there is a danger of its being done too often. Before he had
found out the true secret, Scott blunted the opening of _Waverley_ with
_recit_; after he had discovered it he relapsed in divers places, of
which the opening of _The Monastery_ may suffice for mention here. Dumas
himself (and it will be at once evident that this is a main danger of
"turning on your young man") has done it often--to take once more a
single example, there is too much of it in the account of the great
_emeute_, by which Gondy started the Fronde. But it is the facility
which he has of dispensing with it--of making the story speak itself,
with only barely necessary additions of the pointer and reciter at the
side of the stage--which constitutes his power. Instances can hardly be
required, for any one who knows him knows them, and every one who goes
to him, not knowing, will find them. Just to touch the _apices_ once
more, the two scenes following the actual overtures of the
_Mousquetaires_ and of _La Reine Margot_--that where the impossible
triple duel of D'Artagnan against the Three is turned into triumphant
battle with the Cardinalists, blood-cementing the friendship of the
Four; and that where Margot, after losing both husband and lover, is
supplied with a substitute for both; adding the later passage where La
Mole is saved from the noose at the door--may suffice.

Of course this device of conversation, like the other best things--the
beauty of woman, the strength of wine, the sharpness of steel, and red
ink--is "open to abuse."[326] It has been admitted that even the
fervency of the present writer's Alexandrianism cools at the "wall-game"
of Montalais and Malicorne. There may be some who are not even prepared
to like it in places where I do. They are like Porthos, in the great
initial interchange of compliments, and "would still be _doing_." But
surely they cannot complain of any lack of incident in this latest and
not least _Alexandreid_?

It may seem that the length of this chapter is not proportionate to the
magnitude of the claims advanced for Dumas. But, as in other cases, I
think it may not be impertinent to put in a reference to what I have
previously written elsewhere. Moreover, as, but much more than, in the
cases of Sandeau, Bernard, and Murger, there is an argument, paradoxical
in appearance merely, for the absence of prolixity.

His claim to greatness consists, perhaps primarily, in the simplicity,
straightforwardness, and gener