period, in _La Dame aux Camelias_, to something which
I shall not call a masterpiece, but which certainly is a powerful thesis
for the attainment of the master's degree.

[Sidenote: _Trois Hommes Forts._]

Perhaps there is no better example of the curious mixture of _verve_,
variety, and vigorous hitting-off which characterised the youth of Dumas
_fils_ than _Trois Hommes Forts_--a book of the exact middle of the
century, which begins with an idyll, passing into a tragedy; continues
with a lively ship-and-yellow-fever scene; plunges into a villainous
conspiracy against virtue and innocence diversified with a
bull-throwing; and winds up with another killing, which, this time, _is_
no murder; a trial, after which and an acquittal the accused and the
Crown Prosecutor embrace before (and amidst the chalorous applause of)
the whole Court; not forgetting a final _panache_ of happy
marriage between innocence, a very little damaged, and the
bull-thrower-avenger-_ouvrier_, Robert. It is of course pure
melodrama--_Minnigrey_ and the Porte-Saint-Martin pleasantly
accommodated. But it is not too long; it never drags; and it knocks
about in the cheerfullest "pit-box-and-gallery" fashion from first to
last. When the wicked "Joseph le Mendiant," _alias_ M. Valery, _alias_
Frederic Comte de La Marche[370]--who has stabbed a priest with one hand
and throttled an old woman with the other; then made a fortune in
Madagascar; then nearly died of yellow-fever on board ship, but
recovered (something after the fashion of one of Marryat's heroes) by
drinking a bottle of Madeira; then gone home and bought an estate and
given himself the above title; then seduced the innocent sister of the
person who heard his confession; then tried to marry a high-born
maiden;[371] then threatened to betray the sister's shame if her
brother "tells"--when this villain has his skull broken by Robert, all
right-minded persons will clap their hands sore. But remembrance of one
passage at the beginning may "leave a savour of sorrow." Could you, even
in Meridional France, to-day procure a breakfast consisting of truffled
pigs' feet, truffled thrush, tomato omelette (I should bar the
tomatoes), and strawberries in summer, or "quatre-mendiants" (figs,
nuts, and almonds and raisins) in winter, _with_ a bottle of sound
Roussillon or something like it, for three francs? Alas! one fears not.

[Sidenote: _Diane de Lys._]

_Diane de Lys_, a little later than most of the b