Apres le roman pittoresque mais prosaique de Walter Scott il lestera un autre roman a creer, plus beau et plus complet encore selon nous. C’est le roman, a la fois drame et epopee, pittoresque mais poetique, reel mais ideal, vrai mais grand, qui enchassera Walter Scott dans Homere. — Victor Hugo on QUENTIN DURWARD.
VICTOR HUGO’S romances occupy an important position in the history of literature; many innovations, timidly made elsewhere, have in them been carried boldly out to their last consequences; much that was indefinite in literary tendencies has attained2 to definite maturity3; many things have come to a point and been distinguished4 one from the other; and it is only in the last romance of all, QUATRE VINGT TREIZE, that this culmination5 is most perfect. This is in the nature of things. Men who are in any way typical of a stage of progress may be compared more justly to the hand upon the dial of the clock, which continues to advance as it indicates, than to the stationary7 milestone8, which is only the measure of what is past. The movement is not arrested. That significant something by which the work of such a man differs from that of his predecessors9, goes on disengaging itself and becoming more and more articulate and cognisable. The same principle of growth that carried his first book beyond the books of previous writers, carries his last book beyond his first. And just as the most imbecile production of any literary age gives us sometimes the very clue to comprehension we have sought long and vainly in contemporary masterpieces, so it may be the very weakest of an author’s books that, coming in the sequel of many others, enables us at last to get hold of what underlies10 the whole of them — of that spinal11 marrow12 of significance that unites the work of his life into something organic and rational. This is what has been done by QUATRE VINGT TREIZE for the earlier romances of Victor Hugo, and, through them, for a whole division of modern literature. We have here the legitimate13 continuation of a long and living literary tradition; and hence, so far, its explanation. When many lines diverge14 from each other in direction so slightly as to confuse the eye, we know that we have only to produce them to make the chaos15 plain: this is continually so in literary history; and we shall best understand the importance of Victor Hugo’s romances if we think of them as some such prolongation of one of the main lines of literary tendency.
When we compare the novels of Walter Scott with those of the man of genius who preceded him, and whom he delighted to honour as a master in the art — I mean Henry Fielding — we shall be somewhat puzzled, at the first moment, to state the difference that there is between these two. Fielding has as much human science; has a far firmer hold upon the tiller of his story; has a keen sense of character, which he draws (and Scott often does so too) in a rather abstract and academical manner; and finally, is quite as humorous and quite as good-humoured as the great Scotchman. With all these points of resemblance between the men, it is astonishing that their work should be so different. The fact is, that the English novel was looking one way and seeking one set of effects in the hands of Fielding; and in the hands of Scott it was looking eagerly in all ways and searching for all the effects that by any possibility it could utilise. The difference between these two men marks a great enfranchisement16. With Scott the Romantic movement, the movement of an extended curiosity and an enfranchised17 imagination, has begun. This is a trite18 thing to say; but trite things are often very indefinitely comprehended: and this enfranchisement, in as far as it regards the technical change that came over modern prose romance, has never perhaps been explained with any clearness.
To do so, it will be necessary roughly to compare the two sets of conventions upon which plays and romances are respectively based. The purposes of these two arts are so much alike, and they deal so much with the same passions and interests, that we are apt to forget the fundamental opposition20 of their methods. And yet such a fundamental opposition exists. In the drama the action is developed in great measure by means of things that remain outside of the art; by means of real things, that is, and not artistic21 conventions for things. This is a sort of realism that is not to be confounded with that realism in painting of which we hear so much. The realism in painting is a thing of purposes; this, that we have to indicate in the drama, is an affair of method. We have heard a story, indeed, of a painter in France who, when he wanted to paint a sea-beach, carried realism from his ends to his means, and plastered real sand upon his canvas; and that is precisely22 what is done in the drama. The dramatic author has to paint his beaches with real sand: real live men and women move about the stage; we hear real voices; what is feigned23 merely puts a sense upon what is; we do actually see a woman go behind a screen as Lady Teazle, and, after a certain interval24, we do actually see her very shamefully25 produced again. Now all these things, that remain as they were in life, and are not transmuted26 into any artistic convention, are terribly stubborn and difficult to deal with; and hence there are for the dramatist many resultant limitations in time and space. These limitations in some sort approximate towards those of painting: the dramatic author is tied down, not indeed to a moment, but to the duration of each scene or act; he is confined to the stage, almost as the painter is confined within his frame. But the great restriction27 is this, that a dramatic author must deal with his actors, and with his actors alone. Certain moments of suspense28, certain significant dispositions29 of personages, a certain logical growth of emotion, these are the only means at the disposal of the playwright31. It is true that, with the assistance of the scene-painter, the costumier and the conductor of the orchestra, he may add to this something of pageant32, something of sound and fury; but these are, for the dramatic writer, beside the mark, and do not come under the vivifying touch of his genius. When we turn to romance, we find this no longer. Here nothing is reproduced to our senses directly. Not only the main conception of the work, but the scenery, the appliances, the mechanism33 by which this conception is brought home to us, have been put through the crucible34 of another man’s mind, and come out again, one and all, in the form of written words. With the loss of every degree of such realism as we have described, there is for art a clear gain of liberty and largeness of competence35. Thus, painting, in which the round outlines of things are thrown on to a flat board, is far more free than sculpture, in which their solidity is preserved. It is by giving up these identities that art gains true strength. And so in the case of novels as compared with the stage. Continuous narration36 is the flat board on to which the novelist throws everything. And from this there results for him a great loss of vividness, but a great compensating37 gain in his power over the subject; so that he can now subordinate one thing to another in importance, and introduce all manner of very subtle detail, to a degree that was before impossible. He can render just as easily the flourish of trumpets38 before a victorious39 emperor and the gossip of country market women, the gradual decay of forty years of a man’s life and the gesture of a passionate40 moment. He finds himself equally unable, if he looks at it from one point of view — equally able, if he looks at it from another point of view — to reproduce a colour, a sound, an outline, a logical argument, a physical action. He can show his readers, behind and around the personages that for the moment occupy the foreground of his story, the continual suggestion of the landscape; the turn of the weather that will turn with it men’s lives and fortunes, dimly foreshadowed on the horizon; the fatality41 of distant events, the stream of national tendency, the salient framework of causation. And all this thrown upon the flat board — all this entering, naturally and smoothly42, into the texture43 of continuous intelligent narration.
