to the way in which the individual stories are
told, not at that in which they come to have to be told. Of Dumas' power
of telling a story there surely can be no two opinions. The very
reproach of _amuseur_ confesses it. Of the means--or some of them--by
which he does and does not exercise this power, more may be said under
the heads which follow. We are here chiefly concerned with the power as
it has been achieved and stands--in, for instance, such a thing, already
glanced at, as the "Vin de Porto" episode or division of _Vingt Ans
Apres_, which, though there are scores of others nearly as good, seems
to me on the whole the very finest thing Dumas ever did in his own
peculiar kind. There are just two dozen pages of it--pages very well
filled--from the moment when Blaisois and Mousqueton express their ideas
on the subject of the unsuitableness of beer, as a fortifier against
sea-sickness, to that when the corpse of Mordaunt, after floating in the
moonlight with the gold-hilted dagger flashing from its breast, sinks
for the last time. The interest grows constantly; it is never, as it
sometimes is elsewhere, watered out by too much talk, though there is
enough of this to carry out the author's usual system (_v. inf._).
Nothing happens sufficiently extravagant or improbable to excite disgust
or laughter, though what does happen is sufficiently "palpitating." If
this is melodrama, it is melodrama free from most of the objections made
elsewhere to the kind. And also if it is melodrama, it seems to me to be
melodrama infinitely superior, not merely in degree, but in kind, to
that of Sue and Soulie.

[Sidenote: To Character.]

It is in this "enfisting" power of narrative, constantly renewed if not
always logically sustained and connected, that Dumas' excellence, if not
his actual supremacy, lies; and the fact may dispense us from saying any
more about his plots. As to Character, we must still keep the
offensive-defensive line. Dumas' most formidable enemies--persons like
the late M. Brunetiere--would probably say that he has no character at
all. Some of his champions would content themselves with ejaculating
the two names "D'Artagnan!" and "Chicot!" shrugging their shoulders, and
abstaining from further argument as likely to be useless, there being no
common ground to argue upon. In actual life this might not be the most
irrational manner of proceeding; but it could hardly suffice here. As is
usually, if not invariably, the c