Page:The life and writings of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) (IA lifewritingsofal00spurrich).pdf/350

 and elsewhere; but we are inclined to suspect, by the choice of masters here prescribed for Dumas, that the sage neither comprehended the nature of our author's talent, nor foresaw its tendencies.

Certainly the drama of passion and intrigue, of which Dumas's own plays are the first great examples, developed extremes for which the originator cannot fairly be blamed. George Sand saw this, when, in dedicating her play on Molière to her friend and confrère, she pleaded for psychology as well as movement and action, as an element in the drama. She protested against the idea that her play, illustrating this theory, was in any way a challenge levelled against the school of which Dumas was the chief.

"I love your works too well," she continued, "I read them, I listen to them with too much emotion and appreciation to wish to cast the slightest slur on your triumphs.... You have lifted dramatic action to the highest power, without any desire to sacrifice psychological interest to it, but your imitators have abandoned this second essential, for one must be of strong calibre to keep both ideals equally to the fore."

In his expositions of the hidden motives of his plays, in his skilful analysis of his son's great play ("La Dame aux Camélias"), and in various chapters of his Souvenirs Dramatiques," Dumas