The pastor looked at his house, still
miraculously
intact.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v09 - Dra to Eme
The scene then changed; with bold erected look
Our martial King the sight with reverence strook:
For, not content to express his outward part,
Her hand called out the image of his heart:
His warlike mind, his soul devoid of fear,
His high-designing thoughts were figured there,
As when by magic ghosts are made appear.
Our phonix Queen was portrayed too so bright
Beauty alone could beauty take so right:
Her dress, her shape, her matchless grace,
Were all observed, as well as heavenly face.
With such a peerless majesty she stands,
As in that day she took the crown from sacred hands;
Before a train of heroines was seen,
In beauty foremost, as in rank the Queen.
## p. 4942 (#104) ###########################################
4942
JOHN DRYDEN
Thus nothing to her genius was denied,
But like a ball of fire, the farther thrown,
Still with a greater blaze she shone,
And her bright soul broke out on every side.
What next she had designed, Heaven only knows:
To such immoderate growth her conquest rose
That Fate alone its progress could oppose.
Now all those charms, that blooming grace,
The well-proportioned shape and beauteous face,
Shall never more be seen by mortal eyes;
In earth the much-lamented virgin lies.
Not wit nor piety could Fate prevent;
Nor was the cruel Destiny content
To finish all the murder at a blow,
To sweep at once her life and beauty too;
But, like a hardened felon, took a pride
To work more mischievously slow,
And plundered first, and then destroyed.
O double sacrilege on things divine,
To rob the relic, and deface the shrine!
But thus Orinda died:
Heaven by the same disease did both translate;
As equal were their souls, so equal was their fate.
Meantime, her warlike brother on the seas
His waving streamers to the winds displays,
And vows for his return with vain devotion pays.
Ah, generous youth! that wish forbear,
The winds too soon will waft thee here!
Slack all thy sails, and fear to come;
Alas! thou knowest not, thou art wrecked at home.
No more shalt thou behold thy sister's face;
Thou hast already had her last embrace.
But look aloft, and if thou ken’st from far,
Among the Pleiads, a new-kindled star,
If any sparkles than the rest more bright,
'Tis she that shines in that propitious light.
When in mid-air the golden trump shall sound,
To raise the nations under ground;
When in the Valley of Jehoshaphat
The judging God shall close the book of Fate,
And there the last assizes keep
For those who wake and those who sleep;
## p. 4943 (#105) ###########################################
JOHN DRYDEN
4943
When rattling bones together fly
From the four corners of the sky;
When sinews o'er the skeletons are spread,
Those clothed with flesh, and life inspires the dead;
The sacred poets first shall hear the sound,
And foremost from the tomb shall bound,
For they are covered with the lightest ground;
And straight, with inborn vigor, on the wing,
Like mounting larks, to the new morning sing.
There thou, sweet saint, before the quire shalt go,
As harbinger of Heaven, the way to show,
The way which thou so well hast learned below.
A SONG
F"
AIR, sweet, and young, receive a prize
Reserved for your victorious eyes:
From crowds whom at your feet you see,
Oh pity and distinguish me!
As I from thousand beauties more
Distinguish you, and only you adore.
Your face for conquest was designed,
Your every motion charms my mind;
Angels, when you your silence break,
Forget their hymns to hear you speak;
But when at once they hear and view,
Are loth to mount, and long to stay with you.
No graces can your form improve,
But all are lost, unless you love;
While that sweet passion you disdain,
Your veil and beauty are in vain:
In pity then prevent my fate,
For after dying all reprieve's too late.
LINES PRINTED UNDER MILTON'S PORTRAIT
IN Tonson's Folio EDITION OF THE PARADISE LOST,' 1688
TRE
THREE poets, in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn.
The first in loftiness of thought surpassed,
The next in majesty, in both the last:
The force of Nature could no farther go;
To make a third she joined the former two.
## p. 4944 (#106) ###########################################
4944
JOHN DRYDEN
ALEXANDER'S FEAST; OR, THE POWER OF MUSIC
A SONG IN HONOR OF St. Cecilia's DAY: 1697
I
'T™AS
WAS at the royal feast for Persia won
By Philip's warlike son:
Aloft in awful state
The godlike hero sate
On his imperial throne;
His valiant peers were placed around;
Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound:
(So should desert in arms be crowned. )
The lovely Thais, by his side,
Sate like a blooming Eastern bride,
In flower of youth and beauty's pride.
Happy, happy, happy pair!
None but the brave,
None but the brave,
None but the brave deserves the fair.
CHORUS
Happy, happy, happy pair!
None but the brave,
None but the brave,
None but the brave deserves the fair.
II
Timotheus, placed on high
Amid the tuneful quire,
With flying fingers touched the lyre:
The trembling notes ascend the sky,
And heavenly joys inspire.