This touches the difference between Fielding and Scott. In the work of the latter, true to his character of a modern and a romantic, we become suddenly conscious of the background. Fielding, on the other hand, although he had recognised that the novel was nothing else than an epic44 in prose, wrote in the spirit not of the epic, but of the drama. This is not, of course, to say that the drama was in any way incapable45 of a regeneration similar in kind to that of which I am now speaking with regard to the novel. The notorious contrary fact is sufficient to guard the reader against such a misconstruction. All that is meant is, that Fielding remained ignorant of certain capabilities47 which the novel possesses over the drama; or, at least, neglected and did not develop them. To the end he continued to see things as a playwright sees them. The world with which he dealt, the world he had realised for himself and sought to realise and set before his readers, was a world of exclusively human interest. As for landscape, he was content to underline stage directions, as it might be done in a play-book: Tom and Molly retire into a practicable wood. As for nationality and public sentiment, it is curious enough to think that Tom Jones is laid in the year forty-five, and that the only use he makes of the rebellion is to throw a troop of soldiers into his hero’s way. It is most really important, however, to remark the change which has been introduced into the conception of character by the beginning of the romantic movement and the consequent introduction into fiction of a vast amount of new material. Fielding tells us as much as he thought necessary to account for the actions of his creatures; he thought that each of these actions could be decomposed48 on the spot into a few simple personal elements, as we decompose49 a force in a question of abstract dynamics50. The larger motives51 are all unknown to him; he had not understood that the nature of the landscape or the spirit of the times could be for anything in a story; and so, naturally and rightly, he said nothing about them. But Scott’s instinct, the instinct of the man of an age profoundly different, taught him otherwise; and, in his work, the individual characters begin to occupy a comparatively small proportion of that canvas on which armies manoeuvre52, and great hills pile themselves upon each other’s shoulders. Fielding’s characters were always great to the full stature53 of a perfectly54 arbitrary will. Already in Scott we begin to have a sense of the subtle influences that moderate and qualify a man’s personality; that personality is no longer thrown out in unnatural55 isolation56, but is resumed into its place in the constitution of things.
It is this change in the manner of regarding men and their actions first exhibited in romance, that has since renewed and vivified history. For art precedes philosophy and even science. People must have noticed things and interested themselves in them before they begin to debate upon their causes or influence. And it is in this way that art is the pioneer of knowledge; those predilections57 of the artist he knows not why, those irrational58 acceptations and recognitions, reclaim59, out of the world that we have not yet realised, ever another and another corner; and after the facts have been thus vividly60 brought before us and have had time to settle and arrange themselves in our minds, some day there will be found the man of science to stand up and give the explanation. Scott took an interest in many things in which Fielding took none; and for this reason, and no other, he introduced them into his romances. If he had been told what would be the nature of the movement that he was so lightly initiating61, he would have been very incredulous and not a little scandalised. At the time when he wrote, the real drift of this new manner of pleasing people in fiction was not yet apparent; and, even now, it is only by looking at the romances of Victor Hugo that we are enabled to form any proper judgment62 in the matter. These books are not only descended63 by ordinary generation from the Waverley novels, but it is in them chiefly that we shall find the revolutionary tradition of Scott carried farther that we shall find Scott himself, in so far as regards his conception of prose fiction and its purposes, surpassed in his own spirit, instead of tamely followed. 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 deviation64, 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, underlying65 each of the five great romances (which alone I purpose here to examine), two deliberate designs: one artistic, the other consciously ethical66 and intellectual. This is a man living in a different world from Scott, who professes67 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 hampered68 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.
The artistic result of a romance, what is left upon the memory by any really powerful and artistic novel, is something so complicated and refined that it is difficult to put a name upon it and yet something as simple as nature. These two propositions may seem mutually destructive, but they are so only in appearance. The fact is that art is working far ahead of language as well as of science, realising for us, by all manner of suggestions and exaggerations, effects for which as yet we have no direct name; nay69, for which we may never perhaps have a direct name, for the reason that these effects do not enter very largely into the necessities of life. Hence alone is that suspicion of vagueness that often hangs about the purpose of a romance: it is clear enough to us in thought; but we are not used to consider anything clear until we are able to formulate70 it in words, and analytical71 language has not been sufficiently72 shaped to that end. We all know this difficulty in the case of a picture, simple and strong as may be the impression that it has left with us; and it is only because language is the medium of romance, that we are prevented from seeing that the two cases are the same. It is not that there is anything blurred73 or indefinite in the impression left with us, it is just because the impression is so very definite after its own kind, that we find it hard to fit it exactly with the expressions of our philosophical74 speech.
It is this idea which underlies and issues from a romance, this something which it is the function of that form of art to create, this epical75 value, that I propose chiefly to seek and, as far as may be, to throw into relief, in the present study. It is thus, I believe, that we shall see most clearly the great stride that Hugo has taken beyond his predecessors, and how, no longer content with expressing more or less abstract relations of man to man, he has set before himself the task of realising, in the language of romance, much of the involution of our complicated lives.
This epical value is not to be found, let it be understood, in every so-called novel. The great majority are not works of art in anything but a very secondary signification. One might almost number on one’s fingers the works in which such a supreme76 artistic intention has been in any way superior to the other and lesser77 aims, themselves more or less artistic, that generally go hand in hand with it in the conception of prose romance. The purely78 critical spirit is, in most novels, paramount79. At the present moment we can recall one man only, for whose works it would have been equally possible to accomplish our present design: and that man is Hawthorne. There is a unity80, an unwavering creative purpose, about some at least of Hawthorne’s romances, that impresses itself on the most indifferent reader; and the very restrictions81 and weaknesses of the man served perhaps to strengthen the vivid and single impression of his works. There is nothing of this kind in Hugo: unity, if he attains82 to it, is indeed unity out of multitude; and it is the wonderful power of subordination and synthesis thus displayed, that gives us the measure of his talent. No amount of mere1 discussion and statement, such as this, could give a just conception of the greatness of this power. It must be felt in the books themselves, and all that can be done in the present essay is to recall to the reader the more general features of each of the five great romances, hurriedly and imperfectly, as space will permit, and rather as a suggestion than anything more complete.
