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cannot write their own language, and I gather that Dumas is out of
date.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
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.
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