Page:The life and writings of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) (IA lifewritingsofal00spurrich).pdf/169

 boy. Your lines are not rich in thought, it is true—but—but—they're fairly well off!"

Asseline, one of the staff of the ill-fated Mousquetaire, wrote in the Independance Belge, at the time that his old master was dying, a loving appreciation of him, in which he recalled a characteristic incident in their journalistic relations. Asseline was writing a feuilleton in the journal and was at a loss to know how to tell the story of a duel which was necessary to his plot. He took his cares to the famous editor, who, turning from his own work, cross-questioned the writer on his plot, characters, motives, and the rest, and then, having rapidly grasped the situation, sat down and wrote the chapter himself. Asseline received general congratulations on his masterly handling of the duel scene, but Dumas never made known the service which he had rendered his pupil.

There was a truly noble generosity, too, in his "confession," after he had written adverse critiques on plays by three of his confrères. He discovered, by self-analysis, that it was personal pique which had provoked his judgments on others, and not a lofty desire to defend his art. He cried shame on himself, published his self-condemnation to the world, and wrote no more criticisms. "What I had done," he says, was perhaps good from the point of view of literature, but truly it was by no means