Eco szerint az olvasónak nem kell mindent tudnia a regény univerzumáról, mert egy regény narratívája szükségszerűen csak kisvilágokban működik*. Hugo viszont tojik Eco-ra, és könyve elejére odabiggyeszt egy könnyed ötven oldalas kultúr-, gazdaság- és etnotörténeti tanulmányt a normann szigetvilágról – nesze neked, Nyájas Olvasó, ezt mind biflázd be, mielőtt egyáltalán beengedlek a történetembe. Úgyhogy fel lehet venni a túrabakacsokat, meg a vízhatlan tengerészkabátot, és veselkedjünk neki. A vicc az, hogy amilyen nagy író Hugo, még ezt is megteheti, mert a szárazanyagot is olyan elemi lelkesedéssel tálalja, hogy az ember nem is bánja, amikor az idegeire megy, mi több, még hálás is érte. Érthető amúgy az efféle nyitány, mert ennek a könyvnek a főszereplője bizony maga Guernesey szigete úgy mindenestül**, no és persze a szörnyű, a félelmetes, a csodálatos óceán. Mellette eltörpülnek az emberek, még a regény talán legfőszereplőbb (humán) szereplője, Gilliatt is legfeljebb a mellékszereplő kategóriában nevezhet az Oscar-ra.

A helyszín nem csak a szereplőkre, de a sztorira is árnyékot vet: talán ez a legharmatosabb cselekményű Hugo-történet a nagyregények közül. Tulajdonképpen annyi az egész (eltekintve a marginális, bár fineszesen megszerkesztett kacskaringóktól), hogy Gilliatt, az „ördöngős” egy pokoli szikladarabon, a tenger kellős közepén egymagában nekiáll végrehajtani a lehetetlen küldetést. Egyfajta újraértelmezett Robinson Crusoe ő: az emberfeletti ember, aki saját eszére és erejére hagyatkozva küzd meg az elemekkel. Azért az író egy pluszt is bevisz ebbe a szálba, mégpedig egy rettentő polipot! Egy rohadt nagy, ocsmány polipot!!! Mi ez, ha nem cool? És ez a polip nem ám valami Attenborough-természetfilmből szökött át, hanem egyenesen az ’50-es évek amerikai szörnymozijaiból! Szóval nagyszerű mese ez, ha valaki szereti a francia romantikusok áradó nyelvezetét, akik képesek egy parasztház tetőszerkezetéről is másfél-két oldalas, harsány színekkel megföstött gyorselemzést illeszteni a regénytestbe. És persze ha valakit nem zavar, ha egy író galádul bánik a szereplőivel***.

(Megjegyzés: és ha valakinek nem tűnt volna fel a Nyomorultak-ból – Victor Hugonak nagyon jó humora van!)

* "A mintaolvasónak nem kell ismernie az összes említett helyet és individuumot a regényben. Elegendő, ha úgy tesz, mintha hinné, hogy ismeri őket. Nem csupán hatalmas méretű rugalmasság és felületesség kéretik a mintaolvasótól, hanem a jó szándék folyamatos gyakorlása is.
Ha a mintaolvasó így viselkedik, élvezni fogja a történetet. Máskülönben örökké tartó enciklopédikus kutatásra ítéltetik. Akadhatnak olvasók, akik azt kérdezik, hány lakosa lehet Saint-Quen-les-Toits-nak, vagy hogy hívják Charles Bovary nagyapját. De az ilyen akadékoskodók nem mintaolvasók. Maximális világokat keresnek, míg a narratíva csak kis világokkal maradhat életben." (Eco: Az értelmezés határai)
** Ahol amúgy Hugo száműzetésének éveit töltötte. Ilyen értelemben elmondhatjuk, hogy igazi íróként kipréselte a rosszból a jót, és a lehető legtöbbet profitált a kényszerű ottlétből – és nem mellesleg Guernesey sem járt rosszul, mert ilyen szép himnuszt aligha írtak hozzá még egyet.
*** Ebben a műben Hugo még azt a disznóságot is elköveti, hogy csinál (SPOILER!!!) egy protohepiendet, amikor Gilliatt sikerrel véghezviszi a véghezvihetetlent. De amint nyugodtan hátradőlünk, mert minden rendben levőnek látszik, akkor az író sanda vigyorral ajkán visszakézből lekever neki egyet.
( )

