Page:The life and writings of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) (IA lifewritingsofal00spurrich).pdf/336

 months, a year, ten years, about the subject on which I am going to write. I owe to this way of working the clearness of my intrigue, the simplicity of my methods, the naturalness of my effects. As a rule I do not begin a book until it is finished."

300 A women of talent, Madame de Girardin, who knew and admired Dumas, put the case for her friend even more forcibly:

"This rapidity of composition, is like the swiftness of a railway train: both work on the same principles, from the same causes—an extreme facility obtained by difficulties overcome. You cover sixty leagues in three hours: it is nothing—you laugh at the swiftness of your travelling. But to what do you owe this marvel of transportation? To years of daunting toil, to money spent like water, all along your way, and to thousands of pairs of arms which have prepared the way for you, day after weary day. You flash past so swiftly that one can scarcely see you; but to gain that freedom of speed for you, how men have slaved, and grown old, bending over the pick and shovel! What plans have been made, and baulked; what cares, what struggles has it not cost, to whirl you from this spot to that, so smoothly and easefully, and without a care or a fear!"

Blaze de Bury further explains Dumas's facility