virtues that never were theirs, history loses nothing, and romance
and we are the gainers. In all he does, at his best, as in the
"Chevalier d'Harmenthal," he has movement, kindness, courage, and
gaiety. His philosophy of life is that old philosophy of the sagas
and of Homer. Let us enjoy the movement of the fray, the faces of
fair women, the taste of good wine; let us welcome life like a
mistress, let us welcome death like a friend, and with a jest--if
death comes with honour.

Dumas is no pessimist. "Heaven has made but one drama for man--the
world," he writes, "and during these three thousand years mankind
has been hissing it." It is certain that, if a moral censorship
could have prevented it, this great drama of mortal passions would
never have been licensed, at all, never performed. But Dumas, for
one, will not hiss it, but applauds with all his might--a charmed
spectator, a fortunate actor in the eternal piece, where all the men
and women are only players. You hear his manly laughter, you hear
his mighty hands approving, you see the tears he sheds when he had
"slain Porthos"--great tears like those of Pantagruel.


His may not be the best, nor the ultimate philosophy, but it IS a
philosophy, and one of which we may some day feel the want. I read
the stilted criticisms, the pedantic carpings of some modern men who
cannot write their own language, and I gather that Dumas is out of
date. There is a new philosophy of doubts and delicacies, of
dallyings and refinements, of half-hearted lookers-on, desiring and
fearing some new order of the world. Dumas does not dally nor
doubt: he takes his side, he rushes into the smoke, he strikes his
foe; but there is never an unkind word on his lip, nor a grudging