Evening star., 1928-10-18
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL.

modern camera would present. If a
reader hopes to find them, he will be
disappointed, that is all. Take the mat
ter of conversation, which Dumas
handles SO excellently, but which one
of our correspondents asserts is 'stilted
and unnatural" That some of it is
Stilted may be admitted, but that any
of it is unnatural we do not for a mo-
ment feel. 1t must be remembered, in
the first place, that Dumas wrote of
peoples living in ages when ordinary
daily conversation had not descended
to the colloquial as it has today. Then,
too, no reader must ever forget that
Dumas gave his effervescent spirit to
all he wrote, equally to the dialogue
of his characters as to his plots, their
| essential action and swing. No doubt
he is in error, strictly speaking, to make
a peasant hold forth in the same Ian
guage as a marquis Yet the careful
reader may have more than suspicion
that Dumas liked his peasant better
than he did his marquis, and is merely
trying to carry forward, in devious
manner, but none the less apparent to
one able to read between the lines, the
revolution of '89!
As for the action of Dumas novels
being ''the crudeSt sort Of SWaShbucKler
stuff" that phrase is absurd in essence,
and totally without truth in fact. NO
finer fictional plots were ever planned
or put into execution than those con-
tanned in various series of novels writ
ten by the elder Dumas. The D'Artag-
nan series. containing the incompar-
able Three Musketeers" and the en-
thralling Louise de la Valliere," pre-
sents some of the greatest plot nandlln2
in the whole range of fiction. The
change of kings in the Man in the
Iron Mask" is literally stupendous
thing. If 1t is "swashbuckler stuff.
as no doubt it is. then let fiction take
to more and better sWashbuckllng, II 1t
can!
Even the most ardent Dumas ian
must plead guilty for him. to the
charge that his romances are very very
long. It is a poor theme, indeed, that
cannot work up two or three hundred
thousand words before Alexandra Dumas
gets done with it. That his stories are
too long" however, no friend of Dumas
will ever admit They take many words
because they depict much action. many
conversations. On such theaters OF
action as he presents it is Impossible
for days, months and years TO oe
Jumped off with q mere sentence. His
plots proceed by steps, exciting, inter-
esting steps, every one of them, which
take the reader right along with the
characters, and which literally show
him every step of the way. A Dumas
story too long! Why. that is the
greatest joke in the world! The only
trouble with them is that they must
end.
The charge that they all begin
alike and end alike" would be absurd
if it were not laughable. One who
enters into the jovial spirit of the Du-
mas story can we'll afford to laugh at
such a terrible charge The sad truth
is that every Dumas story does, indeed,
begin like Dumas, and end like Dumas.
Nothing more can be expected from
this characteristic teller of tales. "On
the evening of July 4, 1872, horseman
might be seen proceeding along the
Nantes road" Yes. most of them begin
that way, and most readers rather ike
it, A sensible beginning, indeed AS
for his endings, they are like life's,
without any particular fanfare, maybe
a wave of the hand, or Snile-a SEN
tence about no particular thing. THE
End" comes in exactly such a fashion
to most. It is precisely as one would
expect to find it in writer who knew
his human beings as they are, yet COL
ored them with the secret longlngs OF
the hearts and minds of all humanity.