The moral end that the author had before him in the conception of NOTRE DAME19 DE PARIS was (he tells us) to “denounce” the external fatality that hangs over men in the form of foolish and inflexible83 superstition84. To speak plainly, this moral purpose seems to have mighty85 little to do with the artistic conception; moreover it is very questionably86 handled, while the artistic conception is developed with the most consummate87 success. Old Paris lives for us with newness of life: we have ever before our eyes the city cut into three by the two arms of the river, the boat-shaped island “moored” by five bridges to the different shores, and the two unequal towns on either hand. We forget all that enumeration88 of palaces and churches and convents which occupies so many pages of admirable description, and the thoughtless reader might be inclined to conclude from this, that they were pages thrown away; but this is not so: we forget, indeed, the details, as we forget or do not see the different layers of paint on a completed picture; but the thing desired has been accomplished89, and we carry away with us a sense of the “Gothic profile” of the city, of the “surprising forest of pinnacles90 and towers and belfries,” and we know not what of rich and intricate and quaint91. And throughout, Notre Dame has been held up over Paris by a height far greater than that of its twin towers: the Cathedral is present to us from the first page to the last; the title has given us the clue, and already in the Palace of Justice the story begins to attach itself to that central building by character after character. It is purely an effect of mirage92; Notre Dame does not, in reality, thus dominate and stand out above the city; and any one who should visit it, in the spirit of the Scott-tourists to Edinburgh or the Trossachs, would be almost offended at finding nothing more than this old church thrust away into a corner. It is purely an effect of mirage, as we say; but it is an effect that permeates93 and possesses the whole book with astonishing consistency94 and strength. And then, Hugo has peopled this Gothic city, and, above all, this Gothic church, with a race of men even more distinctly Gothic than their surroundings. We know this generation already: we have seen them clustered about the worn capitals of pillars, or craning forth95 over the church-leads with the open mouths of gargoyles96. About them all there is that sort of stiff quaint unreality, that conjunction of the grotesque98, and even of a certain bourgeois99 snugness100, with passionate contortion101 and horror, that is so characteristic of Gothic art. Esmeralda is somewhat an exception; she and the goat traverse the story like two children who have wandered in a dream. The finest moment of the book is when these two share with the two other leading characters, Dom Claude and Quasimodo, the chill shelter of the old cathedral. It is here that we touch most intimately the generative artistic idea of the romance: are they not all four taken out of some quaint moulding, illustrative of the Beatitudes, or the Ten Commandments, or the seven deadly sins? What is Quasimodo but an animated102 gargoyle97? What is the whole book but the reanimation of Gothic art?
It is curious that in this, the earliest of the five great romances, there should be so little of that extravagance that latterly we have come almost to identify with the author’s manner. Yet even here we are distressed103 by words, thoughts, and incidents that defy belief and alienate104 the sympathies. The scene of the IN PACE, for example, in spite of its strength, verges105 dangerously on the province of the penny novelist. I do not believe that Quasimodo rode upon the bell; I should as soon imagine that he swung by the clapper. And again the following two sentences, out of an otherwise admirable chapter, surely surpass what it has ever entered into the heart of any other man to imagine (vol. ii. p. 180): “Il souffrait tant que par6 instants il s’arrachait des poignees de cheveux, POUR VOIR S’ILS NE BLANCHISSAIENT PAS.” And, p. 181: “Ses pensees etaient si insupportables qu’il prenait sa tete a deux mains et tachait de l’arracher de ses epaules POUR LA BRISER SUR LE PAVE.”
One other fault, before we pass on. In spite of the horror and misery106 that pervade107 all of his later work, there is in it much less of actual melodrama108 than here, and rarely, I should say never, that sort of brutality109, that useless insufferable violence to the feelings, which is the last distinction between melodrama and true tragedy. Now, in NOTRE DAME, the whole story of Esmeralda’s passion for the worthless archer110 is unpleasant enough; but when she betrays herself in her last hiding-place, herself and her wretched mother, by calling out to this sordid111 hero who has long since forgotten her — well, that is just one of those things that readers will not forgive; they do not like it, and they are quite right; life is hard enough for poor mortals, without having it indefinitely embittered112 for them by bad art.
We look in vain for any similar blemish113 in LES MISERABLES. Here, on the other hand, there is perhaps the nearest approach to literary restraint that Hugo has ever made: there is here certainly the ripest and most easy development of his powers. It is the moral intention of this great novel to awaken114 us a little, if it may be — for such awakenings are unpleasant — to the great cost of this society that we enjoy and profit by, to the labour and sweat of those who support the litter, civilisation115, in which we ourselves are so smoothly carried forward. People are all glad to shut their eyes; and it gives them a very simple pleasure when they can forget that our laws commit a million individual injustices116, to be once roughly just in the general; that the bread that we eat, and the quiet of the family, and all that embellishes117 life and makes it worth having, have to be purchased by death - by the deaths of animals, and the deaths of men wearied out with labour, and the deaths of those criminals called tyrants118 and revolutionaries, and the deaths of those revolutionaries called criminals. It is to something of all this that Victor Hugo wishes to open men’s eyes in LES MISERABLES; and this moral lesson is worked out in masterly coincidence with the artistic effect. The deadly weight of civilisation to those who are below presses sensibly on our shoulders as we read. A sort of mocking indignation grows upon us as we find Society rejecting, again and again, the services of the most serviceable; setting Jean Valjean to pick oakum, casting Galileo into prison, even crucifying Christ. There is a haunting and horrible sense of insecurity about the book. The terror we thus feel is a terror for the machinery120 of law, that we can hear tearing, in the dark, good and bad between its formidable wheels with the iron stolidity121 of all machinery, human or divine. This terror incarnates122 itself sometimes and leaps horribly out upon us; as when the crouching123 mendicant124 looks up, and Jean Valjean, in the light of the street lamp, recognises the face of the detective; as when the lantern of the patrol flashes suddenly through the darkness of the sewer125; or as when the fugitive126 comes forth at last at evening, by the quiet riverside, and finds the police there also, waiting stolidly127 for vice119 and stolidly satisfied to take virtue128 instead. The whole book is full of oppression, and full of prejudice, which is the great cause of oppression. We have the prejudices of M. Gillenormand, the prejudices of Marius, the prejudices in revolt that defend the barricade129, and the throned prejudices that carry it by storm. And then we have the admirable but ill-written character of Javert, the man who had made a religion of the police, and would not survive the moment when he learned that there was another truth outside the truth of laws; a just creation, over which the reader will do well to ponder.
