ects. To Hugo,
the whole universe seemed to be alive, both as a whole and in each of
its separate parts, and his way of humanizing the inanimate is not
so much a conscious literary artifice as the natural habit of his
imagination. The tendency is not confined to his poetry; readers of his
romances will remember the gargoyles of Notre-Dame and the cannon
which got loose in the hold of the _Claymore_ and became 'une bete
surnaturelle.' But the instances in his romantic poetry are naturally
more numerous and more vivid. The swords of the heroes are always alive;
in the duel between Roland and Olivier:

Durandal heurte et suit Closamont.

In the combat between Roland and his enemies in the _Petit Roi de
Galice_, the hero staggers and Froila leaps forward to crush him:

Mais Durandal se dresse et jette Froila
Sur Pacheco, dont l'ame en ce moment hurla.

The statues in the hall at Final are moved at the gentle tread of
Fabrice and his little ward, and seem to bow to them as they pass.

Chaque statue, emue a leur pas doux et sombre,
Vibre, et toutes ont l'air de saluer dans l'ombre,
Les heros le vieillard, et les anges l'enfant.

But the most striking instance of this tendency occurs in _Eviradnus_,
where, from beginning to end, all that surrounds the actors in the
story lives with a passionate life. The trees that overhear the plot of
Sigismond and Ladislas tremble and moan, and the words that issue from
the lips of the miscreants are dark with shadow or red with blood. The
half-ruined castle of Corbus fights with the winter, like a strong man
with his enemies; the gargoyles on its towers bark at the winds, the
graven monsters on the ramparts snarl and snort, the sculptured lions
claw and bite the wind and rain[4]. In the gloomy halls the griffins
seize with their teeth the great beams of the roofs, and the door is
afraid of the noise of its own opening. The very shadows feel fear and
the pillars are chilled with terror. The armour of the horses and the
men is terribly alive, and charger and knight make but one monster,
clothed in scales of steel.

[Footnote 4: With this picture in verse of the fight between the castle
and the storm should be compared the prose picture of the fight between
the fire and the water in _Le Rhin_ (Lettre xix).]

Hugo loves especially to endow with life objects that suggest a
struggle. It is the wrecked and broken ship of _Pleine Mer_ rather than
the triumphant vessel of _Plei