Page:The life and writings of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) (IA lifewritingsofal00spurrich).pdf/358

 although treating Dumas critically, as becomes one sitting on the judge's bench, does not hesitate to set the Frenchman, in his peculiar talent, above Scott and all others.

"His best work," the professor declares, "has remarkable and almost unique merits. The style is not more remarkable as such than that of the dramas; there is not often or always a well-defined plot, and the characters are drawn only in the broadest outline. But the peculiar admixture of incident and dialogue by which Dumas carries on the interest of his gigantic narrations without wearying the reader is a secret of his own, and has never been thoroughly mastered by anyone else."

An American critic, emancipated from any superstitious feeling concerning Scott, has put his opinion in blunt and unmistakable form. "What is it," asks Professor Carpenter, "that endears Dumas to us? The conventional answer would be, the exciting character of his plots. And his plots may well be called exciting. No other author—except Sienkiewicz, who learned the art from him—can match him there. He is better reading than Scott; for there are, as a rule, no elaborate essays, no dull dialogues, no stupid characters, satisfactory only to the antiquary. The characters act and talk; but they talk only to make the act more telling. The whole moves quietly, rapidly, but