190 INDOOE STUDIES 



upon the element of the hideous and the monstrous 

 that figures so largely in Victor Hugo's novels, and 

 that is this: It has little or no artistic value, be- 

 cause it has little or no interest to the imagination. 

 When employed by the old artists and poets, these 

 things are so charged and surcharged with meaning 

 and power that the literal import is lost sight of, and 

 the mind breathes a higher atmosphere. 



Hugo's novels are marked by a feverish, preter- 

 natural intensity, not so much good, human, soul- 

 shaking emotion as a sort of psychological typhoon 

 and hurricane that means death to every green thing 

 and to every sane impulse. I am aware that a 

 microscopical examination of his works reveals many 

 fine passages, green spots, idyllic touches here and 

 there (but even in these I can smell the sulphur), 

 but to say they are characteristic of him is as absurd 

 as it would be to say that humor is characteristic of 

 him because he made a "machine that grins." 



The Bishop in "Les Miserables " is perhaps 

 Hugo's most serious attempt to paint (for he does 

 not create) a lofty character. And what is the 

 Bishop's attitude toward the All-mother ? " The 

 universe appeared to him like a vast disease," for 

 aught I know as if "smitten with hydrophobia." 

 His tenderness toward nature is so excessive as to 

 become silliness. "One day he received a sprain 

 rather than crush an ant." "One morning he was 

 in his garden and thought himself alone, but his 

 sister was walking behind him: all at once he 

 stopped and looked at something on the ground; 



