ul exception of Gilliatt's battle with
brute matter and elemental forces, is "the tale the thing" purely as
tale. Very seldom do we even want to know what is going to happen--the
childishly simple, but also childishly genuine demand of the reader of
romance as such, if not even of the novel also. Scarcely once do we--at
least do I--take that interest in the development of character which is
the special subject of appetite of readers of the novel, as such and by
itself. The baits and the rewards are now splendour of style; now
magnificence of imagery; sometimes grandeur of idea; often pathos; not
seldom the delight of battle in this or that sense. These are all
excellent seasonings of novelry; but they are not the root of the
matter, the _piece de resistance_ of the feast.

Unfortunately, too, Hugo not merely cannot, or at any rate does not,
give the hungry sheep their proper food--an interesting story worked out
by interesting characters--but will persist in giving them things as
suitable (granting them to be in the abstract nourishing) as turnips to
the carnivora or legs of mutton to the sheep which walk on them. It
would, of course, not be just to press too strongly the objections to
the novel of purpose, though to the present writer they seem almost
insuperable. But it is not merely purpose in the ordinary sense which
leads Victor astray, or rather (for he was much too wilful a person to
be led) which he invents for himself to follow, with his eyes open, and
knowing perfectly well what he is doing. His digressions are not
_parabases_ of the kind which some people object to in Fielding and
still more in Thackeray--addresses to the reader on points more or less
intimately connected with the subject itself. A certain exception has
been made in favour of some of the architectural parts of _Notre-Dame de
Paris_, but it has been admitted that this will not cover "Ceci Tuera
Cela" nor much else. For the presence of the history of the sewers of
Paris in _Les Miserables_ and any number of other things; for not a
little of the first volume of _Les Travailleurs_ itself; for about half,
if not more, of _L'Homme Qui Rit_, starting from Ursus's Black-book of
fancy pleasances, palaces, and estates belonging to the fellow-peers of
Lord Linnaeus Clancharlie and Hunkerville; for not a few chapters even of
_Quatre-Vingt-Treize_, there is no excuse at all. They are simply
repulsive or at least unwelcome "pledgets" of unsucculent matter s