The song began from Jove,
Who left his blissful seats above,
(Such is the power of mighty love. )
A dragon's fiery form belied the god:
Sublime on radiant spires he rode,
When he to fair Olympia pressed:
And while he sought her snowy breast,
Then round her slender waist he curled,
And stamped an image of himself, a sovereign of the world.
## p. 4945 (#107) ###########################################
JOHN DRYDEN
4945
The listening crowd adınire the lofty sound
A present deity, they shout around;
A present deity, the vaulted roofs rebound:
With ravished ears
The monarch hears,
Assumes the god,
Affects to nod,
And seems to shake the spheres.
CHORUS
With ravished ears
The monarch hears,
Assumes the god,
Affects to nod,
And seems to shake the spheres.
III
The praise of Bacchus then the sweet musician sung,
Of Bacchus ever fair, and ever young.
The jolly god in triumph comes;
Sound the trumpets, beat the drums;
Flushed with a purple grace
He shows his honest face:
Now give the hautboys breath; he comes, he comes.
Bacchus, ever fair and young,
Drinking joys did first ordain;
Bacchus's blessings are a treasure,
Drinking is the soldier's pleasure;
Rich the treasure,
Sweet the pleasure,
Sweet is pleasure after pain.
CHORUS
Bacchus's blessings are a treasure,
Drinking is the soldier's pleasure;
Rich the treasure,
Sweet the pleasure,
Sweet is pleasure after pain.
IV
Soothed with the sound, the king grew vain;
Fought all his battles o'er again;
And thrice he routed all his foes, and thrice he slew the slain
IX-310
## p. 4946 (#108) ###########################################
4946
JOHN DRYDEN
The master saw the madness rise,
His glowing cheeks, his ardent eyes;
And while he heaven and earth defied,
Changed his hand, and checked his pride.
He chose a mournful Muse,
Soft pity to infuse;
He sung Darius great and good,
By too severe a fate,
Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen,
Fallen from his high estate,
And weltering in his blood;
Deserted at his utmost need
By those his former bounty fed;
On the bare earth exposed he lies,
With not a friend to close his eyes.
With downcast looks the joyless victor sate,
Revolving in his altered soul
The various turn of chance below;
And now and then a sigh he stole,
And tears began to flow.
CHORUS
Revolving in his altered soul
The various turns of chance below;
And now and then a sigh he stole,
And tears began to flow.
The mighty master smiled to see
That love was in the next degree;
'Twas but a kindred sound to move,
For pity melts the mind to love.
Softly sweet, in Lydian measures,
Soon he soothed his soul to pleasures.
War, he sung, is toil and trouble;
Honor but an empty bubble,
Never ending, still beginning,
Fighting still, and still destroying:
If the world be worth thy winning,
Think, oh think it worth enjoying:
Lovely Thais sits beside thee;
Take the good the gods provide thee;
The many rend the skies with loud applause;
So Love was crowned, but Music won the cause.
## p. 4947 (#109) ###########################################
JOHN DRYDEN
4947
The prince, unable to conceal his pain,
Gazed on the fair
Who caused his care,
And sighed and looked, sighed and looked,
Sighed and looked, and sighed again;
At length, with love and wine at once oppressed,
The vanquished victor sunk upon her breast.
CHORUS
The prince, unable to conceal his pain,
Gazed on the fair
Who caused his care,
And sighed and looked, sighed and looked
Sighed and looked, and sighed again;
At length, with love and wine at once oppressed,
The vanquished victor sunk upon her breast.
VI
Now strike the golden lyre again;
A louder yet, and yet a louder strain.
Break his bands of sleep asunder,
And rouse him, like a rattling peal of thunder.
Hark, hark, the horrid sound
Has raised up his head;
As awaked from the dead,
And amazed, he stares around.
Revenge, revenge, Timotheus cries,
See the Furies arise;
See the snakes that they rear,
How they hiss in their hair,
And the sparkles that flash from their eyes!
Behold a ghastly band,
Each a torch in his hand!
Those are Grecian ghosts, that in battle were slain,
And unburied remain
Inglorious on the plain :
Give the vengeance due
To the valiant crew.
Behold how they toss their torches on high,
How they point to the Persian abodes,
And glittering temples of their hostile gods!
The princes applaud with a furious joy;
## p. 4948 (#110) ###########################################
4948
JOHN DRYDEN
And the king seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy;
Thais led the way,
To light him to his prey,
And like another Helen, fired another Troy.
CHORUS
And the king seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy:
Thais led the way,
To light him to his prey,
And like another Helen, fired another Troy.
VII
Thus long ago,
Ere heaving bellows learned to blow,
While organs yet were mute,
Timotheus, to his breathing Aute
And sounding lyre,
Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire.