4/20/22

Not as good in English as in French. I would say that, though, wouldn’t I? Clunkier and less memorable. Still a fabulous yarn. ( )

Hugo wrote this book as a sort of nod to the isle of Guernsey for hosting him while he was in political disfavor in France. It is a love story to that island. I think at a younger age, I might have enjoyed it more, but I became impatient with it after trying to make progress for over a month.

Finally, I took the bull by the horns and decided to skim read; when I read the last few chapters, I was very glad I hadn't put any more time into it. Imagine Charles Dickens at his most maudlin. Was Victor Hugo paid by the word? You cannot imagine how many words he used to tell a very small thing. I will admit that he uses words charmingly, even cleverly, but so many! It's like trying to eat a huge dense fruitcake. Glad that's over. ( )

Not really a novel, more a prose poem with a plot. It's full of descriptive passages and meditations on the sea, the winds, and the people who live in these elements. It also has some wise things to say about human nature. On the other hand, the characterizations are perfunctory and the story is lumbering and predictable. It's a frame for the prose and nothing more, but the prose is impeccable, even diffused through the anonymous 19th century translation that I read. ( )

Whew. Hard to get through without jettisoning all the flotsam. ( )

PREFACE

Religion, Society, and Nature! these are the three struggles of man. They constitute at the same time his three needs. He has need of a faith; hence the temple. He must create; hence the city. He must live; hence the plough and the ship. But these three solutions comprise three perpetual conflicts. The mysterious difficulty of life results from all three. Man strives with obstacles under the form of superstition, under the form of prejudice, and under the form of the elements. A triple ἁναγκη weighs upon us. There is the fatality of dogmas, the oppression of human laws, the inexorability of nature. In Notre Dame de Paris the author denounced the first; in the Misérables he exemplified the second; in this book he indicates the third. With these three fatalities mingles that inward fatality—the supreme ἁναγκη, the human heart.

Page 134:
The Channel Islands are like England, an aristocratic region. Castes exist there still. The castes have their peculiar ideas, which are, in fact, their protection. These notions of caste are everywhere similar; in Hindostan, as in Germany, nobility is won by the sword; lost by soiling the hands with labour: but preserved by idleness. To do nothing, is to live nobly; whoever abstains from work is honoured. A trade is fatal. In France, in old times, there was no exception to this rule, except in the case of glass manufacturers. Emptying bottles being then one of the glories of gentlemen, making them was probably, for that reason, not considered dishonourable. In the Channel archipelago, as in Great Britain, he who would remain noble must contrive to be rich. A working man cannot possibly be a gentleman. If he has ever been one, he is so no longer. Yonder sailor, perhaps, descends from the Knights Bannerets, but is nothing but a sailor.

Page 236:
It is the self-willed ones who are sublime. He who is only brave, has but a passing fit, he who is only valiant has temperament and nothing more, he who is courageous has but one virtue. He who persists in the truth is the grand character.[Pg 236] The secret of great hearts may be summed up in the word: Perseverando. Perseverance is to courage what the wheel is to the lever; it is the continual renewing of the centre of support. Let the desired goal be on earth or in heaven, only make for the goal. Everything is in that; in the first case one is a Columbus, in the second a god. Not to allow conscience to argue or the will to fail—this is the way to suffering and glory. In the world of ethics to fall does not exclude the possibility of soaring, rather does it give impetus to flight. The mediocrities allow themselves to be dissuaded by the specious obstacles—the great ones never. To perish is their perhaps, to conquer their conviction. You may propose many good reasons to the martyr why he should not allow himself to be stoned to death. Disdain of every reasonable objection begets that sublime victory of the vanquished which we call martyrdom.

