thought in his heart.

It may be said that Dumas is not a master of words and phrases, that
he is not a raffine of expression, nor a jeweller of style. When I
read the maunderings, the stilted and staggering sentences, the
hesitating phrases, the far-sought and dear-bought and worthless
word-juggles; the sham scientific verbiage, the native pedantries of
many modern so-called "stylists," I rejoice that Dumas was not one
of these. He told a plain tale, in the language suited to a plain
tale, with abundance of wit and gaiety, as in the reflections of his
Chicot, as in all his dialogues. But he did not gnaw the end of his
pen in search of some word that nobody had ever used in this or that
connection before. The right word came to him, the simple
straightforward phrase. Epithet-hunting may be a pretty sport, and
the bag of the epithet-hunter may contain some agreeable epigrams
and rare specimens of style; but a plain tale of adventure, of love
and war, needs none of this industry, and is even spoiled by
inopportune diligence. Speed, directness, lucidity are the
characteristics of Dumas' style, and they are exactly the
characteristics which his novels required. Scott often failed, his
most loyal admirers may admit, in these essentials; but it is rarely
that Dumas fails, when he is himself and at his best.

In spite of his heedless education, Dumas had true critical
qualities, and most admired the best things. We have already seen
how he writes about Shakespeare, Virgil, Goethe, Scott. But it may
be less familiarly known that this burly man-of-all-work, ignorant
as he was of Greek, had a true and keen appreciation of Homer.
Dumas declares that he only thrice criticised his contemporaries in
an unfavourable sense, and as one wishful to find fault. The