At last divine Cecilia came,
Inventress of the vocal frame;
The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store,
Enlarged the former narrow bounds,
And added length to solemn sounds,
With Nature's mother wit, and arts unknown before.
Let old Timotheus yield the prize,
Or both divide the crown:
He raised a mortal to the skies;
She drew an angel down.
GRAND CHORUS
At last divine Cecilia came,
Inventress of the vocal frame;
The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store,
Enlarged the former narrow bounds,
And added length to solemn sounds,
With Nature's mother wit, and arts unknown before.
Let old Timotheus yield the prize,
Or both divide the crown:
He raised a mortal to the skies;
She drew an angel down.
## p. 4949 (#111) ###########################################
JOHN DRYDEN
4949
ACHITOPHEL *
From (Absalom and Achitophel)
T'
His plot, which failed for want of common-sense,
Had yet a deep and dangerous consequence:
For as when raging fevers boil the blood,
The standing lake soon floats into a flood,
And every hostile humor, which before
Slept quiet in its channels, bubbles o'er;
So several factions from this first ferment
Work up to foam, and threat the government.
Some by their friends, inore by themselves thought wise,
Opposed the power to which they could not rise.
Some had in courts been great, and thrown from thence,
Like fiends were hardened in impenitence.
Some, by their monarch's fatal mercy, grown
From pardoned rebels kinsmen to the throne,
Were raised in power and public office high;
Strong bands, if bands ungrateful men could tie.
Of these the false Achitophel was first;
A name to all succeeding ages curst:
For close designs and crooked councils fit;
Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit;
Restless, unfixed in principles and place;
In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace:
A fiery soul, which, working out its way,
Fretted the pigmy body to decay,
And o'er-informed the tenement of clay.
A daring pilot in extremity:
Pleased with the danger, when the waves went high
He sought the storms; but for a calm unfit,
Would steer too nigh the sands to boast his wit.
Great wits are sure to madness near allied,
And thin partitions do their bounds divide;
Else why should he, with wealth and honor blest,
Refuse his age the needful hours of rest?
Punish a body which he could not please;
Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease ?
And all to leave what with his toil he won,
To that unfeathered two-legged thing, a son;
Got while his soul did huddled notions try,
And born a shapeless lump, like anarchy.
*Lord Shaftesbury.
## p. 4950 (#112) ###########################################
4950
JOHN DRYDEN
In friendship false, implacable in hate;
Resolved to ruin or to rule the State.
To compass this the triple bond he broke,
The pillars of the public safety shook,
And fitted Israel for a foreign yoke:
Then, seized with fear yet still affecting fame,
Usurped a patriot's all-atoning name.
So easy still it proves in factious times,
With public zeal to cancel private crimes.
How safe is treason, and how sacred ill,
Where none can sin against the people's will!
Where crowds can wink, and no offense be known,
Since in another's guilt they find their own!
Yet fame deserved no enemy can grudge;
The statesman we abhor, but praise the judge.
In Israel's courts ne'er sat an Abethdin
With more discerning eyes, or hands more clean,
Unbribed, unsought, the wretched to redress;
Swift of dispatch, and easy of access.
Oh! had he been content to serve the Crown,
With virtues only proper to the gown;
Or had the rankness of the soil been freed
From cockle that oppressed the noble seed;
David for him his tuneful harp had strung,
And heaven had wanted one immortal song.
But wild Ambition loves to slide, not stand,
And Fortune's ice prefers to Virtue's land.
Achitophel, grown weary to possess
A lawful fame, and lazy happiness,
Disdained the golden fruit to gather free,
And lent the crowd his arm to shake the tree.
Now, manifest of crimes contrived long since,
He stood at bold defiance with his prince;
Held up the buckler of the people's cause
Against the Crown, and skulked behind the laws.
The wished occasion of the plot he takes;
Some circumstances finds, but more he makes.
By buzzing emissaries fills the ears
Of listening crowds with jealousies and fears
Of arbitrary counsels brought to light,
And proves the king himself a Jebusite.
## p. 4951 (#113) ###########################################
4951
MAXIME DU CAMP
(1822-1894)
Shy have I always felt happy, filled with the spirit of content
and of infinite independence, whenever I have slept in the
tent or in the ruins of foreign lands? ). The love of ange
and adventure has been the spring of Du Camp's life, a life whose
events are blended so intimately with his literary achievement, that
to know the one is to know the other. This practical man of the
world has an imaginative, beauty-loving side to his nature, which
craves stimulus from tropical unfamiliar nature and exotic ways.
So, after the usual training of French
boys in lycée and college, _“in those hid-
eous houses where they wearied our child-
hood, as he says,--the just-emancipated
youth of twenty-two left his home in Paris
for an eighteen-months' trip in the far East.
