Page:The life and writings of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) (IA lifewritingsofal00spurrich).pdf/209

 is an artist and a poet; too liberal in friendship, too despotic in love; vain as a woman, resolute as a man, and egoistical as a God. He is sincere to imprudence, kind without discernment, forgetful even to thoughtlessness, a wanderer body and soul, cosmopolitan by taste, patriotic in opinion, rich in illusions and caprices, poor in prudence and experience; light in spirit, cutting in speech, witty in season, a Don Juan by night, an Alcibiades by day, a veritable Proteus, escaping from everybody and from himself; as lovable for his defects as for his good qualities; more seductive for his vices than for his virtues that is M. Dumas as we love him, as he is!"

We make no apology for adding, as the third "opinion," that of one whose partiality inspired a frank eulogy. It is Dumas fils who is speaking, a man of critical insight, who may at least be relied upon to praise the praiseworthy qualities of his father, and not to extol the bad ones. He speaks in apostrophe:

"In this century, which seems created, above all, to devour all things, you were in truth the one man it needed, for you in turn were born to produce perpetually. What precautions nature took, what provision she made in thee, for the formidable appetites, for which she was forced to prepare! It was beneath the American sun, and with African