186 INDOOR STUDIES 



Paris a den of cutthroats and thieves, love is lech- 

 ery, and religion death. This fact alone quashes 

 all minor excellence. No work is permissihle that 

 flies in the teeth of the estahlished order of the uni- 

 verse. It is the business of the artist, ahove all 

 else, to preserve the balance of things. Creation is 

 not by one element alone. Fire alone consumes; 

 earth, air, water, are also necessary. 



In struggling through the blistering, arid wastes 

 of Hysteria that abound in this novel, one remem- 

 bers with profound emotion the silence of Ajax in 

 Hell, and sees with Longinus that it was more 

 impressive than anything he could have said; or 

 the soldier of Waterloo, who, when asked to sur- 

 render in that crater of fire and death, could find 

 but one word in which to express his scorn and 

 defiance and that a word of filth, not permissible in 

 print. (Is there any doubt about how the same 

 spirit would greet Hugo's grand burst over the 

 circumstances 1) 



The action of the story of "Notre Dame" per- 

 haps culminates when the monster Quasimodo 

 defends the church of Notre Dame against the 

 midnight assault of about six thousand Truands — 

 the nocturnal human vermin of Paris during the 

 Middle Ages — composed of thieves, harlots, mur- 

 derers, beggars, gypsies, — a reeking, fetid, scrofu- 

 lous, chaotic mass, that smelled to heaven. As 

 they surge about the building in the darkness, the 

 Hunchback hurls upon them from a height of nearly 

 two hundred feet, first a huge beam, that spatters 



