We have here, as I said
before, a line of literary tendency produced, and by this
production definitely separated from others. When we come to
Hugo, we see that the deviation, which seemed slight enough
and not very serious between Scott and Fielding, is indeed
such a great gulph in thought and sentiment as only
successive generations can pass over: and it is but natural
that one of the chief advances that Hugo has made upon Scott
is an advance in self-consciousness. Both men follow the
same road; but where the one went blindly and carelessly, the
other advances with all deliberation and forethought. There
never was artist much more unconscious than Scott; and there
have been not many more conscious than Hugo. The passage at
the head of these pages shows how organically he had
understood the nature of his own changes. He has, underlying
each of the five great romances (which alone I purpose here
to examine), two deliberate designs: one artistic, the other
consciously ethical and intellectual. This is a man living
in a different world from Scott, who professes sturdily (in
one of his introductions) that he does not believe in novels
having any moral influence at all; but still Hugo is too much
of an artist to let himself be hampered by his dogmas; and
the truth is that the artistic result seems, in at least one
great instance, to have very little connection with the
other, or directly ethical result.
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