With so gloomy a design this great work is still full of life and light and love. The portrait of the good Bishop130 is one of the most agreeable things in modern literature. The whole scene at Montfermeil is full of the charm that Hugo knows so well how to throw about children. Who can forget the passage where Cosette, sent out at night to draw water, stands in admiration131 before the illuminated132 booth, and the huckster behind “lui faisait un peu l’effet d’etre le Pere eternel?” The pathos133 of the forlorn sabot laid trustingly by the chimney in expectation of the Santa Claus that was not, takes us fairly by the throat; there is nothing in Shakespeare that touches the heart more nearly. The loves of Cosette and Marius are very pure and pleasant, and we cannot refuse our affection to Gavroche, although we may make a mental reservation of our profound disbelief in his existence. Take it for all in all, there are few books in the world that can be compared with it. There is as much calm and serenity134 as Hugo has ever attained to; the melodramatic coarsenesses that disfigured NOTRE DAME are no longer present. There is certainly much that is painfully improbable; and again, the story itself is a little too well constructed; it produces on us the effect of a puzzle, and we grow incredulous as we find that every character fits again and again into the plot, and is, like the child’s cube, serviceable on six faces; things are not so well arranged in life as all that comes to. Some of the digressions, also, seem out of place, and do nothing but interrupt and irritate. But when all is said, the book remains135 of masterly conception and of masterly development, full of pathos, full of truth, full of a high eloquence136.
Superstition and social exigency137 having been thus dealt with in the first two members of the series, it remained for LES TRAVAILLEURS DE LA MER to show man hand to hand with the elements, the last form of external force that is brought against him. And here once more the artistic effect and the moral lesson are worked out together, and are, indeed, one. Gilliat, alone upon the reef at his herculean task, offers a type of human industry in the midst of the vague “diffusion of forces into the illimitable,” and the visionary development of “wasted labour” in the sea, and the winds, and the clouds. No character was ever thrown into such strange relief as Gilliat. The great circle of sea-birds that come wanderingly around him on the night of his arrival, strikes at once the note of his pre-eminence and isolation. He fills the whole reef with his indefatigable138 toil139; this solitary140 spot in the ocean rings with the clamour of his anvil141; we see him as he comes and goes, thrown out sharply against the clear background of the sea. And yet his isolation is not to be compared with the isolation of Robinson Crusoe, for example; indeed, no two books could be more instructive to set side by side than LES TRAVAILLEURS and this other of the old days before art had learnt to occupy itself with what lies outside of human will. Crusoe was one sole centre of interest in the midst of a nature utterly142 dead and utterly unrealised by the artist; but this is not how we feel with Gilliat; we feel that he is opposed by a “dark coalition143 of forces,” that an “immense animosity” surrounds him; we are the witnesses of the terrible warfare144 that he wages with “the silent inclemency145 of phenomena146 going their own way, and the great general law, implacable and passive:” “a conspiracy147 of the indifferency of things” is against him. There is not one interest on the reef, but two. Just as we recognise Gilliat for the hero, we recognise, as implied by this indifferency of things, this direction of forces to some purpose outside our purposes, yet another character who may almost take rank as the villain148 of the novel, and the two face up to one another blow for blow, feint for feint, until, in the storm, they fight it epically149 out, and Gilliat remains the victor; — a victor, however, who has still to encounter the octopus150. I need say nothing of the gruesome, repulsive151 excellence152 of that famous scene; it will be enough to remind the reader that Gilliat is in pursuit of a crab153 when he is himself assaulted by the devil fish, and that this, in its way, is the last touch to the inner significance of the book; here, indeed, is the true position of man in the universe.
But in LES TRAVAILLEURS, with all its strength, with all its eloquence, with all the beauty and fitness of its main situations, we cannot conceal154 from ourselves that there is a thread of something that will not bear calm scrutiny155. There is much that is disquieting156 about the storm, admirably as it begins. I am very doubtful whether it would be possible to keep the boat from foundering157 in such circumstances, by any amount of breakwater and broken rock. I do not understand the way in which the waves are spoken of, and prefer just to take it as a loose way of speaking, and pass on. And lastly, how does it happen that the sea was quite calm next day? Is this great hurricane a piece of scene-painting after all? And when we have forgiven Gilliat’s prodigies158 of strength (although, in soberness, he reminds us more of Porthos in the Vicomte de Bragelonne than is quite desirable), what is to be said to his suicide, and how are we to condemn159 in adequate terms that unprincipled avidity after effect, which tells us that the sloop160 disappeared over the horizon, and the head under the water, at one and the same moment? Monsieur Hugo may say what he will, but we know better; we know very well that they did not; a thing like that raises up a despairing spirit of opposition in a man’s readers; they give him the lie fiercely, as they read. 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 judicious161 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 Highland162 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 satiric163 than that of the two last, must answer for much that is unpleasant in the book. The repulsiveness164 of the scheme of the story, and the manner in which it is bound up with impossibilities and absurdities165, 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 deliberately166, it will be seen that, here again, the story is admirably adapted to the moral. The constructive167 ingenuity168 exhibited throughout is almost morbid169. Nothing could be more happily imagined, as a REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM of the aristocratic principle, than the adventures of Gwynplaine, the itinerant170 mountebank171, snatched suddenly out of his little way of life, and installed without preparation as one of the hereditary172 legislators of a great country. It is with a very bitter irony173 that the paper, on which all this depends, is left to float for years at the will of wind and tide. What, again, can be finer in conception than that voice from the people heard suddenly in the House of Lords, in solemn arraignment174 of the pleasures and privileges of its splendid occupants? The horrible laughter, stamped for ever “by order of the king” upon the face of this strange spokesman of democracy, adds yet another feature of justice to the scene; in all time, travesty176 has been the argument of oppression; and, in all time, the oppressed might have made this answer: “If I am vile175, is it not your system that has made me so?” This ghastly laughter gives occasion, moreover, for the one strain of tenderness running through the web of this unpleasant story: the love of the blind girl Dea, for the monster. It is a most benignant providence177 that thus harmoniously178 brings together these two misfortunes; it is one of those compensations, one of those afterthoughts of a relenting destiny, that reconcile us from time to time to the evil that is in the world; the atmosphere of the book is purified by the presence of this pathetic love; it seems to be above the story somehow, and not of it, as the full moon over the night of some foul179 and feverish180 city.
