Essays in Little | Page 5

doubt that Dumas had a regular system of collaboration,
which he never concealed. But whereas Dumas could turn out books
that live, whoever his assistants were, could any of his assistants write
books that live, without Dumas? One might as well call any barrister in
good practice a thief and an impostor because he has juniors to "devil"
for him, as make charges of this kind against Dumas. He once asked his
son to help him; the younger Alexandre declined. "It is worth a
thousand a year, and you have only to make objections," the sire urged;
but the son was not to be tempted. Some excellent novelists of to-day
would be much better if they employed a friend to make objections.
But, as a rule, the collaborator did much more. Dumas' method,
apparently, was first to talk the subject over with his aide-de-camp.
This is an excellent practice, as ideas are knocked out, like sparks (an
elderly illustration!), by the contact of minds. Then the young man
probably made researches, put a rough sketch on paper, and supplied
Dumas, as it were, with his "brief." Then Dumas took the "brief" and
wrote the novel. He gave it life, he gave it the spark (l'etincelle); and
the story lived and moved.
It is true that he "took his own where he found it," like Molere and that
he took a good deal. In the gallery of an old country-house, on a wet
day, I came once on the "Memoires" of D'Artagnan, where they had
lain since the family bought them in Queen Anne's time. There were
our old friends the Musketeers, and there were many of their
adventures, told at great length and breadth. But how much more
vivacious they are in Dumas! M. About repeats a story of Dumas and
his ways of work. He met the great man at Marseilles, where, indeed,

Alexandre chanced to be "on with the new love" before being
completely "off with the old." Dumas picked up M. About, literally
lifted him in his embrace, and carried him off to see a play which he
had written in three days. The play was a success; the supper was
prolonged till three in the morning; M. About was almost asleep as he
walked home, but Dumas was as fresh as if he had just got out of bed.
"Go to sleep, old man," he said: "I, who am only fifty-five, have three
feuilletons to write, which must be posted to-morrow. If I have time I
shall knock up a little piece for Montigny--the idea is running in my
head." So next morning M. About saw the three feuilletons made up for
the post, and another packet addressed to M. Montigny: it was the play
L'Invitation e la Valse, a chef-d'oeuvre! Well, the material had been
prepared for Dumas. M. About saw one of his novels at Marseilles in
the chrysalis. It was a stout copy-book full of paper, composed by a
practised hand, on the master's design. Dumas copied out each little
leaf on a big leaf of paper, en y semant l'esprit e pleines mains. This
was his method. As a rule, in collaboration, one man does the work
while the other looks on. Is it likely that Dumas looked on? That was
not the manner of Dumas. "Mirecourt and others," M. About says,
"have wept crocodile tears for the collaborators, the victims of his glory
and his talent. But it is difficult to lament over the survivors (1884).
The master neither took their money--for they are rich, nor their
fame--for they are celebrated, nor their merit--for they had and still
have plenty. And they never bewailed their fate: the reverse! The
proudest congratulate themselves on having been at so good a school;
and M. Auguste Maquet, the chief of them, speaks with real reverence
and affection of his great friend." And M. About writes "as one who
had taken the master red-handed, and in the act of collaboration."
Dumas has a curious note on collaboration in his "Souvenirs
Dramatiques." Of the two men at work together, "one is always the
dupe, and HE is the man of talent."
There is no biography of Dumas, but the small change of a biography
exists in abundance. There are the many volumes of his "Memoires,"
there are all the tomes he wrote on his travels and adventures in Africa,
Spain, Italy, Russia; the book he wrote on his beasts; the romance of
Ange Pitou, partly autobiographical; and there are plenty of little
studies by people who knew him. As to his "Memoires," as to all he

wrote about himself, of course his imagination entered into the
narrative. Like Scott, when he had a good story he liked to dress it up
with a cocked hat and a sword.