The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-01-07

From the New York Times.
 1 GTI HE elder Dumas, maker with com l petent assistants of some 300 vol umes. of which half are highly
 readable today, died on December 5, 1S7u. An editorial writer of Le Temps takes advantage of this semi-centennial to 1eer l at that boundless glutton of work and and still delights the third He was not fin the tradition" Therefore, it is tho duty of the superior French modern to throw bricks at him. The Temps man composes a little romance of his own for this purpose. He invents critic and journalist who. like everybody else, read "The Three Guardsmen'' in his youth and for some 5 years has never wanted to look at it again. He consents to sub
 init himself to that trouble in honor of
 the sem-centennial and as an obligation to "actuality" Surely nothing can be easier than to pick up copy of the most famous work of him who has the reputation of being the most popular of French romance writers. Every book seller must keep it on hand
 Imagine his surprise and joy! Tho
 Three Guardsmen is out of print. Even the publisher of the Complete Works of Dumas can't supply the missing volumes.
 The seeker runs all over Paris, gets the first odd volume at one shop. the sec ond at another. To be sure. there IS an English edition, but that is becom- ing exhausted and it's price has quad rurled. Clearly. the work has lost it's vogue. Everybody knows the title and neglects the book. "On the strength of worry distant recollections. we are free to admit that it was amusing" Hasn't the popularity of Father Dumas waned? Shouldn't we regard it as a legendT The Superior One settles the question summarily After forcing himself to read % pages, ''the book falls from his hands" It is unreadable. The great amuser is
 a bore" given to "heaviness. platitudes' a clumsy, elementary and embarrassed
 style, silly jovility.'' ''The Three Guards
 mem owed it's success Ito profound
 indifference to literature"
 Well, Sir Walter had no Styie. I1e adu
 plenty of matter without art One might
 think, too, that the very scarcity or
 "The Three Guardsmen," if we accepted
 the Parisian apologue as fact indicated
 a strong demand for the offending vol
 umes. The Superior One betrays little
 un ca siness. If in ones green, unknow-
 ing youth one enjoys these puerile and
 complicated adventures without bother
 ing about thought, style or good taste"
 aren't there grown-up folks who are fond
 of him? Alas yes, many among us'-
 the most fortunate of us in fact-"are
 still pleased withSthese old wives tales.
 So there are people who divert them
 selves with dominoes or bridge. Really,
 ..The Three Guardsmen'' has no longer any literary importance or significance"
 It would be breath wasted to defend the matchless movement and action of the elder Dumas in The Three Guards
 men" or that powerful and original use. peculiar to him. of dialogue. The immor tai three and their valets. Milady the humor, the energy, the passion and the valor, the historic and the romantic in that wonderful pageant of action and adventure. will never grow flat and stale. In moments of depression or ennui the book offers sure escape into an en- chanted country. So Thackeray and mil-