Dickens' family--they are all strong in impression, but wholly unreal;
mere stage villains and caricatures. A villain who has no good traits,
no hobbies of kindness and affection, is never born into the world; he
is always created by grotesque novel writers.

The villains of Dumas, Hugo, Balzac, Daudet are French. There may have
been, or may be now such prototypes alive in France--because the Dreyfus
case occurred in France, and no doubt much can happen in that fine,
fertile country which translators cannot fully convey over the
frontiers; but they have always seemed to me first cousins to my
friends, the ogres, the evil magicians and the werewolves, and, in that
much, not quite natural.

For heroes of the genuine cavalleria type, plumed, doubleted, pumpt and
magnificent, give me Dumas; for good folks and true, the great American
Fenimore Cooper; but for the blessed company of blooming, breathing
rascals, Stevenson and Thackeray all the time.




VII

HEROES

THE NATURE AND THE FLOWER OF THEM--THE GALLANT D'ARTAGNAN OR THE
GLORIOUS BUSSY.


Let us agree at the start that no perfect hero can be entirely mortal.