Page:The life and writings of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) (IA lifewritingsofal00spurrich).pdf/351

 showed that he was something more than the teller of a stage story, something better than a clever manipulator of incident and intrigue, plot and passion. "A man?" cried Michelet, no, an element, like an inextinguishable volcano or a great American river.... He remains the most powerful craftsman, the most living dramatist since Shakespeare."

Of Dumas's influence on the modern French drama, M. Parigot has written fully and learnedly in his "Drame d'Alexandre Dumas," showing the effect produced in varying ways and degrees by the playwright on the later nineteenth century,—on his son, on Augier, Sandeau, Daudet, Lemaître, Meilhac and Halévy, Sardou, and others. He "exercised a continuous and profound influence on the drama of the nineteenth century," adds the writer, and we need only supplement his verdict by calling attention to the case of the "latest discovery" in French dramatic literature, Edmond Rostand, whose success with "Cyrano de Bergerac" so closely recalls the triumphs of the author of "Les Trois Mousquetaires" and "Henri Trois."

On our English drama the plays of Dumas have had only a subtly indirect effect. As the founder of the "society drama" he has much to answer for; but for our sterile "West-End" fashion plays, and the modern French school which has been evolved