unrealised by the artist; but this is not how we feel with
Gilliat; we feel that he is opposed by a "dark coalition of
forces," that an "immense animosity" surrounds him; we are
the witnesses of the terrible warfare that he wages with "the
silent inclemency of phenomena going their own way, and the
great general law, implacable and passive:" "a conspiracy 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 villain of the novel, and the two face up to one
another blow for blow, feint for feint, until, in the storm,
they fight it epically out, and Gilliat remains the victor; -
a victor, however, who has still to encounter the octopus. I
need say nothing of the gruesome, repulsive excellence of
that famous scene; it will be enough to remind the reader
that Gilliat is in pursuit of a crab 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 conceal from ourselves that there is a
thread of something that will not bear calm scrutiny. There
is much that is disquieting about the storm, admirably as it
begins. I am very doubtful whether it would be possible to
keep the boat from foundering in such circumstances, by any
amount of breakwater and broken rock. I do not understand