make a name" before he could make
a livelihood. "I do not believe in neglected talent and unappreciated
genius," says he. Like Mr. Arthur Pendennis, he wrote verses "up to"
pictures. Thackeray did the same. "Lady Blessington once sent him an
album print of a boy and girl fishing, with a request that he would
make some verses for it. 'And,' he said, 'I liked the idea, and set
about it at once. I was two entire days at it,--was so occupied with
it, so engrossed by it, that I did not shave during the whole time.'"
So says Mr. Locker-Lampson.

We cannot all be Dumas or Thackeray. But if any literary beginner
reads these lines, let him take Dumas's advice; let him disbelieve in
neglected genius, and do the work that comes in his way, as best he
can. Dumas had a little anonymous success in 1826, a vaudeville at the
Porte-Saint-Martin. At last he achieved a serious tragedy, or
melodrama, in verse, 'Christine.' He wrote to Nodier, reminding him of
their meeting at the play. The author of 'Trilby' introduced him to
Taylor; Taylor took him to the Theatre Francais; 'Christine' was read
and accepted unanimously.

Dumas now struck the vein of his fortune. By chance he opened a volume
of Anquetil, and read an anecdote of the court of Henri III. This led
him to study the history of Saint Megrin, in the Memoirs of L'Estoile,
where he met Quelus, and Maugiron, and Bussy d'Amboise, with the
stirring tale of his last fight against twelve men. Out of these facts
he made his play 'Henri III.,' and the same studies inspired that
trilogy of romances 'La Reine Margot' (Queen Margot), 'La Dame de
Monsoreau' (The Lady of Monsoreau), and 'Les Quarante-Cinq' (The
Forty-Five). These are, with the trilogy of the 'Mousquetaires,' his
central works as a romancer, and he was twenty-five when he began to
deal with the romance of history. His habit was to narrate his play or
novel, to his friends, to invent as he talked, and so to arrive at his
general plan. The mere writing gave him no trouble. We shall later
show his method in the composition of 'The Three Musketeers.'

'Christine' had been wrecked among the cross-currents of theatrical
life. 'Henri III.' was more fortunate. Dumas was indeed obliged to
choose between his little office and the stage; he abandoned his
secretaryship. In 1829 occurred this "duel between his past and his
future." Just before the first night of the drama, Dumas's mother,
whom he tenderly loved, was stricken down by paraly