Lastly, we have here already
some beginning of that curious series of English blunders,
that makes us wonder if there are neither proof-sheets nor
judicious friends in the whole of France, and affects us
sometimes with a sickening uneasiness as to what may be our
own exploits when we touch upon foreign countries and foreign
tongues. It is here that we shall find the famous "first of
the fourth," and many English words that may be
comprehensible perhaps in Paris. It is here that we learn
that "laird" in Scotland is the same title as "lord" in
England. Here, also, is an account of a Highland soldier's
equipment, which we recommend to the lovers of genuine fun.
In L'HOMME QUI RIT, it was Hugo's object to 'denounce' (as he
would say himself) the aristocratic principle as it was
exhibited in England; and this purpose, somewhat more
unmitigatedly satiric than that of the two last, must answer
for much that is unpleasant in the book. The repulsiveness
of the scheme of the story, and the manner in which it is
bound up with impossibilities and absurdities, discourage the
reader at the outset, and it needs an effort to take it as
seriously as it deserves. And yet when we judge it
deliberately, it will be seen that, here again, the story is
admirably adapted to the moral. The constructive ingenuity
exhibited throughout is almost morbid.
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