Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1895-12-05

bly, uttered a few words to those about
his bedside and then sank and died.
President Faure and ex-Empress Eu-
genie have made frequent inquiries re-
garding the condition of the distin-
guished patient since his serious illness
was first made known.
Alexander Dumas was born in 1924,
when his father was only p years of
age. The young Alexander published
his first work when he was in his seven
and called "Les Peches de Jeunesse."
The sin of poetry he repented of, and
his next appearance was as a novelist,
in 1S47. with a rather tedious romance,
-Four Women and Parrot" In the
following year he published LIE Roman
dune Femme, Cesarine" and 'La Dame
aux Camelias,' all marked with such
dramatic power that the authors sue
cess as dramatist could be foreseen
and foretold.
The triumph of ''La Dame aux Came
las at the Vaudeville. with Nine.
was colossal and it is today as attract
i've as ever in every country. His other
victories-''Le Demi-Monde," 'Ia Fem
me de Claude" "Etrangere,' "Denise,"
''Francillon," "Monsieur Alphonse," all
models of construction and character
all the author regarded society from
| the pathological point of view; he was
always on the lookout for some moral
malady. the more extraordinary the bet
(, ter, and in all he worked out his theories
with cold precision.
| M. Dumas was a remarkable example
of Inheritance of talent, says a writer in
| critical estimate of the man. Yet be-
tween the author of ''La Dame aux
| Camelias" and the author of Lies Trois
Mousquetaires' there was as great
difference as between the Armand Duval
: of the former and the D'Artagnan of the
! latter. The son once attempted to ex-
| plain the difference by saying: MY
/. father was born in poetic age, and
he is an idealist; [ was born in a
materialistic age, and am a realist. My
/ father takes his subjects from dream
I land; take mine from life. He works
with his eyes shut; | with mine open:
he starts from fact; from an idea"
| The Their, however, was nearer the
truth and epigrammatical heater when
/ he summed up with the words "He is
a photographer; l am a painter. The
! father owed the larger part of his sue
| cess to his power as story teller
Astounding in action, splendid in color,
;, full of life, gayety and charm, always
goodly and glad; never sick and sorry.
| ''He was a force of nature" said Niche
/ let, ''and, like nature, he had no theo-
ries. The son, on the other hand, is of
! theorizing all compact, and never hest
| tates about working his theses into para
/ dox."
At 16, after thorough training at
! the Institution Goubaux and the College
Bourbon, M. Dumas fills left school for
the world of letters and the society, to
! which his father, then at his apogee,
! belonged He started in fiction and sue
ceeded, so he went on to drama and sue
| ceeded; he went on to theorizing about
art, morals, politics and religion and sue
ceeded He was a member of the In
stitute in 1874, and is the acknowledged
best playwright and one of the greatest
artists in words of latter-day France.
His novels, from ''La Dame aux Came
| las 1S4S) to "L'Affaire Clemenceau
! $3.50, are considered classics, while his
essays, letters, speeches, prefaces and
projections are brilliant and admirable in
form, and in matter daring, paradoxical
and suggestive in a high degree. Of his
sixteen plays there is scarce one that is
not literature, while five or six of them
are masterpieces of construction, char
| acterization and writing. He was a
brilliant yet dubious combination of Afri-
can and French, his great-gra ndfather
having been a full-blooded African ne
gro. He was made grand officer Of
the Legion of Honor December 20, 1894.
His wife died April II, 1895.