There is here a quality in the narration more intimate and particular than is general with Hugo; but it must be owned, on the other hand, that the book is wordy, and even, now and then, a little wearisome. Ursus and his wolf are pleasant enough companions; but the former is nearly as much an abstract type as the latter. There is a beginning, also, of an abuse of conventional conversation, such as may be quite pardonable in the drama where needs must, but is without excuse in the romance. Lastly, I suppose one must say a word or two about the weak points of this not immaculate novel; and if so, it will be best to distinguish at once. The large family of English blunders, to which we have alluded181 already in speaking of LES TRAVAILLEURS, are of a sort that is really indifferent in art. If Shakespeare makes his ships cast anchor by some seaport182 of Bohemia, if Hugo imagines Tom-Tim-Jack to be a likely nickname for an English sailor, or if either Shakespeare, or Hugo, or Scott, for that matter, be guilty of “figments enough to confuse the march of a whole history — anachronisms enough to overset all, chronology,” 2 the life of their creations, the artistic truth and accuracy of their work, is not so much as compromised. But when we come upon a passage like the sinking of the “Ourque” in this romance, we can do nothing but cover our face with our hands: the conscientious183 reader feels a sort of disgrace in the very reading. For such artistic falsehoods, springing from what I have called already an unprincipled avidity after effect, no amount of blame can be exaggerated; and above all, when the criminal is such a man as Victor Hugo. We cannot forgive in him what we might have passed over in a third-rate sensation novelist. Little as he seems to know of the sea and nautical184 affairs, he must have known very well that vessels185 do not go down as he makes the “Ourque” go down; he must have known that such a liberty with fact was against the laws of the game, and incompatible186 with all appearance of sincerity187 in conception or workmanship.
2 Prefatory letter to PEVERIL OF THE PEAK.
In each of these books, one after another, there has been some departure from the traditional canons of romance; but taking each separately, one would have feared to make too much of these departures, or to found any theory upon what was perhaps purely accidental. The appearance of QUATRE VINGT TREIZE has put us out of the region of such doubt. Like a doctor who has long been hesitating how to classify an epidemic188 malady189, we have come at last upon a case so well marked that our uncertainty190 is at an end. It is a novel built upon “a sort of enigma191,” which was at that date laid before revolutionary France, and which is presented by Hugo to Tellmarch, to Lantenac, to Gauvain, and very terribly to Cimourdain, each of whom gives his own solution of the question, clement192 or stern, according to the temper of his spirit. That enigma was this: “Can a good action be a bad action? Does not he who spares the wolf kill the sheep?” This question, as I say, meets with one answer after another during the course of the book, and yet seems to remain undecided to the end. And something in the same way, although one character, or one set of characters, after another comes to the front and occupies our attention for the moment, we never identify our interest with any of these temporary heroes nor regret them after they are withdrawn193. We soon come to regard them somewhat as special cases of a general law; what we really care for is something that they only imply and body forth to us. We know how history continues through century after century; how this king or that patriot194 disappears from its pages with his whole generation, and yet we do not cease to read, nor do we even feel as if we had reached any legitimate conclusion, because our interest is not in the men, but in the country that they loved or hated, benefited or injured. And so it is here: Gauvain and Cimourdain pass away, and we regard them no more than the lost armies of which we find the cold statistics in military annals; what we regard is what remains behind; it is the principle that put these men where they were, that filled them for a while with heroic inspiration, and has the power, now that they are fallen, to inspire others with the same courage. The interest of the novel centres about revolutionary France: just as the plot is an abstract judicial195 difficulty, the hero is an abstract historical force. And this has been done, not, as it would have been before, by the cold and cumbersome196 machinery of allegory, but with bold, straightforward197 realism, dealing198 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 maidens200 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 delightful201 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. We should like to know what becomes of the main body of the troop in the wood of La Saudraie during the thirty pages or so in which the foreguard lays aside all discipline, and stops to gossip over a woman and some children. We have an unpleasant idea forced upon us at one place, in spite of all the good-natured incredulity that we can summon up to resist it. Is it possible that Monsieur Hugo thinks they ceased to steer202 the corvette while the gun was loose? Of the chapter in which Lantenac and Halmalho are alone together in the boat, the less said the better; of course, if there were nothing else, they would have been swamped thirty times over during the course of Lantenac’s harangue203. Again, after Lantenac has landed, we have scenes of almost inimitable workmanship that suggest the epithet204 “statuesque” by their clear and trenchant205 outline; but the tocsin scene will not do, and the tocsin unfortunately pervades206 the whole passage, ringing continually in our ears with a taunting207 accusation208 of falsehood. And then, when we come to the place where Lantenac meets the royalists, under the idea that he is going to meet the republicans, it seems as if there were a hitch209 in the stage mechanism. I have tried it over in every way, and I cannot conceive any disposition30 that would make the scene possible as narrated210.
Such then, with their faults and their signal excellences211, are the five great novels.
Romance is a language in which many persons learn to speak with a certain appearance of fluency212; but there are few who can ever bend it to any practical need, few who can ever be said to express themselves in it. It has become abundantly plain in the foregoing examination that Victor Hugo occupies a high place among those few. He has always a perfect command over his stories; and we see that they are constructed with a high regard to some ulterior purpose, and that every situation is informed with moral significance and grandeur213. Of no other man can the same thing be said in the same degree. His romances are not to be confused with “the novel with a purpose” as familiar to the English reader: this is generally the model of incompetence214; and we see the moral clumsily forced into every hole and corner of the story, or thrown externally over it like a carpet over a railing. Now the moral significance, with Hugo, is of the essence of the romance; it is the organising principle. If you could somehow despoil215 LES MISERABLES OR LES TRAVAILLEURS of their distinctive216 lesson, you would find that the story had lost its interest and the book was dead.
