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 implicit 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
deformed; 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 blemishes 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 sweeping
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?



CHAPTER II - SOME ASPECTS OF ROBERT BURNS



To write with authority about another man, we must have
fellow-feeling and some common ground of experience with our
subject. We may praise or blame according as we find him
related to us by the best or worst in ourselves; but it is
only in virtue of some relationship that we can be his