Page:The life and writings of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) (IA lifewritingsofal00spurrich).pdf/157



"The great eater, worker, earner and waster, the man of much and witty laughter, the man of great heart and, alas, of the doubtful honesty, is a figure not yet clearly set before the world," wrote R. L. Stevenson. "He still awaits a sober and yet genial portrait, but with whatever art that may be touched, and whatever indulgence, it will not be the portrait of a precisian." That is quite true, but in trying to sketch Dumas's character according to the ideal Stevenson has given us, we hope to show the "ventripotent mulatto" (as that author wrongly calls him) less black, both outwardly and inwardly, than even the admiring essayist deemed him,—for we seem to see the slimy traces of that ubiquitous snake-in-the-grass "M. de Mirecourt" in this passage from "Memories and Portraits."

Happily we cannot mistake our starting-point, for it is obviously best to commence one's journey round a character with that which is the subject's most characteristic quality, and which first strikes those who read about him or come into his literary presence. A score of Dumas's contemporaries have left us their impressions of the great impressionist, and they have one and all laid emphasis on his gaiety—a naïve heartiness and healthiness of temperament, springing from a semi-tropical nature, a