Page:The life and writings of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) (IA lifewritingsofal00spurrich).pdf/207

 means practically an absence of exclusiveness in affection.

"He has a natural love for the weak, the suffering, and the young, and by a logical antithesis, a love, too, for the aged.

"He possesses confidence in himself, and yet needs the approbation of others; he has a desire to please, coupled with a respect for others.

"As one may see, such a character is subject to a great number of opposing impulses. These contradictory instincts will have an effect on our writer, a subtle inward effect, which is more apparent to Dumas himself than to any of his friends, however well they know him.

"He feels the need of love, of loving and being loved: this need is elemental in him, and is felt perhaps the more strongly by the sensuous than by the spiritual side of his nature.

"He is subject to irritable, rather than to irascible moments, and capable, on rare occasions, of violent and blind passion. Also he is liable to show himself vindictive, or, more often, stubborn, in controversy or quarrel. This obstinacy is prone to seem like vindictiveness, because our subject will probably be infuriated by resistance to his desires, although he feels no hatred towards the cause of his anger.

"There is a tendency towards covetousness, very