Page:The life and writings of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) (IA lifewritingsofal00spurrich).pdf/323

 had taught a nature instinctively sane the folly of that Byronic mood, in which it had copied perhaps not the best qualities of Shakespeare? Dumas's three famous comedies are all "on the side of the angels"; and "Conscience," "Le Marbrier," and "Comte Hermann" are almost sermons in their didactic presentment of moral truths.

We may leave this point in our case, then, quoting in support the words of Brander Matthews, the American critic:

"The horrible is not necessarily immoral ... morality is an affair, not of subject but of treatment, and Dumas's ... is not insidious or vicious."

No sooner had the orthodox French classicists found Dumas's plays startlingly successful than they set themselves to discover the sources of his plots, and to their great delight, ascertained that he had "stolen " right and left, from English, German and other writers. In reply to this cry of "Thief! thief!" the author, in boldly characteristic fashion, stated his theory of defence in respect of plagiarism:

"It is men who invent, and not the individual. Each in his turn and in his time lays hands on something accomplished by his fore-runners, makes use of it in a new way, and then dies, after having added some small share to the sum of human knowledge. This he bequeaths to his successors, a new star in the Milky Way. As for the