The interest of the novel centres about
revolutionary France: just as the plot is an abstract
judicial difficulty, the hero is an abstract historical
force. And this has been done, not, as it would have been
before, by the cold and cumbersome machinery of allegory, but
with bold, straightforward realism, dealing only with the
objective materials of art, and dealing with them so
masterfully that the palest abstractions of thought come
before us, and move our hopes and fears, as if they were the
young men and maidens of customary romance.
The episode of the mother and children in QUATRE VINGT TREIZE
is equal to anything that Hugo has ever written. There is
one chapter in the second volume, for instance, called "SEIN
GUERI, COEUR SAIGNANT," that is full of the very stuff of
true tragedy, and nothing could be more delightful than the
humours of the three children on the day before the assault.
The passage on La Vendee is really great, and the scenes in
Paris have much of the same broad merit. The book is full,
as usual, of pregnant and splendid sayings. But when thus
much is conceded by way of praise, we come to the other scale
of the balance, and find this, also, somewhat heavy. There
is here a yet greater over-employment of conventional
dialogue than in L'HOMME QUI RIT; and much that should have
been said by the author himself, if it were to be said at
all, he has most unwarrantably put into the mouths of one or
other of his characters.
Pages:
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64