h it in the conception of prose
romance. The purely critical spirit is, in most novels, paramount. At
the present moment we can recall one man only, for whose works it would
have been equally possible to accomplish our present design: and that
man is Hawthorne. There is a unity, an unwavering creative purpose,
about some at least of Hawthorne's romances, that impresses itself on
the most indifferent reader; and the very restrictions and weaknesses of
the man served perhaps to strengthen the vivid and single impression of
his works. There is nothing of this kind in Hugo: unity, if he attains
to it, is indeed unity out of multitude; and it is the wonderful power
of subordination and synthesis thus displayed, that gives us the measure
of his talent. No amount of mere discussion and statement, such as this,
could give a just conception of the greatness of this power. It must be
felt in the books themselves, and all that can be done in the present
essay is to recall to the reader the more general features of each of
the five great romances, hurriedly and imperfectly, as space will
permit, and rather as a suggestion than anything more complete.

The moral end that the author had before him in the conception of "Notre
Dame de Paris" was (he tells us) to "denounce" the external fatality
that hangs over men in the form of foolish and inflexible superstition.
To speak plainly, this moral purpose seems to have mighty little to do
with the artistic conception; moreover, it is very questionably handled,
while the artistic conception is developed with the most consummate
success. Old Paris lives for us with newness of life: we have ever
before our eyes the city cut into three by the two arms of the river,
the boat-shaped island "moored" by five bridges to the different shores,
and the two unequal towns on either hand. We forget all that enumeration
of palaces and churches and convents which occupies so many pages of
admirable description, and the thoughtless reader might be inclined to
conclude from this that they were pages thrown away; but this is not so:
we forget, indeed, the details, as we forget or do not see the different
layers of paint on a completed picture; but the thing desired has been
accomplished, and we carry away with us a sense of the "Gothic profile"
of the city, of the "surprising forest of pinnacles and towers and
belfries," and we know not what of rich and intricate and quaint. And
throughout, Notre Dame has be