The color and variety of the experience
whetted his love of travel, and very soon
after his return he began a serious study of
photography in view of future plans.
Then came the revolution of 1848, the
overthrow of Louis Philippe; and Du Camp
had an opportunity to prove
his
courage
and patriotism in the ranks of the National MAXIME DU CAMP
Guard. In his Souvenirs de l'Année 1848,
he tells the story with color and interest, and with the forceful logic
of an eye-witness.
His bravery and a serious wound won him the red ribbon of the
Legion of Honor, bestowed by General Cavaignac. This drew atten-
tion to him, and led the minister of public instruction to intrust him
a few months later with a mission of exploration to Egypt, Nubia,
Palestine, and Asia Minor; a result of which trip was his first literary
success. Utilizing his photographic knowledge, he collected a great
many negatives for future development. Upon his return he pub-
lished a volume of descriptive sketches, Le Nil, Egypte, et Nubie,'
generously illustrated with printed reproductions of these pictures.
This first combination of photography and typography was popular,
and was speedily imitated, initiative of many illustrated books.
)
## p. 4952 (#114) ###########################################
4952
MAXIME DU CAMP
Later, Du Camp's warlike and exploring instincts led him at his
own expense into Sicily with Garibaldi, where he collected matter
and photographs for (Les Deux Siciles,' another successful volume.
In 1851 he associated with others to found the Revue de Paris, for
which he wrote regularly until its suspension in 1858. He has also
written a great deal for the Revue des Deux Mondes, in which for
several years he continued a series of historical studies upon the gov-
ernment of Paris. The six volumes upon (Paris: its Organs, its
Functions, its Life, during the Second Half of the Nineteenth Cen-
tury,' form one of his chief achievements. His personal knowledge
on the subject, and his access to valuable unpublished documents,
give it authoritative value.
In 'Les Ancêtres de la Commune,' and 'Les Convulsions de Paris,'
he has accomplished much more in the same line. The latter, a brill-
iant circumstantial exposition of the Commune, a logical condemna-
tion of its folly and ignorance, brought him gratitude from the French
Academy, and aided his election to that body in 1880. For this exten-
sive work on contemporary politics, for his illustrated travels, and his
artistic and literary criticism, he is better known than for his two or
three novels and volumes of poetry.
Du Camp's may be characterized as a soldierly style, strong, direct,
and personal. He loves to retrace old scenes with the later visible
sequence of cause and effect. Always straightforward, sometimes
bluntly self-assertive, he is sometimes eloquent. Perhaps his great
charm is spontaneity.
A STREET SCENE DURING THE COMMUNE
From (The Convulsions of Paris)
T"
HERE were strange episodes during this terrible evening. At
half-past eight, M. Rouville, a Protestant minister, was at
home in a house he owns on the Rue de Lille. He heard
an alarm, the cry, “Everything is burning! Escape! ” Then he
went down, saw the street in flames, and the poor people weep-
ing as they escaped. Just as he was returning to rescue a few
valuables, some federates rushed into the court, crying, “Hurry!
They are setting the place on fire! » He took some money and
the manuscript of the sermons he had preached. Mechanically
he seized his hat and cane. Then, throwing a last look around
the apartment where he had long lived, invoking the memory
of the great Biblical destructions familiar to him in Holy Writ,
## p. 4953 (#115) ###########################################
MAXIME DU CAMP
4953
weak and trembling with emotion, he descended the staircase
from his home.
There was indescribable tumult in the street, dominated by
the cry of women; a shrill wordless involuntary cry of terror,
vibrating above the uproar like a desperate appeal to which no
supernatural power replied. Pastor Rouville stopped. The house
next his own was in fames. They were setting fire to the one
opposite. The houses between the Rue de Beaune and the Rue
du Bac, red from cellar to garret, were vomiting flame from all
the broken windows.
The pastor's family were not at Paris. He was alone with a
faithful maid, who did not leave him for a moment. This doubt.
less determined his resolution, and gave him courage to brave all
to save his house. If he had felt his wife and daughter near, he
would have thought only of their safety, and would have hastened
to get them away from the place, where, he said, “One could
die of horror. ”
Pastor Rouville is a small man, whose great activity keeps
him young and remarkably energetic. He belongs to the strong
race of Southern Protestants, which has resisted everything to
guard its faith. I should not be surprised if he has had some
nimble Cévennole, companion of Jean Cavalier, among his an-
cestors. Chaplain in the prisons of the Seine, accustomed to
sound doubtful spirits, to seek in vicious hearts some intact
fibres which could re-attach them to virtue; fervent in faith, elo-
quent, with a high voice which could rise above the tumult,
knowing by experience that there is no obscurity so profound
that light cannot be made to penetrate it,- he had remained on
duty at his post during the Commune; for the prisoners had
more need of spiritual aid, now that the regular administration no
longer watched over them. He had been indignant at the incar-
ceration of Catholic priests, and had signed the fine protest
demanding the liberty of the archbishop, which the ininisters
had carried to the Hôtel de Ville.