Having thus learned to subordinate his story to an idea, to make his art speak, he went on to teach it to say things heretofore unaccustomed. If you look back at the five books of which we have now so hastily spoken, you will be astonished at the freedom with which the original purposes of story-telling have been laid aside and passed by. Where are now the two lovers who descended the main watershed217 of all the Waverley novels, and all the novels that have tried to follow in their wake? Sometimes they are almost lost sight of before the solemn isolation of a man against the sea and sky, as in LES TRAVAILLEURS; sometimes, as in LES MISERABLES, they merely figure for awhile, as a beautiful episode in the epic of oppression; sometimes they are entirely218 absent, as in QUATRE VINGT TREIZE. There is no hero in NOTRE DAME: in LES MISERABLES it is an old man: in L’HOMME QUI RIT it is a monster: in QUATRE VINGT TREIZE it is the Revolution. Those elements that only began to show themselves timidly, as adjuncts, in the novels of Walter Scott, have usurped219 ever more and more of the canvas; until we find the whole interest of one of Hugo’s romances centring around matter that Fielding would have banished220 from his altogether, as being out of the field of fiction. So we have elemental forces occupying nearly as large a place, playing (so to speak) nearly as important a ROLE, as the man, Gilliat, who opposes and overcomes them. So we find the fortunes of a nation put upon the stage with as much vividness as ever before the fortunes of a village maiden199 or a lost heir; and the forces that oppose and corrupt221 a principle holding the attention quite as strongly as the wicked barons222 or dishonest attorneys of the past. Hence those individual interests that were supreme in Fielding, and even in Scott, stood out over everything else and formed as it were the spine223 of the story, figure here only as one set of interests among many sets, one force among many forces, one thing to be treated out of a whole world of things equally vivid and important. So that, for Hugo, man is no longer an isolated224 spirit without antecedent or relation here below, but a being involved in the action and reaction of natural forces, himself a centre of such action and reaction or an unit in a great multitude, chased hither and thither225 by epidemic terrors and aspirations226, and, in all seriousness, blown about by every wind of doctrine227. This is a long way that we have travelled: between such work and the work of Fielding is there not, indeed, a great gulph in thought and sentiment?
Art, thus conceived, realises for men a larger portion of life, and that portion one that it is more difficult for them to realise unaided; and, besides helping228 them to feel more intensely those restricted personal interests which are patent to all, it awakes in them some consciousness of those more general relations that are so strangely invisible to the average man in ordinary moods. It helps to keep man in his place in nature, and, above all, it helps him to understand more intelligently the responsibilities of his place in society. And in all this generalisation of interest, we never miss those small humanities that are at the opposite pole of excellence in art; and while we admire the intellect that could see life thus largely, we are touched with another sentiment for the tender heart that slipped the piece of gold into Cosette’s sabot, that was virginally troubled at the fluttering of her dress in the spring wind, or put the blind girl beside the deformity of the laughing man. This, then, is the last praise that we can award to these romances. The author has shown a power of just subordination hitherto unequalled; and as, in reaching forward to one class of effects, he has not been forgetful or careless of the other, his work is more nearly complete work, and his art, with all its imperfections, deals more comprehensively with the materials of life than that of any of his otherwise more sure and masterly predecessors.
These five books would have made a very great fame for any writer, and yet they are but one facade229 of the monument that Victor Hugo has erected230 to his genius. Everywhere we find somewhat the same greatness, somewhat the same infirmities. In his poems and plays there are the same unaccountable protervities that have already astonished us in the romances. There, too, is the same feverish strength, welding the fiery231 iron of his idea under forge-hammer repetitions — an emphasis that is somehow akin46 to weaknesses — strength that is a little epileptic. He stands so far above all his contemporaries, and so incomparably excels them in richness, breadth, variety, and moral earnestness, that we almost feel as if he had a sort of right to fall oftener and more heavily than others; but this does not reconcile us to seeing him profit by the privilege so freely. We like to have, in our great men, something that is above question; we like to place an implicit232 faith in them, and see them always on the platform of their greatness; and this, unhappily, cannot be with Hugo. As Heine said long ago, his is a genius somewhat deformed233; but, deformed as it is, we accept it gladly; we shall have the wisdom to see where his foot slips, but we shall have the justice also to recognise in him one of the greatest artists of our generation, and, in many ways, one of the greatest artists of time. If we look back, yet once, upon these five romances, we see blemishes234 such as we can lay to the charge of no other man in the number of the famous; but to what other man can we attribute such sweeping235 innovations, such a new and significant presentment of the life of man, such an amount, if we merely think of the amount, of equally consummate performance?
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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maturity
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| n.成熟；完成；(支票、债券等)到期 | |
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distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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culmination
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| n.顶点；最高潮 | |
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par
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| n.标准，票面价值，平均数量；adj.票面的，平常的，标准的 | |
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stationary
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| adj.固定的，静止不动的 | |
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milestone
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| n.里程碑；划时代的事件 | |
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predecessors
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| n.前任( predecessor的名词复数 )；前辈；（被取代的）原有事物；前身 | |
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underlies
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| v.位于或存在于（某物）之下( underlie的第三人称单数 )；构成…的基础（或起因），引起 | |
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spinal
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| adj.针的，尖刺的，尖刺状突起的；adj.脊骨的，脊髓的 | |
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marrow
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| n.骨髓；精华；活力 | |
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legitimate
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| adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法 | |
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diverge
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| v.分叉，分歧，离题，使...岔开，使转向 | |
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chaos
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| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
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enfranchisement
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| 选举权 | |
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enfranchised
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| v.给予选举权( enfranchise的过去式和过去分词 )；（从奴隶制中）解放 | |
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trite
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dame
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opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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feigned
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| a.假装的，不真诚的 | |
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interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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shamefully
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| 可耻地； 丢脸地； 不体面地； 羞耻地 | |
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transmuted
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| v.使变形，使变质，把…变成…( transmute的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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restriction
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| n.限制，约束 | |
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suspense
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| n.（对可能发生的事）紧张感，担心，挂虑 | |
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dispositions
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| 安排( disposition的名词复数 )； 倾向； （财产、金钱的）处置； 气质 | |
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disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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playwright
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| n.剧作家，编写剧本的人 | |
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pageant
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| n.壮观的游行；露天历史剧 | |
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mechanism
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| n.机械装置；机构，结构 | |
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crucible
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| n.坩锅，严酷的考验 | |
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competence
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| n.能力，胜任，称职 | |
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narration
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| n.讲述，叙述；故事；记叙体 | |
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compensating
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| 补偿，补助，修正 | |
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trumpets
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| 喇叭( trumpet的名词复数 )； 小号； 喇叭形物； （尤指）绽开的水仙花 | |
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victorious
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| adj.胜利的，得胜的 | |
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passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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fatality
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| n.不幸，灾祸，天命 | |
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smoothly
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| adv.平滑地，顺利地，流利地，流畅地 | |
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texture
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| n.(织物)质地；(材料)构造；结构；肌理 | |
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epic
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incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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akin
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| adj.同族的，类似的 | |
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capabilities
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| n.能力( capability的名词复数 )；可能；容量；[复数]潜在能力 | |
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decomposed
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| 已分解的，已腐烂的 | |
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decompose
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| vi.分解；vt.（使）腐败，（使）腐烂 | |
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dynamics
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| n.力学，动力学，动力，原动力；动态 | |
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motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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manoeuvre
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| n.策略，调动；v.用策略，调动 | |
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stature
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| n.（高度）水平，（高度）境界，身高，身材 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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isolation
