That his works (his best works) should be even still more
widely circulated than they are; that the young should read them,
and learn frankness, kindness, generosity--should esteem the tender
heart, and the gay, invincible wit; that the old should read them
again, and find forgetfulness of trouble, and taste the anodyne of
dreams, that is what we desire.
Dumas said of himself ("Memoires," v. 13) that when he was young he
tried several times to read forbidden books--books that are sold
sous le manteau. But he never got farther than the tenth page, in
the
"scrofulous French novel
On gray paper with blunt type;"
he never made his way so far as
"the woful sixteenth print."
"I had, thank God, a natural sentiment of delicacy; and thus, out of
my six hundred volumes (in 1852) there are not four which the most
scrupulous mother may not give to her daughter." Much later, in
1864, when the Censure threatened one of his plays, he wrote to the
Emperor: "Of my twelve hundred volumes there is not one which a
girl in our most modest quarter, the Faubourg Saint-Germain, may not
be allowed to read." The mothers of the Faubourg, and mothers in
general, may not take Dumas exactly at his word. There is a
passage, for example, in the story of Miladi ("Les Trois
Mousquetaires") which a parent or guardian may well think
undesirable reading for youth. But compare it with the original
passage in the "Memoires" of D'Artagnan! It has passed through a
medium, as Dumas himself declared, of natural delicacy and good
taste.
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