Page:The life and writings of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) (IA lifewritingsofal00spurrich).pdf/193

 As a rule, however, the great writer was not a good hater, and bore little malice. Meeting one day a critic who had abused him, he stepped up to him, saying, "Hein! What a splendid article I have provided you with!" It is true that the persistent shout of "Collaborators! collaborators!" annoyed him. Once, after keeping a company of friends roaring at his witty sayings, Dumas added, "You find the jest a good one? Well, to-morrow one of my collaborators will swear it's his!"

Our author has expressed his opinion of collaboration in general, in his "Souvenirs dramatiques." The passage is written in his most vivacious style. But for Fiorentino, one of the many young men he befriended, and one of his best "'prentices," Dumas had a very real affection.

One day the master begged his secretary to take a letter to Fiorentino and wait for a reply. An hour after, the secretary returned with a letter from the ex-'prentice, then critic of the Constitutionnel and the Moniteur. Dumas opened it:

"Here is a man whom I have rescued from misery," he cried, "and whom I have taught his trade. Well—would anyone believe it?—when at odd times I ask him to do me a service... he never refuses me!"

It is a proof of the many-sided nature of Dumas's genius that he was at once the rival of Balzac,