into tedium, and the laurels of Scott and Dumas into crowns of
nettles.

There is no complete life of Alexandre Dumas. The age has not
produced the intellectual athlete who can gird himself up for that
labour. One of the worst books that ever was written, if it can be
said to be written, is, I think, the English attempt at a biography
of Dumas. Style, grammar, taste, feeling, are all bad. The author
does not so much write a life as draw up an indictment. The spirit
of his work is grudging, sneering, contemptuous, and pitifully
peddling. The great charge is that Dumas was a humbug, that he was
not the author of his own books, that his books were written by
"collaborators"--above all, by M. Maquet. There is no doubt that
Dumas had a regular system of collaboration, which he never
concealed. But whereas Dumas could turn out books that live,
whoever his assistants were, could any of his assistants write books
that live, without Dumas? One might as well call any barrister in
good practice a thief and an impostor because he has juniors to
"devil" for him, as make charges of this kind against Dumas. He
once asked his son to help him; the younger Alexandre declined. "It
is worth a thousand a year, and you have only to make objections,"
the sire urged; but the son was not to be tempted. Some excellent
novelists of to-day would be much better if they employed a friend
to make objections. But, as a rule, the collaborator did much more.
Dumas' method, apparently, was first to talk the subject over with
his aide-de-camp. This is an excellent practice, as ideas are
knocked out, like sparks (an elderly illustration!), by the contact
of minds. Then the young man probably made researches, put a rough
sketch on paper, and supplied Dumas, as it were, with his "brief."
Then Dumas took the "brief" and wrote the novel. He gave it life,