Alone in the presence of the great disaster which threatened
him, he commended his spirit to God, remembering that the
little stone of David had killed the giant Philistine, and he de-
cided to fight for his home. He encamped energetically before
the door, to forbid access; and using the weapons bestowed upon
him by Providence and study, he spoke. The federates stopped
before this man, whose simplicity rendered him heroic. One may
guess what he said to them:
## p. 4954 (#116) ###########################################
4954
MAXIME DU CAMP
(
Why strike the innocent and tender, as if they were execra-
ble? Why be enraged with a Protestant, a minister, whose
religion, founded on the dogma of free examination, is naturally
allied to republican ideas? The faith he teaches is that promul-
gated by Christ: Christ said to Peter, (Sheathe thy sword;'
he said to men, Love one another! ' No, the people of Paris,
this people whose sufferings have been shared, whose unfortunates
have been succored during the siege; this people, so good when
not led astray by the wicked; this people will not burn the
house of a poor minister, whose whole life has been passed in
the exercise of charity. ”
The pastor must have been eloquent and have spoken with
profound conviction, for the federates who were listening to him
began to weep, then seized and embraced him. Meantime the
tenants of the shops in his house had lowered the iron curtains,
which at least was an obstacle against the first throwing of pe-
troleum. This lasted an hour. The federates, evidently softened
and touched by the pastor's despair, remained near him and had
pity upon him. An old sergeant of the National Guard stayed
beside him, as if to bring him help in case of need, and to main-
tain a little order among his subordinates. Some hope revived
in M. Rouville's heart, and he was saying to himself that per-
haps his house would be spared, when some young men, wearing
the braided caps of officers, arrived as if to inspect the fires.
Seeing one house intact, emerging like a little island from an
ocean of flames, they exclaimed. The pastor sprang forward and
wanted to argue with them. It was trouble wasted. One of these
young scamps said to him, “You are an old reactionist: you bore
us with your talking. If you don't like it, we will pin you to
the wall. " Then, turning toward the federates and pointing
to the houses on the Rue de Lille, he cried, "All that belongs
to the people. The people have the right to burn everything. ”
This had perhaps decided the fate of the pastor's house, when
the sergeant of federates interfered, and addressing the officer
said to him, "I have received orders to stop the fire just here. ”
“Show me your order," answered the officer. The sergeant re-
plied, "It is a verbal order. ” Then there was a lively quarrel
between the two men. The sergeant was firm. The officer in-
sisted, and according to the custom of the moment, threatened to
have the rebel shot.
The situation was becoming grave, when an incident resolved
it. A mounted officer galloped up and ordered all the federates
## p. 4955 (#117) ###########################################
MAXIME DU CAMP
4955
to retreat, because they were about to be surrounded by the
troops from Versailles.
Nearly all the National Guards hurried away. The sergeant
who had remained near the pastor said, "Get away, scurry,
father! You will get yourself killed, and that will not save your
camp. "
The other officers passed, commanded everything to be
burned, and when the sergeant resisted, compelled him to leave.
For half an hour the unhappy pastor remained alone, holding
back the incendiaries, passing from supplications to threats, and
gaining time by every possible artifice, The sergeant returned
with tearful eyes, and showed the dismayed pastor a written
order to burn the house, sent by his chiefs. Not yet discouraged,
the pastor roused the compassion of the old sergeant, and so
moved him that the rebel cried, “Ah, well! so much the worse!
I'll disobey. No, I won't let your house be burned. They'll
shoot me.
It's all the same. I deserve to be. ” Then raising
his hand toward the sky, where the stars shone like sparks
through the veil of wind-driven smoke, he cried “O my father, I
believe in God! Fear nothing; I will stay here. They shan't
touch your house. I shall know how to keep off plunderers! ”
O strange deceiving people; ready for all crimes, ready for all
good actions, according to the voice which speaks to thee and
the emotion which carries thee away! This sergeant was indeed
thy likeness, and one need not despair of thee, although thou
dishearten those who love thee best!
The brandy at the wine merchants’; the ether at the drug-
gists'; the powder and shot forgotten in stations, or secreted in
cellars, burst with terrible explosions and scattered flaming coals.
The pastor looked at his house, still miraculously intact. He
gave it a last look, and departed sobbing. It was eleven o'clock.
