dou
 Poor M. Becque has always been grumbler, an incompris. His special de- testat1on is M. Claretie, manager of the Comedie F'rancaise, to whom he attrib- utes the small pecuniary success he has achieved with the public. No one de- nies, of course, that M. Becque is a great dramatist. At twenty years, at thirty, and even later have had dreams, of which not one has been real ized"-that is all he condescends to say, It is very sad. M Francesuue Sarcey, another of Becque's betes noires, the typical bourgeois dramatic critic, but first-rate good fellow, re- members that at twenty years all he wanted to be was a university profess sor, and that he became, and, though he has drifted into journalism, professor he has always remained. He quotes About as a similar instance. About was born to be a novelist, but never understood this; he always hankered after a university career
 Armand Silvestre, the modern Rabe- lais, the last Qet us really hope the lasD depository of the vieil esprit gau- lois had but one ambition at the age of twenty, which was to love. How touching! And since then he has gone on loving, 'even though he may hope no more''
 Carolus Duran wanted to have a grand talent, to be really somebody, righteous in character, aand worthy of inspiring the same love which he was capable of feeling himself. He is now old but he feels with Musset that "rien nest bon que daimer." Added to which he is the fashionable portrait painter of American heiresses, the fath- CT of a charming family, and Con- mander of the Legion of Honor.
 Rodin, the great sculptor of Balzac, deserves to be contrasted with him. At the age of twenty he was seeking, with out success, a master to his taste, and sent to the Salon the famous bust "The Man with the Broken Nose" which was refused. "When I was young" he writes, q always walked about with the first 'Meditations of Lamartine in my pocket. They were tender and reli- gious in the face of nature. My sculp- tuhe resembles them. I have intro duced something of the Meditations' into many of my works So I have re- alized my ideal a little"
 Aurelien Scholl wanted to be great man of letters; he has been simply popular journalist, an arbitrator of du- els, and fashionable wit. He used to dream of the Academy; now he dreams only of the Nirvana and of bringing out a volume of "reminiscences
 And Hyacinthe Loyson (Pere Hya- cinthe)? An, his was grandiose ideal ''At twenty years, I dreamed of men growing great in knowledge and moral- ity, seeking their happiness in aiding and loving one another" But among the deceptions and bitternesses of the present hour M. Loyson reflects that he has not sold his conscience, that no gold could purchase it, and that God is above all the God of Reason, the God of Descartes, whom he has never ceased to love and worship 'So that after all, life is good, and death also"
 And at twenty years of age Mime. Ju- dies ideal was to play drama and to re- main thin. Life has not realized either of these dreams, but though she has renounced all hope of becoming thin