Page 238:
The pressure of darkness acts in inverse proportion upon different kinds of natures. In the presence of night man feels his own incompleteness. He perceives the dark void and is sensible of infirmity. It is like the vacancy of blindness. Face to face with night, man bends, kneels, prostrates himself, crouches on the earth, crawls towards a cave, or seeks for wings. Almost always he shrinks from that vague presence of the Infinite Unknown. He asks himself what it is; he trembles and bows the head. Sometimes he desires to go to it.

This curiosity is evidently forbidden to the spirit of man; for all around him the roads which bridge that gulf are broken up or gone. No arch exists for him to span the Infinite. But there is attraction in forbidden knowledge, as in the edge of the abyss. Where the footstep cannot tread, the eye may reach; where the eye can penetrate no further, the mind may soar. There is no man, however feeble or insufficient his resources, who does not essay. According to his nature he questions or recoils before that mystery. With some it has the effect of repressing; with others it enlarges the soul. The spectacle is sombre, indefinite.

Another great masterpiece by Victor Hugo, one of the greatest French writers.

The English version of this book can be found at Gutenberg Project. ( )

Imagine the perfect recipe, the perfect blend of elements. In many respects "The Toilers of the Sea" is that perfect blend. One part epic drama, one part satiric wit, one part ethnographic study of Guernsey Island in the mid 1800s, one part battle between man and nature, one part spiritual allegory, and the topping is two parts elegant prose. Yes, yes, it is a lot to take on, but Victor Hugo did it oh so well. How many authors can make long drawn out descriptive passages gripping?

Hugo's prose is marvelous and his insight into human nature seems the result of astute, keen observation. This book, written during his exile on Guernsey Island, represents a veritable compendium of observation. His writing makes me want to hop a flight to Guernsey yesterday! I have witnessed storms such as Hugo describes and it sent shivers up my spine as he recaptured the sense of foreboding in the air just before a massive storm breaks!

Drawbacks, unfortunately, they exist. Dialogue? Relationship between individuals? I get the sense that Hugo was aching with solitude and projected that into this novel. Character development is done really well, except that the characters rarely interact until the very end of the tale, and then quite superficially. If, as existentialists say, we are ultimately alone and judged by our actions, then this allegory is perfection itself!

I loved it...... ( )

This is such a magnificent book that it is difficult for me to know what to say about it. It can be read as the tale of an epic and exciting struggle, man against nature in the form of the sea, the winds, and the creatures, an adventure that in places keeps the reader on the edge of the seat. But it is so so much more. Hugo explores everything from the natural world and social structure of the Channel Islands to the genesis and progress of storms to the geology and vegetation of caverns to the construction of sailing and steam boats to important winds of the world to the types of religion on the different islands to the psychology of loss to techniques of carpentry and blacksmithing to the contrast of science and philosophy -- and much more. And yet, despite the digressive nature of much of this, as well as the fact that while some of it consists of perceptive observation, some of it is flights of fancy, or at least the wanderings of an active mind, I found it fascinating.

This was my first introduction to Hugo's writing, thanks to the Author Theme Read's group group read, and I was unprepared for the beauty of his writing -- or that I would like the excesses of his writing in which many words and phrases are better than a few words and a single phrase. Here is an example:

Possibility is a formidable matrix. Mystery takes concrete form in monsters. Fragments of darkness emerge from the mass we call immanence, tear themselves apart, break off, roll, float, condense, borrow matter from the surrounding blackness, undergo unheard of polarizations, take on life, compose themselves into curious forms with darkness and curious souls with miasma, and go on their way, like masks among living and breathing beings. They are like darkness made into animals. What is the point of them? What purpose do they serve? We return to the eternal question. p. 354

And Hugo is also a consummate story teller, who has a talent for foreshadowing. When the normally predictable ship captain Sieur Clubin slips off to buy a revolver and a bottle of brandy, the reader can't help but wonder why. When Gilliat, the hero, wanders into a magnificent cavern, sees another entrance to it, and hears a little rustling in the water, the reader knows he will return and encounter whatever creature is there. Even an event that I thought was the end of something turned out not to be so (trying to be vague to avoid spoilers). In places, the novel is incredibly exciting -- and there is also a love story.