For three hours in the midst of this furnace he had resisted the
incendiaries. His strength was exhausted. The faithful servant,
who went back again and again to rescue one thing more from
the burning, dragged him away. In the Rue des Saints-Pères
they plunged into darkness, all the deeper for the brazier of
sparkling lights behind them. They groped their way over the
barricades through a shower of bullets. More than once they
fell down. Finally, safe and sound despite the dangers braved,
they reached the Rue de Seine, near the Rue de Bucy, where
they found refuge in a lodging-house.
## p. 4956 (#118) ###########################################
4956
MAXIME DU CAMP
Next day Pastor Rouville ran towards the Rue de Lille. His
house was standing intact. The old sergeant had kept his word.
What became of this brave man, who at the risk of his life
saved the property of a man whose speech had touched him ?
Perhaps he perished. Perhaps he received his due reward. Per-
haps he drags out a wretched life in some workshop of a peni-
tentiary. I know not his fate, nor even his name.
## p. 4956 (#119) ###########################################
## p. 4956 (#120) ###########################################
ALEXANDRE DUMAS
## p. 4956 (#121) ###########################################
4957
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, SENIOR
(1803? -1870)
BY ANDREW LANG
AUTHOR is less capable of being illustrated by extracts than
Alexandre Dumas. Writers like Prosper Mérimée or Mr.
Robert Louis Stevenson can be not inadequately represented
by a short story or a brief scene. Even from Scott's work we can
detach (Wandering Willie's Tale,' or 'The Tapestried Chamber,' or
the study of Effie Deans in prison, or of Jeanie Deans before the
Queen. But Dumas is invariably diffuse; though, unlike other dif-
fuse talkers and writers, he is seldom tedious. He is long without
longueurs. A single example will explain this better than a page of
disquisition. The present selector had meant to extract Dumas's first
meeting with Charles Nodier at the theatre. In memory, that amus-
ing scene appeared to occupy some six pages. In fact, it covers
nearly a hundred and thirty pages of the Brussels edition of the
Memoirs) of Dumas. One reads it with such pleasure that looked
back
upon,
it seems short, while it is infinitely too long to be
extracted. In dialogue Dumas is both excellent and copious, so that
he cannot well be abbreviated. He is the Porthos of novelists, gigan-
tic, yet (at his best) muscular and not overgrown. For these reasons,
extracts out of his romances do no justice to Dumas. To read one of
his novels, say "The Three Musketeers,' even in a slovenly transla-
tion, is to know more of him than a world of critics and essayists
can teach. It is also to forget the world, and to dwell in a careless
Paradise. Our object therefore is not to give an essence of Dumas,»
but to make readers peruse him in his own books, and to save them
trouble by indicating, among these books, the best.
It is notorious that Dumas was at the head of a Company
that which Scott laughingly proposed to form “for writing and pub-
lishing the class of books called Waverley Novels. ” In legal phrase,
Dumas (deviled” his work; he had assistants, researchers, collabo-
rators. He would briefly sketch a plot, indicate the authorities to
be consulted, hand his notes to Maquet or Fiorentino, receive their
draught, and expand that into a romance. Work thus executed cannot
be equal to itself. Many books signed by Dumas may be neglected
without loss. Even to his best works, one or other of his assistants
was apt to assert a claim. The answer is convincing. Not one of
(C
((
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ALEXANDRE DUMAS.
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4957
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, SENIOR
(1803? -1870)
BY ANDREW LANG
O AUTHOR is less capable of being illustrated by extracts than
Alexandre Dumas. Writers like Prosper Mérimée or Mr.
Robert Louis Stevenson can be not inadequately represented
by a short story or a brief scene. Even from Scott's work we can
detach "Wandering Willie's Tale,' or 'The Tapestried Chamber,' or
the study of Effie Deans in prison, or of Jeanie Deans before the
Queen. But Dumas is invariably diffuse; though, unlike other dif-
fuse talkers and writers, he is seldom tedious. He is long without
longueurs. A single example will explain this better than a page of
disquisition. The present selector had meant to extract Dumas's first
meeting with Charles Nodier at the theatre. In memory, that amus-
ing scene appeared to occupy some six pages. In fact, it covers
nearly a hundred and thirty pages of the Brussels edition of the
(Memoirs) of Dumas. One reads it with such pleasure that looked
back upon, it seems short, while it is infinitely too long to be
extracted. In dialogue Dumas is both excellent and copious, so that
he cannot well be abbreviated. He is the Porthos of novelists, gigan-
tic, yet (at his best) muscular and not overgrown. For these reasons,
extracts out of his romances do no justice to Dumas. To read one of
his novels, say The Three Musketeers,' even in a slovenly transla-
tion, is to know more of him than a world of critics and essayists
can teach. It is also to forget the world, and to dwell in a careless
Paradise. Our object therefore is not to give an essence of Dumas,»
but to make readers peruse him in his own books, and to save them
trouble by indicating, among these books, the best.
