Page:The life and writings of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) (IA lifewritingsofal00spurrich).pdf/248

 ness of the strongest human tie, save that of family."

The same writer also notices with what unconscious skill the characters of the musketeers are developed:

"These men grow, not of the author's set purpose, in the ordinary fashion, according to a rule of logic, but as men grow in life, naturally. He (Dumas) could not have planned it; at the proper time he simply knew it. The Athos, the Porthos, the Aramis, and the D'Artagnan of 'Le Vicomte de Bragelonne' are not those of 'Les Trois Mousquetaires,' or even of 'Vingt Ans Après.' But the author does not inform us of it, except in a single case, and then he is evidently as surprised as we are. They grow, and if they are honest men they grow better, on stepping-stones of their own baser selves.... These novels show more than the growth of man. They represent the slow development of a race and nation. Like Gibbon or Michelet, Dumas had a genius for history. France under Charles IX. and Henry III., France under Louis XIV., France in the Revolution—he knew them, and felt them to the core, His chronology may be weak and his facts faulty, the young doctor of philosophy may find flaws in every chapter, but the great laws he follows, so far as I can see: the types are sound."