Page:The life and writings of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) (IA lifewritingsofal00spurrich).pdf/376

Française." He has indeed taught French and the French to the whole world. Swinburne writes of Dumas's "excellent heart and brilliant genius"; Stevenson "would not give a chapter of old Dumas for the whole boiling of Zolas." Blaze de Bury, a sober critic, well acquainted with the literature of his nation and the great writers of his time, declared that "if there can be said to have been a French Shakespeare, it was Dumas. Hugo, who imagined that he was descended from the Elizabethan poet in a direct line, had far less claim to such parentage than Dumas." The most illuminating tribute to our author's genius was without doubt that of Michelet the historian. "Monsieur," he wrote, "je vous aime et je vous admire, parce que vous êtes une des forces de la nature." This is strikingly true: there was something great, something primitive, elemental, about Dumas, which explains at once his strength and his weaknesses. "His virtues were colossal," says Dr Garnett, "and he had the defects of his qualities." The mixture of "white" and "black" blood produced a phenomenon of physical strength and energy in General Dumas; a combination of physical and mental energy and strength in Dumas père; and the "strain" survived to give us a remarkable instance of intellectual capacity in Dumas fils.