The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1867-01-07

M. ALEXANDRA DUMAs was haei at work
at last accounts upon his new Moas4aetaire
newspaper The Paris correspondent Of
London contemporary gossips on the subject
thus pleasantly
Dumas opens his campaign with declara-
lioa that he and those associated with him in
his new compound paper have not OF $4,000
francs TO spend in the way OF publicity but
he believes they have $4,000 friends, and he
bids this army OF readers follow their old lead
er, aud comfort him with little money. His
candor is delightful; it comes upon one like
the scent OF wild thyme alter the bartering OF
a dusty market Dumas is a man who wears
n 1t .,ny bis heart but his balance sheet upon
his sleeve He tells us how it was that he and
the new propretefs OF the Nouveiles came to-
gether and how his funeral feuilieton on Rog-
er de Beauvoir was interrupted. We are adj
mitteG not only to buy the new Mousquetaire
over the office counter; the empty cash box
is set before us. We are welcome IN the edI-
tors sanctum. The radiant face OF Dumas
shines through every column. What he did
years ago, what be is doing now, what he in
tends to do, his grand dinners, and little sup
per5, his travels and his charities, his cook and
his domestic animals, will furnish forth once
more the daily fare of his readers.
So intimate does the reader become with
the lie and schemes of the lght-hearted edi-
tor, that at last he seems to be conducting the
journal himself, and seems to have direct
personal and pecuniary interest in its ups and
downs. Dumas has never lost the power OF
establishing an immediate intimacy between
himself and his readers. lie keeps no secrets
back. For instance in the first number OF his
Mousquetaire he is good enough to draw
contrast between his manner or building up
the interest OF a story and that of Sir Walter
Scot. He describes Scotts manner boldly.
Sir Waiter, it seems, weared his readers with
masses OF petty details and chapters OF mi
croscopic description. Sometimes he would
write volume---nay, volume and half
OF tedious details about number OF charac-
ters; then the story would break upon the
hall-exbausted reader, and, as the dramatic
incidents happen. the reader would say, Dear
me that's the man in the green paid" and
"The hero Is the gentleman in the pointed
Shoes OF a hundred solid pages back. This
was SCOTS manner. Dumas adopts the OPP
70 lite principle of composition. He secures
the attention of his readers at once by stalt-
ling incidents and vivid characterization and
description.
At the skirts Of Papa Dumas comes dutiful
Alexandra Dumas fills, with goodly series OF
inaSims. The maxirns are startling. Many
of them are iI-patured, and most of them
want the sswasp's edge" of the episrain Take
d sample OF Inc starting ones: miracles are
the coup d'etat of God!' This is among the
best: "lhere are people who see no difference
between flag and a livery" viii add one
more God fishes for souls with rod; the
devil with net" & "a nfh
The epigram on miracles is asiaIism, 1t
was first said by an Italian statesman, whose
name we cannot at the moment remember,
and was quoted in an article in the Westmin-
ster Review about year ago.