re's, but Dumas's. And
this is the particular crown and triumph of the artist--not to be true
merely, but to be lovable; not simply to convince, but to enchant.

There is yet another point in the "Vicomte" which I find incomparable. I
can recall no other work of the imagination in which the end of life is
represented with so nice a tact. I was asked the other day if Dumas ever
made me either laugh or cry. Well, in this my late fifth reading of the
"Vicomte" I did laugh once at the small Coquelin de Voliere business,
and was perhaps a thought surprised at having done so: to make up for
it, I smiled continually. But for tears, I do not know. If you put a
pistol to my throat, I must own the tale trips upon a very airy
foot--within a measurable distance of unreality; and for those who like
the big guns to be discharged and the great passions to appear
authentically, it may even seem inadequate from first to last. Not so to
me; I cannot count that a poor dinner, or a poor book, where I meet with
those I love; and, above all, in this last volume, I find a singular
charm of spirit. It breathes a pleasant and a tonic sadness, always
brave, never hysterical. Upon the crowded, noisy life of this long tale,
evening gradually falls; and the lights are extinguished, and the heroes
pass away one by one. One by one they go, and not a regret embitters
their departure; the young succeed them in their places, Louis Quatorze
is swelling larger and shining broader, another generation and another
France dawn on the horizon; but for us and these old men whom we have
loved so long, the inevitable end draws near, and is welcome. To read
this well is to anticipate experience. Ah, if only when these hours of
the long shadows fall for us in reality and not in figure, we may hope
to face them with a mind as quiet!

But my paper is running out; the siege-guns are firing on the Dutch
frontier! and I must say adieu for the fifth time to my old comrade
fallen on the field of glory. _Adieu_--rather _au revoir_! Yet a sixth
time, dearest d'Artagnan, we shall kidnap Monk and take horse together
for Belle Isle.

XV

A GOSSIP ON ROMANCE

In anything fit to be called by the name of reading, the process itself
should be absorbing and voluptuous; we should gloat over a book, be rapt
clean out of ourselves, and rise from the perusal, our mind filled with
the busiest, kaleidoscopic dance of images, incapable of sleep or of
continuous thought.