Page:The life and writings of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) (IA lifewritingsofal00spurrich).pdf/333

 by force and guile; of man's love of woman and the curb it puts on cowardice and sloth and selfishness; of man's strength and weakness; of a nation's slow progress onward and upward toward order and justice. Dumas was not an austere moralist, and his life was prodigal; but the reader will find on reflection that the ethical system revealed by his books is one which, the more we consider, the more we shall approve."

We may add that we made one or two experiments to test Dumas's books from this point of view. We have asked repeatedly at shops where French novels of the pornographic type have been displayed in large quantities, and have failed to obtain a copy of one of the master's novels. We have found that at free libraries (and at the committee meetings connected with such institutions Mrs. Grundy is always present in spirit) that Dumas's works are admitted fully and freely, where Fielding, Defoe, Zola, Boccaccio and others are forbidden. Lastly, we have followed Ruskin's advice and left our bookshelves open to the use of the Young Person, who has frequently chosen one of our author's stories, and returned it in due course with warm and ingenuous acknowledgment of the pleasure the book has given her.

We have already dealt to some extent with the charge that Dumas, in writing amusing stories of