Evening star., 1928-10-31
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL.

'D'Artagnan wondered how it was
that there should be in the worlc
people who succeed in every wish. some
in ambition, others in love, whilst
others. either from chance, or from
ill-luck, or from some natural de-
feet or impediment, remain halfway
upon the road toward fulfillment OF
their hopes and expectations. Dumas
Thousands Of men and women have
wondered with the honest DArtagnar
about this very same thing. There
are as many solutions of the problem
as there are thinkers, and in the very
nature of the question none of them
can be entirely right.
The greatest hope is that any guess
er may guess right for himself; and II
he does, he may or may not be able
to 60 ahead and correct the fault. and
to come out at the end of the journey
after all.
What led Dumas famous character
to his reflections was the fact that for
20 years he had remained lieutenant
in His Majesty's mustketeers, without
going ahead rank in all that time.
He had been forgotten.
In less romantic times thousands
upon thousands of human beings will
see themselves in exactly DArtagnan's
circumstances. They will, at some
time or other, have exactly the same
thoughts that he had. In passing, 1t
will be permissible to venture the as
sertion that this particular series OF
romances is popular with most readers
partly because 1t brings us this eternal
problem.
The average reader of romance does
not bother his head, as he reads, with
the philosophical aspects of the tale or
of the characters, but there can be
little question that such problems as
that considered by the worthy hero reg
iSter in the minds of readers.
Such problems, faced by all men, lend
aspects of reality to a tale which glis--
tens with thousand absurdities and
some impossibilities. They bring the
tale down to earth, and make the read
er realize, although perhaps subcon-
sciously, that this is real man, this
glorious, swashbuckling fellow, a fellow
human being in a world where in
gratitude and forgetfulness play their
part.
D'Artagnan was in a rut.
Government employees, for instance,
are so used to having others speak
commiseratingly of them as "in rut"
that 1t may come as both interesting
and hopeful to them to hear that
DArtagnan, although only fiction
character, was in a rut, too.
As matter of cold fact, there was a
real D'Artagnan, much such charac-
ter as Dumas pictured. He was real
Gascon, who wrote his own memoirs
in three imposing volumes, which still
may be found in bookShops devoted to
the unusual.
1t took the narrative ability of Alex
andre Dumas, however, to make the
name D'Artagnan household word in
the mouths of fiction readers the world
over.
Twenty years had gone by, in the
incompatible canvas which Dumas un-
rolled, since the brilliant adventures
which made 1.-The Three MusketeerS"
probably the worlds greatest romance.
In Twenty Years After" we find our
famous friend musing on a problem
which at once takes him out of the
swashbuckler class, which most of us
have neither opportunity nor desire to
join, and puts him into a class into
which most persons who live in this
present-day economic world fit very
nicely.
Who is there who does not know
certain people who succeed in every
wish, whether it be of ambition, love
or Whatnot, while there are others
and all too often himself, alas!--who
remain halfway upon the road toward
fulfillment of their hopes and expecta-