Page:The life and writings of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) (IA lifewritingsofal00spurrich).pdf/163

 that this modesty before death is an instinct common to all animals in creation, and that our domestic parrots have it, just as strongly as the kings of the forest."

Dumas was duly impressed.

Take, with his gaiety and wit, Dumas's vanity. Here is Mr Lang's opinion of the worth of the reproach:—

"They call Dumas vain: he had reason to be vain, and no candid or generous reader will be shocked by his pleasant, frank, and artless enjoyment of himself and of his adventures. Oddly enough, they are small-minded and small-hearted people who are most shocked by what they call 'vanity' in the great. Dumas's delight in himself and his doings is only the flower of his vigorous existence, and in his 'Mémoires,' at least, it is as happy and encouraging as his laugh, or the laugh of Porthos; it is a kind of radiance, in which others, too, may bask and enjoy themselves. And yet it is resented by tiny scribblers, frozen in their own chill self-conceit."

There is an amusing story told of how this vanity was very neatly snubbed on one occasion. Dumas was giving evidence in a trial, at Rouen, and was asked his profession.

"I should say 'dramatic author, if I were not in the city of Corneille," he answered.