[Mariage par correspondance]

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[Mariage par correspondance]

MEL 1908


A Wedding by Correspondence

Mr. Peter Jones has vowed to get married. In his efforts to secure a desirable wife he has inserted some advertisements in the newspapers. So we find him in the act of going through the vast number of replies which his advertisements have called forth, the letters having been just brought in by a messenger. Hundreds of missives lie before him, and he thrusts aside disdainfully the greater number of photographs accompanying the answers. On letter finally finds favor in his eyes; the writing is excellent, the phrasing is pleasing and the photograph which he extracts from the envelope shows to him the likeness of a young girl, pretty, smiling, lovely, in every way ideal for a life’s companion. But while he dreams with half-open eyes of the joys in store for him, and while he plans, for the future, it seems to him that old Truth comes out of a well in the middle of the room, and that she presents to him a mirror in which he may see reality. He casts into it his eyes and he seems to see the faithful reproduction of the one whom he is going to love and whom he is going to make his wife. Il was an illusion. He draws nearer and nearer to it, and to his intense horror the features of the woman which he sees are transformed. Reality he sees in the mirror of Truth, and what has been found there is a woman, old, toothless and cross, presenting more the appearance of a crabbed old mother-in-law than that of a woman with a charming and good character. The vison disappears, and Peter Jones pushes aside from him with horror, papers, letters and portraits which he has received, and swearing to renounce the means of the press for securing the companion he hopes to find.

MEL 1905-A

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1 Melies 639-640  
2 Georges Méliès  
3 1904 40m/135ft
4 France, Paris  

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