Page:The life and writings of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) (IA lifewritingsofal00spurrich).pdf/250

 end draws near and is welcome. To read this well is to anticipate experience. Ah, if only, when these hours of the long shadows fall for us in reality and not in figure, we may hope to face them with a mind as quiet."

One day, about two years before his death, Dumas's son found him with a book.

"What are you reading?" he asked.

Les Trois Mousquetaires.' I always promised myself that I would read it when I was an old man, so that I might be able to judge of its merit."

"Well, what do you think of it?"

"It is good."

Some days later the same thing occurred again, only this time it was another of his own books—"Monte Cristo."

"What do you think of it?" asked the son once more.

"Pah! It isn't as good as the 'Mousquetaires!

Nevertheless "Monte Cristo," published in the same year as the "Mousquetaires," rivalled, and still