The same principle of growth that carried his first book
beyond the books of previous writers, carries his last book
beyond his first. And just as the most imbecile production
of any literary age gives us sometimes the very clue to
comprehension we have sought long and vainly in contemporary
masterpieces, so it may be the very weakest of an author's
books that, coming in the sequel of many others, enables us
at last to get hold of what underlies the whole of them - of
that spinal marrow of significance that unites the work of
his life into something organic and rational. This is what
has been done by QUATRE VINGT TREIZE for the earlier romances
of Victor Hugo, and, through them, for a whole division of
modern literature. We have here the legitimate continuation
of a long and living literary tradition; and hence, so far,
its explanation. When many lines diverge from each other in
direction so slightly as to confuse the eye, we know that we
have only to produce them to make the chaos plain: this is
continually so in literary history; and we shall best
understand the importance of Victor Hugo's romances if we
think of them as some such prolongation of one of the main
lines of literary tendency.
When we compare the novels of Walter Scott with those of the
man of genius who preceded him, and whom he delighted to
honour as a master in the art - I mean Henry Fielding - we
shall be somewhat puzzled, at the first moment, to state the
difference that there is between these two.
Pages:
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39