It is notorious that Dumas was at the head of a «Company” like
that which Scott laughingly proposed to form for writing and pub-
lishing the class of books called Waverley Novels. ” In legal phrase,
Dumas (deviled his work; he had assistants, researchers, collabo-
rators. He would briefly sketch a plot, indicate the authorities to
be consulted, hand his notes to Maquet or Fiorentino, receive their
draught, and expand that into a romance. Work thus executed cannot
be equal to itself. Many books signed by Dumas may be neglected
without loss. Even to his best works, one or other of his assistants
was apt to assert a claim. The answer is convincing. Not one of
## p. 4958 (#126) ###########################################
4958
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, SENIOR
these ingenious men ever produced, by himself, anything that could
be mistaken for the work of the master. All his good things have
the same stamp and the same spirit, which we find nowhere else.
Again, nobody contests his authorship of his own Memoirs,' or of
his book about his dogs, birds, and other beasts — 'The Story of My
Pets. Now, the merit of these productions is, in kind, identical with
many of the merits of his best novels. There is the same good-
humor, gayety, and fullness of life. We may therefore read Dumas's
central romances without much fear of being grateful to the wrong
person. Against the modern theory that the Iliad and Odyssey are
the work of many hands in many ages, we can urge that these sup-
posed “hands” never did anything nearly so good for themselves;
and the same argument applies in the case of Alexandre Dumas.
A brief sketch of his life must now be given. "No man has had
so many of his possessions disputed as myself,” says Dumas. Not
only his right to his novels, but his right to his name and to legiti-
mate birth, was contested. Here we shall follow his own account of
himself in his Memoirs,' which do not cover nearly the whole of his
life. Alexandre Dumas was born at Villers-Cotterets-sur-Aisne, on
July 24th, 1803(? ). He lived to almost exactly the threescore and ten
years of the Psalmist.
He saw the fall of Napoleon, the restoration
of the rightful king, the expulsion of the Legitimate monarch in
1830, the Orleans rule, its overthrow in 1848, the Republic, the
Empire, and the Terrible. Year, 1870-1871. Then he died, in the
hour of the sorrow of his
«Immortal and indomitable France. ”
Dumas's full name was noble: he was Alexandre Dumas-Davy de
la Pailleterie. His family estate, La Pailleterie, was made a mar-
quisate by Louis XIV. in 1707. About 1760 the grandfather of
Dumas sold his lands in France, and went to Hayti. There in 1762
was born his father, son of Louise Cossette Dumas and of the Mar-
quis de la Pailleterie. The mother must have been a woman of
color; Dumas talks of his father's “ mulatto hue,” and he himself had
undoubted traces of African blood. Yet it appears that the grand-
parents were duly married. In 1772, his wife having died, the old
marquis returned to France. The Revolution broke out, and the
father of Alexandre Dumas fought in the armies of the Republic.
The cruel mob called him by way of mockery, Monsieur Humanity,"
because he endeavored to rescue the victims of their ferocity. He
was a man of great courage and enormous physical strength. Napo-
leon, in honor of one of his feats of arms, called him in a dispatch
«The Horatius Cocles of the Republic. ” He was with Napoleon in
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ALEXANDRE DUMAS, SENIOR
4959
Egypt, where a quarrel arose, as he suspected and opposed the ambi-
tion of the future emperor. Though Dumas found a treasure in a
bey's house, he honorably presented it to his government. He died
in France, a poor man, in 1806.
Dumas was not at home when his father died. He was staying, a
child of four, with his cousin Marianne.
At midnight I was awakened, or rather my cousin and I were awakened,
by a great blow struck on the door of our room. By the light of a night
lamp I saw my cousin start up, much alarmed. No mortal could have
knocked at our chamber door, for the outer doors were locked. (He gives a
plan of the house. ] I got out of bed to open the door. Where are you
going, Alexandre ? ) cried my cousin.
«« To let in papa, who is coming to say adieu. ?
“The girl dragged me back to bed; I cried, Adieu, papa, adieu! ) Some-
thing like a sighing breath passed over my face.
My father had died
at the hour when we heard the knock! »
.
This anecdote may remind the reader of what occurred at Abbots-
ford on the night when Mr. Bullock died in London. Dumas tells
another tale of the same kind (Memoirs, Vol. xi. , page 255: Brus-
sels, 1852). On the night of his mother's death he in vain sought a
similar experience. These things come not by observation”; but
Dumas, like Scott, had a mind not untuned to such themes, though
not superstitious.
