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had no real love for her. A short time afterwards this lover was taken ill, and reappeared at court dumb. One day, at the end of three years, when the same persons were expressing their astonishment at her loving him still, she said to him, "Speak!" and he spoke.

'It not unfrequently happens that a clever man, in paying court to a woman, has done no more than make her think of love, and predispose her heart. She encourages this clever man who gives her this pleasure. He conceives hopes. One fine day this woman meets the man who makes her feel what the other has described.'

It is a redeeming feature in Beyle's character, to be set against a host of errors, that, in what he terms his affairs of the heart, he was remarkable for the delicacy and depth of his feelings, and the constancy of his attachment. There was one woman,' says Mérimée, 'whose name he could never pronounce without trepidation in his voice. In 1836 (he was then fifty-three) he spoke to me of his love with profound emotion. An affection, which dated very far back, was no longer returned. His mistress was growing reasonable, and he was as madly in love as at twenty. "How can you

still love me?" she asked; "I am forty-five." "In my eyes," said Beyle," she is as young as when we first met." Then, with that spirit of observation which never left him, he detailed all the little symptoms of growing indifference that he had remarked. "After all," he said, "her conduct is rational. She was fond

of whist. She is fond of it no longer so much the worse for me if I am still fond of whist. She is of a country where ridicule is the greatest of evils. To love at her age is ridiculous. During eighteen months

she has risked this evil for my sake. This makes eighteen months of happiness that I have stolen from her.""

Beyle, always too stout for elegance, grew corpulent as he advanced in years, and his portrait, as sketched by his friend M. Colomb, does not convey the impression of an homme aux bonnes fortunes. But his brow was fine, his eye lively and penetrating, his mouth expressive, and his hand cast in so fine a mould that a celebrated sculptor applied for permission to take a cast of it for a statue of Mirabeau.

The utmost space we feel justified in devoting to this remarkable man is exhausted, and we cannot now notice any other of his works. We will merely add one observation which is equally applicable to all of them. They belong pre-eminently to what he calls the class of insolent works, which require and compel readers to think; and if (as many apprehend) the prevalent fashion for cheap reprints should end by deteriorating literature and lowering the popular taste, there will be some comfort in reflecting that it has occasionally rescued from unmerited neglect the name and writings of a man of thought, observation, and sensibility, like Beyle.

393

ALEXANDER DUMAS.

[FROM THE QUARTERLY REVIEW FOR JULY, 1871.]

1. Mémoires d'Alexandre Dumas. Tomes 16.

2. Mémoires d'Alexandre Dumas. Deuxième Série. Tomes 8.

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BACON never gave stronger proof of his knowledge of mankind than when he left his name and memory to foreign nations and the next ages.' A whole host of proverbs might be cited in justification of this bequest; and Lord Russell has felicitously described a proverb as the wisdom of many and the wit of one. 'No man is a prophet in his own country.' No man is a hero to his valet de chambre.' Familiarity breeds contempt.' What are these but so many variations of the same familiar tune, so many modes of expressing the same universally recognised truth, that it is vain to hope for a just and fair appreciation from our contemporaries. We may be unduly exalted as well as unduly lowered by them, for a brief period or for a set purpose; but that they should hold the scales even, and pronounce impartially on the merits or demerits of a living rival or associate, would seem to border on a moral impossibility. In conversation with James Smith, Crabbe expressed

great astonishment at his own popularity in London, adding, 'In my own village they think nothing of me.' If people cannot bring themselves to contemplate as a real genius the quiet unobtrusive character whom they see moving amongst them like any other ordinary mortal, how can they be expected to recognise, as a duly qualified candidate for the character, one who is mixed up in a succession of literary or party intrigues and contests, who is alternately wounding their prejudices or flattering their self-love, whose fame or notoriety resembles the shuttlecock, which is only kept from falling by being struck from side to side in rivalry.

In England, of late years, political acrimony has been nearly banished from the higher regions of criticism ; but an infinity of disturbing forces have been unceasingly at work to prevent the fair estimate of a popular writer in France, and there never was a popular writer who had better reason than Alexander Dumas to protest against the contemporary judgment of his countrymen, or to appeal, like Bacon, to foreign nations and the next ages. This could hardly have been his own opinion when he commenced the publication of his autobiography, which was far from mitigating the spirit of detraction he had provoked; but his death may be accepted as an atonement for his manifold offences; and the most cursory glance at his career will show that its irregularities were indissolubly connected with its brilliancy. It was an adventurous one, in every sense of the term. From its commencement to its close he threw reflection overboard and cast prudence to the winds. He is one

of the most remarkable examples of fearless self-reliance, restless activity, and sustained exertion, we ever read or heard of. His resources of all sorts, mental and bodily, proved inexhaustible till six months before his death, although he had been drawing upon them from early youth with reckless prodigality. Amongst his many tours de force was the composition of a complete fiveact drama within eight days, and the editorship of a daily journal, Le Mousquetaire, upon a distinct understanding with his subscribers, faithfully observed, that the contents should be supplied by his pen. It was towards the end of the second month of the satisfactory performance of this task that he received the following letter:

'MY DEAR DUMAS,

"You have been informed that I have become one of your subscribers (abonnés), and you ask my opinion of your journal. I have an opinion on human things: I have none on miracles: you are superhuman. My opinion of you! It is a note of exclamation! People have tried to discover perpetual motion. You have done better: you have created perpetual astonishment. Adieu ! live! in other words, write! I am there to read.

'Paris, 20th December, 1853.'

'LAMARTINE.

He set up a theatre-Le Théâtre historique-for the representation of his own plays, as he set up a journal for his own contributions. He has not written quite as many plays as Lope de Vega, but he has written four times as many romances as the author of 'Waverley;' and he has done quite enough in both walks to confute

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