Page:The life and writings of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) (IA lifewritingsofal00spurrich).pdf/221

 historian, that lord over the Past," he wrote, "is the power to rebuild palaces and reanimate the dust of dead heroes. With the touch of his pen, at the sound of his voice, as at the call of a God, the scattered bones reunite; again the living flesh covers them; they are clothed once more in the gay robes of their other life, and from out that immense gulf of oblivion whither the three thousand centuries have flung their offspring, he has but to choose the favoured elect of his caprice, and call them by name, to see them instantly raise with their brows the walls of their tombs, part with their hands the folds of their shrouds, and answer him, as Lazarus answered Christ: 'Lord, here am I: what wilt Thou with me?

"True, one needs a firm step to descend into the abyss of history, a voice of power, to question the phantoms who dwell there, a hand that shall not tremble, to write the words that they shall speak, for often the dead hold terrible secrets which have been 'interrèd with their bones.

Dumas's early ideal of the historical romance, although it changed with the development of his genius, is also interesting. At the beginning of his career, he wrote:

"The great difficulty (it seems to us) is to avoid two errors—not to attenuate the past, as history has done; not to disfigure it, as the romance does. The