ugh the web of this unpleasant story: the love of the blind girl
Dea, for the monster. It is a most benignant providence that thus
harmoniously brings together these two misfortunes; it is one of those
compensations, one of those after-thoughts 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 foul and feverish 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 alluded
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
seaport of Bohemia, if Hugo imagines Tom-Jim-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 conscientious 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 nautical affairs, he
must have known very well that vessels do not go down as he makes the
_Ourque_ go down; he must have known that such a