Page:The life and writings of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) (IA lifewritingsofal00spurrich).pdf/314

 wind is blowing in certain quarters. In a recent work M. G. Pellissier complacently remarks that Dumas "sacrificed his literary conscience to the vulgar taste of the public, and the necessities of the purse prevailed more and more over his work.... he was only the most popular of amusers." We are not surprised that this book was "crowned by the Académie." G. Brandès has repeated the same statement, which Parigot, who certainly possesses some knowledge of the subject, flatly denies:

"G. Brandès has declared that Dumas wrote firstly en romantique, and then en industriel—a doubly false estimate. 'Industriel' Dumas never ceased to be; 'romantic' he was also, if by the word we imply revolutionary; but dramatic he remained always, con amore, and by right of conquest."

M. Lanson, in his voluminous and comprehensive history of French literature, acknowledges Dumas to be a skilled stage craftsman, but no more; he ignores Dumas the novelist altogether!

These criticisms could only exercise a very distant influence on the ordinary English reader, and we need not concern ourselves with them further. But unhappily they seem to have furnished the sole sources of reference for Professor Dowden in his book on French literature. This