So Dumas' literary career began with a defeat, but it was always a
beginning. He had just failed with "Lenore," when Leuven asked him
to collaborate in a play. He was utterly ignorant, he says; he had
not succeeded in gallant efforts to read through "Gil Blas" and "Don
Quixote." "To my shame," he writes, "the man has not been more
fortunate with those masterpieces than the boy." He had not yet
heard of Scott, Cooper, Goethe; he had heard of Shakespeare only as
a barbarian. Other plays the boy wrote--failures, of course--and
then Dumas poached his way to Paris, shooting partridges on the
road, and paying the hotel expenses by his success in the chase. He
was introduced to the great Talma: what a moment for Talma, had he
known it! He saw the theatres. He went home, but returned to
Paris, drew a small prize in a lottery, and sat next a gentleman at
the play, a gentleman who read the rarest of Elzevirs, "Le
Pastissier Francais," and gave him a little lecture on Elzevirs in
general. Soon this gentleman began to hiss the piece, and was
turned out. He was Charles Nodier, and one of the anonymous authors
of the play he was hissing! I own that this amusing chapter lacks
verisimilitude. It reads as if Dumas had chanced to "get up" the
subject of Elzevirs, and had fashioned his new knowledge into a
little story. He could make a story out of anything--he "turned all
to favour and to prettiness." Could I translate the whole passage,
and print it here, it would be longer than this article; but, ah,
how much more entertaining! For whatever Dumas did he did with such
life, spirit, wit, he told it with such vivacity, that his whole
career is one long romance of the highest quality. Lassagne told
him he must read--must read Goethe, Scott, Cooper, Froissart,
Joinville, Brantome. He read them to some purpose. He entered the