Page:The life and writings of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) (IA lifewritingsofal00spurrich).pdf/181

 Is Monsieur at home?' I said to the servant.

He is in his study, Monsieur,' was the answer; 'Monsieur can go in.'

"At that moment I heard a loud burst of laughter from the inner apartment, so I said:

I would rather wait until Monsieur's visitors are gone.'

Monsieur has no visitors; he is working,' remarked the servant with a smile. 'Monsieur Dumas often laughs like that, at his work.'

"It was true enough; the novelist was alone, or rather in company with one of his characters, at whose sallies he was simply roaring."

That Dumas lived to work rather than worked to live, is obvious to all who read of his astonishing fertility, and devotion to his desk. M. de Bury quotes a passage from our author, in which he showed himself doubly indebted to his books—for the pleasure they brought in the writing and the memories they evoked, in the re-reading.

I am never alone as long as one of my books is near me,' he says, in a passage full of a deep and delightful emotion, which was not always usual with him. 'Every line recalls to me a day that has passed away, and this day is once more with me, filled from dawn to dusk with all the old atmosphere and all the same people who were there, in the days gone by. Alas! already the best part of my life is