Young Dumas, like most men of literary genius, taught himself to
read. A Buffon with plates was the treasure of the child, already a
lover of animals. To know more about the beasts he learned to read
for his own pleasure. Of mythology he was as fond as Keats. His
intellectual life began (like the imaginative life of our race) in legends
of beasts and gods. For Dumas was born' un primitif, as the French
say; his taste was the old immortal human taste for romance, for
tales of adventure, love, and war. This predilection is now of course
often scouted by critics who are over-civilized and under-educated.
Superior persons will never share the love of Dumas which was com-
mon to Thackeray and Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson. From Buffon he
went on to the Letters to Émil' (letters on mythology), and to the
Arabian Nights. An imaginative child, he knew the pains of
sleep” as Coleridge did, and the terrors of vain imagination. Many
children whose manhood is not marked by genius are visionaries. A
visionary too was little Dumas, like Scott, Coleridge, and George
Sand in childhood. To the material world he ever showed a bold
face. «I have never known doubt or despair,” he says; his faith in
God was always unshaken; the doctrine of immortality he regarded
rather with hope than absolute belief. Yet surely it is a corollary to
the main article of his creed.
## p. 4960 (#128) ###########################################
4960
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, SENIOR
At ten, Dumas went to a private school kept by an Abbé Grégoire.
At the Restoration, a boy of twelve, he made and he adhered to an
important resolution. He chose to keep his grandmaternal name of
Dumas, like his father, and to drop the name and arms of De la
Pailleterie, with all the hopes of boons from the restored Royalists.
Dumas remained a man of the popular party, though he had certain
relations of friendship with the house of Orléans. But he entertained
no posthumous hatred of the old monarchy and the old times. His
kings are nearly as good, in his romances, as Sir Walter's own, and
his Henri III. and Henri IV. may be named with Scott's Gentle King
Jamie and Louis XI.
Madame Dumas, marquise as she was by marriage, kept a tobac-
conist's shop; and in education, Dumas was mainly noted for his
calligraphy. Poaching was now the boy's favorite amusement; all
through his life he was very fond of sport. Napoleon returned from
Elba; Dumas saw him drive through Villers-Cotterets on his way to
Waterloo. Soon afterwards came in stragglers; the English, they
said, had been defeated at five o'clock on June 18th, but the Prus-
sians arrived at six o'clock and won the battle. What the English
were doing between five and six does not appear; it hardly seems
that they quitted the field. The theory of that British defeat at
Waterloo was never abandoned by Dumas. He saw Napoleon re-
turn through Villers-Cotterets. “Wellington, Bülow, Blücher, were
but masks of men; really they were spirits sent by the Most High to
defeat Napoleon. ” It is a pious opinion!
At the age of fifteen Dumas, like Scott, became a notary's clerk.
About this time he saw Hamlet' played, in the version of Ducis.
Corneille and Racine had always been disliked by this born romanti-
cist. Hamlet) carried him off his feet. Soon afterwards he read
Bürger's Lenore,' the ballad which Scott translated at the very
beginning of his career as an author.
« Tramp! tramp! along the land they rode,
Splash! splash! along the sea;
The scourge is red, the spur drops blood,
The flashing pebbles flee. "
This German ballad, says Scott, “struck him as the kind of thing
he could do himself. ” And Dumas found that the refrain
«Hurrah, fantôme, les morts vont vite,"
was more to his taste than the French poetry of the eighteenth cen-
tury. He tried to translate Lenore. ) Scott finished it in a night;
Dumas gave up in despair. But this, he says, was the beginning of
his authorship. He had not yet opened a volume of Scott or Cooper,
«ces deux grands romanciers. ” With a friend named Leuven he
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ALEXANDRE DUMAS, SENIOR
4961
began to try to write plays (1820–1821). He now poached his way to
Paris, defraying his expenses with the game he shot on the road.
Shakespeare too was a poacher; let us excuse the eccentricities of
genius. He made Talma's acquaintance; he went to the play; he
resigned his clerkship: Paris was my future. ” Thither he went; his
father's name served him with General Foy, and he obtained a little
post in the household of the Duc D'Orléans a supernumerary secre-
taryship at £60 a year. At the play he met Charles Nodier, reading
the rarest of Elzevirs, and at intervals (like Charles Lamb) hissing
his own piece! This delightful scene, with its consequences, occu-
pies one hundred and thirty pages!
Dumas now made the acquaintance of Frederic Soulié, and became
a pillar of theatres. He began to read with a purpose: first he read
Scott; «The clouds lifted, and I beheld new horizons. ” Then he
turned to Cooper; then to Byron. One day he entered his office, cry-
ing aloud, “Byron is dead! “Who is Byron ? ” said one of his chiefs.
Here Dumas breaks off in his 'Memoirs) to give a life of Byron! He
fought his first duel in the snow, and won an easy, almost a blood-
less victory. For years he and Leuven wrote plays together,- plays
which were never accepted.
At last he, Rousseau (not Jean Jacques!
