timid, wary of failure, too anxious to please his public. His subsequent plays were less original, less daring, more faithful to routine. Never again did he touch the heights of LILIOM; and some of his best friends aver that he never will again until he has banished the dread of failure that obsesses him.
An odd situation, truly, and in some aspects a tragic one. Genius lacking the courage to spread its wings and soar. A potential immortal bidding fearfully for the praise of a coffee-house clique. Is it vanity? Is it abnormal sensitiveness? Biographical data cast little light on the enigma.
Franz Molnar was born in Budapest on January 12, 1878, the son of a wealthy Jewish merchant. He graduated from the Universities of Geneva and Budapest. His literary career was begun as a journalist at the age of eighteen. He wrote short sketches and humorous dialogues of such beauty and charm that he became a national figure almost at once, and the circulation of his newspaper increased until it was foremost in Budapest. Then he married Margaret Vaszi, the daughter of his editor, herself a journalist of note. Two years later he was divorced from her, and subsequently he married an actress who had played rôles in his own plays.
For a portrait of him as he is today you have to think of Oscar Wilde at the height of his glory. A big pudgy face, immobile, pink, smooth-shaven,
