The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-08-27

VIEW or VIEW ROOFS.


by ID. Appleton 20 Thllauel'nla "SoH''
ID. Ashmead.
Victor Hugos romance, remarkable in more
ways than one, having run its course through
the pages of Appyet0B's JourndI has doubt
less. to the intense satisfaction of the pub
fishers no less than the readers OF that pc
riodical. been completed and is now issued
in book form. II would be difficult to ma
story more entirely unsuited in every way tor
the pages of popular journal than TINS; ana
long before it came TO an end the publishers
found that they had white elephant OF the
most unwieldy dimensions ON their hands,
that they could not get rid OF. And yet this
extraordinary novel is worthy of better treat
nent than it has received at the hands of Mr..
Afternoon Charles Swinburne, who, being
worshipper at the shrine of Hugo, has nothing
hut extravagant eulogy to bestow upon 1t, or
from the majority of critics both in Anne
rica and England, who have united to
condemn it without stint This, indeed, is
scarcely to be wondered at, for the really
grand outline and basis of the work is 50
overlaid by grotesque and most ludicrous alb
surdities that it is not easy to tell at first
ulance what the author is driving at. Victor
Hugo is now an old man, and in ''The Man
who Laughs" the very worst faults and pecu-
liarities of his grotesque and exaggerated
style are intensified, while the leading idea is
proportionably faint and feeble. The writer
is evidently terribly in earnest and in this,
as in his other writings, he makes an appeal
in behalf of suffering and oppressed humanity
the sincerity of which we cannot doubt IN
fortunately, the book is in much the same po-
sition as the hero It's incoherent and dis
tressful appeals seem like insane rawlings, and
tbe protesoue visage excites disdainful laugh
for and ridicule. which will not even give a
hearing to the cause that is being pleaded
Tn his short predatory note the author states
that the true title of this book might have
been "Aristocracy,' and he announces it as
the first of trilogy, the second part of which
will treat of Monarchy, and will probably at
tempt to give us a picture Of France during
the reign of Louis XIV or that of Louis XIV
The third and concluding part will be called
'Ninety-eight, and will treat of Revolution.
Victor Hugo has grasped the essentially
true idea when he says that ''the English
patriciate is the patricate in the true sense of
the word. No feudality more illustrious,
more terrible. and more full of life. * X
It is in England that this phenomenon, no.
bility. ought to be studied, just as it is in
France that we ought to study this phenOme-
non. ROYALTY" Assuming that the proper
time to study the English aristocracy is in its
decadence, NJ. Hugo has endeavored to give
us view of the workings of the English sys-
tenn during the reign of Queen Anne
'Brandy Nan. as she was irreverently termed,
her favorite beverage, according to some
authorities. being cherry-bounce. Now,
there is probably no period of English history
that is better defined or better understood
than this and it is scarcely conceivable that
any educated man, i'll attempting to describe
it. could possibly commit the blunders that
turn every one of NJ. Hugo's pages into bur
lesoue. From title-page to finis he shows
an absolute ignorance Of his subject he
knows nothing whatever of the laws, man.
ners customs, or people that he attempts to
describe, and yet the whole story is a mass of
minute details, which are related with a
gravity and ingenuousness that are ludcrous
in the extreme, as they indicate that the
author has the most perfect confidence in
information that he imparts. There is
scarcely work in literature outside such
productions as the 'Arabian Nights and
"Gulliver's Travels" that is so charged with
fantastic impossibilities. Indeed, the cara.
bian Nights" seem to have given NJ. Hugo
more than one hint, as in the description OF
Corleone Lodge in Book Seventh, which might
readily pass for one of those stupendous
nalaces which the oriental story-tellers in
some of the widest flights of their imagina
ton attribute to the supernatural powers OF
some afrite OF genius. 1t is very certain that
no such structure existed in England during
the reign of Brandy Nan. If all these particu
lars had been made strictly subordinate, anC
the selection of definite period of history
been made a matter of strictly secondary i'm
portance, these inaccuracies would have been
of comparatively little moment. But NJ
Hugo has deliberately undertaken to describe
the social and political system of certain
nation at a certain and definite era: h(
has not only failed to do so, but he has de
liberately made the situation something vastl,
different from what it really was, and con
sequently the local coloring of his fictiol
being all false and discordant, there are com
paratively few readers who will care to stud
the work for the sake of what is really goo
and great in it.
To estimate the real value of ''The Ma
Who Laughs, it will be necessary to forge
Queen Anne and English history, and to rea
it as if we knew nothing of either-to rea