New-York tribune., 1918-07-28

of whom has left on the his
tory and drama of that nation the in
delible mark of his genius. They are
Alexandra Dumas the elder, born July
"a, 1902, -and Alexandra Dumas the
younger, born July 27, 1924.
The former, who is known as the
greatest French romantic novelist, and
one Of the most universally read story
tellers of the world, was the grandson
Of the Marquis Alexandra Davy Pail
leterie and negress. After a short
apprenticeship to an attorney in Sois-
sons he came to Paris with no more
capital than his pen and determine
tion to make his fortune by writing for
the stage. His play, Henri III and
His Court" produced in 1929, signalized
the revolt against the classic stage and
was the first real triumph of the ro-
mantle school.
But it is for his novels that he is best
loved. In 1874 he produced in collab-
oration with Maquet the first Of his
"sword and cloak" romances, "The
Three Musketeers," that world-famous
story Of the adventures of d'Artagnan
and his comrades, the gigantic Porthos,
the clever Aramis and the melan-
choly Athos, who unite to defend the
honor of Anne of Austria against the
Vaccinations of Richelieu. This was
Immediately followed by two sequels,
Twenty Years After" and "The
Vicomte de Bragelonne." These are as
popular in English as in French.
Thackeray could read about Athos from
sunrise to sunset with utmost content
ment, and, among others, Andrew Lang
and Robert Louis Stevenson have paid
tribute to that jovial quartet.
HERE is an extract from Stevenson's
IL essay on Dumas, included in
Memories and Portraits:
Gone two of Scott's novels, Shake
speare, Montaigne, Moliere, the egoist,
and the Vicomte de Bragelonne from the
inner circle of my ntimates. My acquaint-
ance with the Vicomte began somewhat in
directly in the year 1868, when I had the
advantage of studying certain illustrated
!
perusal was in one of those pirated edi-
tions that swarmed at that time out Of
| Brussels and ran to such troop of neat
and dwarfsh volumes I understood but
little of the merits of the book; my strong.
est memory is of the execution of d'Eymeric
and Lyodot, strange testimony to the
dulness of boy who could enjoy the
rough and tumble in the Place de Greve
and forget d'Artagnan's visit TO the fnan-
ciers,. Ny next reading in the winter
time when l lived alone upon the Pent-
lands. I would return in the early night
from one of my patrols with the shepherd
q friendly face would meet me in the door,
a friendly retriever would scurry upstairs
to fetch my slippers; and l would sit down
with the Vicomte for long silent, solitary,
lamplit evening by the fire. And yet I
know not why call it silent when it vas
enlivened with such clatter of horse
shoes and such a rattle of musketry and
such a stir of talk, or why I call those
evenings solitary in which I gained SO
many friends. I would rise from my book
and pull the blind aside and see the snow
and the glittering hollies checker Scotch
garden and the winter moonlight brighten
the white hills. Thence | would return
again to that crowded and sunny field Of
life in which it SO easy to forget my
self, my cares and my surroundings.
place busy as a city and bright theatre,
thronged with memorable faces and sound
ing with delightful speech. I carried the
thread of that epic into my slumbers;
woke with it unbroken; l rejoiced to plunge
into the book again at breakfast; it was
with pang that I must lay it down and
turn to my own labors, for no part of the
world has ever seemed to me SO Charming
as these pages.
"Snce then have been going to and fro
at very brief intervals in my favorite
book; and have now just risen from nv
last (let me call it my fifth perusa, hav-
ing liked it better and admired it more
seriously than ever"
A LMOST equally famous are "The
~ Count of Monte-Cristo" and the
series of Valois novels which have for
their central figure King Henry of Ma
varre. Dumas aimed to reconstruct in his
novels the whole course of French his
tory, and is said to have been RESPONSE
Die IN full for 289 volumes He had many
collaborators and his enemies have al
leged that he maintained novel fac
tory for which he purchased the work
OF unknown authors and transators for
publication, after slight revision, under
ms own name, or on occasion with
out his even having read what appeared
under his name. However, manuscripts
of novels still eyiSt IN D,,pooc,c o,.,,, ha and
writing. 1t seems more probable that
his assistants supplied him with the out
lines Of romances on plans drawn up by
himself, and he then rewrote the whole
work