masterfully that the palest abstractions of thought come
before us, and move our hopes and fears, as if they were the
young men and maidens 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 delightful 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 steer 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