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| n.隔离，孤立，分解，分离 | |
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predilections
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| n.偏爱，偏好，嗜好( predilection的名词复数 ) | |
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irrational
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| adj.无理性的，失去理性的 | |
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reclaim
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| v.要求归还，收回；开垦 | |
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vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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initiating
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| v.开始( initiate的现在分词 )；传授；发起；接纳新成员 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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deviation
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| n.背离，偏离；偏差，偏向；离题 | |
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underlying
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| adj.在下面的，含蓄的，潜在的 | |
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ethical
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| adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的 | |
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professes
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| 声称( profess的第三人称单数 )； 宣称； 公开表明； 信奉 | |
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hampered
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| 妨碍，束缚，限制( hamper的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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formulate
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| v.用公式表示；规划；设计；系统地阐述 | |
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analytical
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| adj.分析的；用分析法的 | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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73
blurred
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| v.（使）变模糊( blur的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）难以区分；模模糊糊；迷离 | |
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74
philosophical
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| adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的 | |
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75
epical
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| adj.叙事诗的，英勇的 | |
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76
supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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77
lesser
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| adj.次要的，较小的；adv.较小地，较少地 | |
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78
purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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79
paramount
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| a.最重要的，最高权力的 | |
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80
unity
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| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
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81
restrictions
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| 约束( restriction的名词复数 )； 管制； 制约因素； 带限制性的条件（或规则） | |
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82
attains
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的第三人称单数 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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83
inflexible
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| adj.不可改变的，不受影响的，不屈服的 | |
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84
superstition
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| n.迷信，迷信行为 | |
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85
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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86
questionably
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| adv.可疑地；不真实地；有问题地 | |
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87
consummate
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| adj.完美的；v.成婚；使完美 [反]baffle | |
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88
enumeration
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| n.计数，列举；细目；详表；点查 | |
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89
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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90
pinnacles
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| 顶峰( pinnacle的名词复数 )； 顶点； 尖顶； 小尖塔 | |
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91
quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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92
mirage
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| n.海市蜃楼，幻景 | |
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93
permeates
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| 弥漫( permeate的第三人称单数 )； 遍布； 渗入； 渗透 | |
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94
consistency
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| n.一贯性，前后一致，稳定性；(液体的)浓度 | |
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95
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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96
gargoyles
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| n.怪兽状滴水嘴( gargoyle的名词复数 ) | |
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97
gargoyle
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| n.笕嘴 | |
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98
grotesque
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| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
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99
bourgeois
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| adj./n.追求物质享受的(人)；中产阶级分子 | |
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100
snugness
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101
contortion
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| n.扭弯，扭歪，曲解 | |
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102
animated
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| adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的 | |
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103
distressed
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| 痛苦的 | |
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104
alienate
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| vt.使疏远，离间；转让(财产等) | |
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105
verges
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| 边，边缘，界线( verge的名词复数 ) | |
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106
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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107
pervade
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| v.弥漫，遍及，充满，渗透，漫延 | |
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108
melodrama
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| n.音乐剧；情节剧 | |
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109
brutality
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| n.野蛮的行为，残忍，野蛮 | |
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110
archer
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| n.射手，弓箭手 | |
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111
sordid
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| adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的 | |
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112
embittered
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| v.使怨恨，激怒( embitter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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113
blemish
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| v.损害；玷污；瑕疵，缺点 | |
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114
awaken
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| vi.醒，觉醒；vt.唤醒，使觉醒，唤起，激起 | |
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115
civilisation
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| n.文明，文化，开化，教化 | |
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116
injustices
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| 不公平( injustice的名词复数 )； 非正义； 待…不公正； 冤枉 | |
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117
embellishes
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| v.美化( embellish的第三人称单数 )；装饰；修饰；润色 | |
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118
tyrants
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| 专制统治者( tyrant的名词复数 )； 暴君似的人； （古希腊的）僭主； 严酷的事物 | |
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119
vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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120
machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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121
stolidity
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| n.迟钝，感觉麻木 | |
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122
incarnates
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| v.赋予（思想、精神等）以人的形体( incarnate的第三人称单数 )；使人格化；体现；使具体化 | |
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123
crouching
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| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的现在分词 ) | |
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124
mendicant
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| n.乞丐；adj.行乞的 | |
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125
sewer
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| n.排水沟，下水道 | |
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126
fugitive
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| adj.逃亡的，易逝的；n.逃犯，逃亡者 | |
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127
stolidly
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| adv.迟钝地，神经麻木地 | |
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128
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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129
barricade
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| n.路障，栅栏，障碍；vt.设路障挡住 | |
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130
bishop
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| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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131
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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132
illuminated
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| adj.被照明的；受启迪的 | |
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133
pathos
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| n.哀婉，悲怆 | |
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134
serenity
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| n.宁静，沉着，晴朗 | |
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135
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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136
eloquence
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| n.雄辩；口才，修辞 | |
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137
exigency
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| n.紧急；迫切需要 | |
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138
indefatigable
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| adj.不知疲倦的，不屈不挠的 | |
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139
toil
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| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
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140
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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141
anvil
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| n.铁钻 | |
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142
utterly
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|
| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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143
coalition
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| n.结合体，同盟，结合，联合 | |
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144
warfare
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| n.战争(状态)；斗争；冲突 | |
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145
inclemency
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| n.险恶，严酷 | |
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146
phenomena
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| n.现象 | |
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147
conspiracy
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| n.阴谋，密谋，共谋 | |
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148
villain
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| n.反派演员，反面人物；恶棍；问题的起因 | |
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149
epically
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| adv.史诗式地，宏伟地 | |
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150
octopus
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| n.章鱼 | |
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151
repulsive
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| adj.排斥的，使人反感的 | |
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152
excellence
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| n.优秀，杰出，(pl.)优点，美德 | |
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153
crab
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| n.螃蟹，偏航，脾气乖戾的人，酸苹果；vi.捕蟹，偏航，发牢骚；vt.使偏航，发脾气 | |
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154
conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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155
scrutiny
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| n.详细检查，仔细观察 | |
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156
disquieting
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| adj.令人不安的，令人不平静的v.使不安，使忧虑，使烦恼( disquiet的现在分词 ) | |
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157
foundering
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| v.创始人( founder的现在分词 ) | |
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158
prodigies
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| n.奇才，天才（尤指神童）( prodigy的名词复数 ) | |
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159
condemn
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| vt.谴责，指责；宣判(罪犯)，判刑 | |
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160
sloop
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| n.单桅帆船 | |
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161
judicious
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| adj.明智的，明断的，能作出明智决定的 | |
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162
highland
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| n.(pl.)高地，山地 | |
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163
satiric
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| adj.讽刺的，挖苦的 | |
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164
repulsiveness
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165
absurdities
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| n.极端无理性( absurdity的名词复数 )；荒谬；谬论；荒谬的行为 | |
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166
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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167
constructive
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| adj.建设的，建设性的 | |
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168
ingenuity
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| n.别出心裁；善于发明创造 | |
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169
morbid
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| adj.病的；致病的；病态的；可怕的 | |
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170
itinerant
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| adj.巡回的；流动的 | |
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171
mountebank
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| n.江湖郎中；骗子 | |
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172
hereditary
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| adj.遗传的，遗传性的，可继承的，世袭的 | |
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173
irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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174
arraignment
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| n.提问，传讯，责难 | |
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175
vile
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| adj.卑鄙的，可耻的，邪恶的；坏透的 | |
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176
travesty
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| n.歪曲，嘲弄，滑稽化 | |
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177
providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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178
harmoniously
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| 和谐地，调和地 | |
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179
foul
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| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
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180
feverish
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| adj.发烧的，狂热的，兴奋的 | |
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181
alluded
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| 提及，暗指( allude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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182
seaport
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| n.海港，港口，港市 | |
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183
conscientious
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| adj.审慎正直的，认真的，本着良心的 | |
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184
nautical
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| adj.海上的，航海的，船员的 | |
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185
vessels
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| n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人 | |
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186
incompatible
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| adj.不相容的，不协调的，不相配的 | |
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187
sincerity
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| n.真诚，诚意；真实 | |
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188
epidemic
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| n.流行病；盛行；adj.流行性的，流传极广的 | |
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189
malady
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| n.病，疾病(通常做比喻) | |
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190
uncertainty
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| n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物 | |
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191
enigma
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| n.谜，谜一样的人或事 | |
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192
clement
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| adj.仁慈的；温和的 | |
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193
withdrawn
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| vt.收回；使退出；vi.撤退，退出 | |
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194
patriot
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| n.爱国者，爱国主义者 | |
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195
judicial
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| adj.司法的，法庭的，审判的，明断的，公正的 | |
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196
cumbersome
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| adj.笨重的，不便携带的 | |
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197
straightforward
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| adj.正直的，坦率的；易懂的，简单的 | |
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198
dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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199
maiden
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| n.少女，处女；adj.未婚的，纯洁的，无经验的 | |
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200
maidens
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|
| 处女( maiden的名词复数 )； 少女； 未婚女子； （板球运动）未得分的一轮投球 | |
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201
delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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202
steer
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| vt.驾驶，为…操舵；引导；vi.驾驶 | |
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203
harangue
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| n.慷慨冗长的训话，言辞激烈的讲话 | |
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204
epithet
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| n.（用于褒贬人物等的）表述形容词，修饰语 | |
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trenchant
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| adj.尖刻的，清晰的 | |
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pervades
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| v.遍及，弥漫( pervade的第三人称单数 ) | |
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207
taunting
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| 嘲讽( taunt的现在分词 )； 嘲弄； 辱骂； 奚落 | |
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208
accusation
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| n.控告，指责，谴责 | |
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209
hitch
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| v.免费搭(车旅行)；系住；急提；n.故障；急拉 | |
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210
narrated
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| v.故事( narrate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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211
excellences
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| n.卓越( excellence的名词复数 )；（只用于所修饰的名词后）杰出的；卓越的；出类拔萃的 | |
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fluency
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| n.流畅，雄辩，善辩 | |
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213
grandeur
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| n.伟大，崇高，宏伟，庄严，豪华 | |
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incompetence
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| n.不胜任，不称职 | |
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despoil
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| v.夺取，抢夺 | |
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distinctive
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| adj.特别的，有特色的，与众不同的 | |
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217
watershed
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| n.转折点，分水岭，分界线 | |
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218
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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219
usurped
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| 篡夺，霸占( usurp的过去式和过去分词 )； 盗用； 篡夺，篡权 | |
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220
banished
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| v.放逐，驱逐( banish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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corrupt
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| v.贿赂，收买；adj.腐败的，贪污的 | |
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222
barons
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| 男爵( baron的名词复数 )； 巨头； 大王； 大亨 | |
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223
spine
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| n.脊柱，脊椎；(动植物的)刺；书脊 | |
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isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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225
thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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226
aspirations
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| 强烈的愿望( aspiration的名词复数 )； 志向； 发送气音； 发 h 音 | |
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doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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facade
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| n.(建筑物的)正面，临街正面；外表 | |
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230
ERECTED
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| adj. 直立的，竖立的，笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立，建立 | |
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231
fiery
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| adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的 | |
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232
implicit
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| a.暗示的，含蓄的，不明晰的，绝对的 | |
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deformed
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| adj.畸形的；变形的；丑的，破相了的 | |
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234
blemishes
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| n.（身体的）瘢点( blemish的名词复数 )；伤疤；瑕疵；污点 | |
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sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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