So what is this book about, aside from being a great tale? It is easy to see it as allegorical, with Hugo in exile on the Channel Islands and feeling the social goals he has professed have been shipwrecked but can be recovered through struggle. It is also easy to see psychological and mythical angles to the book -- man's struggle for meaning, monsters in deep caverns. I tend to think it is all of these and, although I am not good at reading slowly, I would almost like to start over at the beginning, now that I've followed the plot, to gain a deeper appreciation of the writing and Hugo's ideas.

My Modern Library edition was enhanced by some of Hugo's drawings of ships and the sea and by helpful endnotes.

How would you feel if someone you respect were to show you that one of your friends, whom you've liked and trusted for many years, is in fact a coward, hypocrite, backstabber, rapist and murderer? Troubled? Offended? Confused? Shocked? Sad? That's about how I felt when I was reading this book.

That someone is Victor Hugo, and that friend of mine is the Ocean.

Introduction

Growing up on the coast, the ocean has been my friend since childhood. I have fond memories of countless hours spent on the beach, swimming, playing with sand castles, collecting shellfish and starfish, or watching the sunset over the distant horizon.

This book by Hugo, Part III of a trilogy which also includes his two best-known works, Notre-Dame de Paris and Les Misérables, changed my perception to some extent of the ocean, man and the universe.

One of the main reasons why Hugo was and is so popular is that there are so many layers and nuances of his views that people from different walks of life find themselves represented and vindicated by him, and all can enjoy his books on different levels. This book is a prime example.

The Disney Story

The story may be summarized in one sentence printed on the back cover of the book. It "tells of the reclusive Guernsey fisherman Gilliatt, who salvages the engine of a wrecked ship by performing great feats of engineering, matching wits with sea and storm, and doing battle with a great sea monster - all to win the hand of a shipowner's daughter." It would make a great sea adventure movie with a music soundtrack (e.g., Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony), sound and visual effects and spectacular cinematography.

The One Man Iliad

The epic battle between Gilliatt and the Ocean is portrayed in Homeric style. The Ocean seems to bear a grudge against Gilliatt and fights against him with fury, which reminds one of the battle between Odysseus and the sea god Poseidon in Odyssey, Achilles and the river god Scamander in Iliad.

Hugo endows the Ocean with many human characteristics: how like a hypocrite she hides her secrets in caverns in which dwell man-eating monsters; how she overpowers her victims with bombardments of the waves and the wind like a coward; and if power fails, how she sneaks in on man through leaks, cracks and rusts like a backstabber.

The struggle between Gilliatt and the Ocean is painted as a violent rape. The rapist is the Ocean. In the end, Gilliatt was completely naked and in submission. Many natural phenomena are depicted as either a slaughter or a coitus, even the close encounter between Gilliatt and the man-eating octopus, "You both become one".

The Sufferer

The battle between Gilliatt and the Ocean is an allegory of man's battle with Fate, the Unknown, in general, and Hugo's own life in particular. At the time of writing the novel, Hugo was in political exile on the Guernsey island, his ideal of social progress having suffered a shipwreck. He was alone and forlorn, so downcast that he deemed the island his tomb. Fate was the backstabbing hypocrite, and he was the victim. Nevertheless, he devoted himself to the battle of the pen, naked like Gilliatt.

The Embracer

By assigning human attributes to nature, in a sense, Hugo promoted an amoral worldview, where "Evil is an erasure on the page of creation". "There are embraces and antagonisms, the magnificent flow and ebb of a universal antithesis."

Or, as it is written in the Ecclesiastes:

There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

The Ideal Man is one who embraces everything. "We feel the unknown that is within us fraternizing mysteriously with an unknown that is outside of us. ... to look at the stars and say, I'm a soul like you! to look at the darkness and say, I'm an abyss like you!"

The ideal man conquers all with his will and intelligence. "Faith is only a secondary power; the will is the first. The mountains,which faith is proverbially said to move, are nothing beside that which the will can accomplish." This quote reminded me of Nietzsche's conception of Übermensch.

Epilogue

I went to see my friend the Ocean again. There was a strong wind, and few people were left on the beach that had been crowded with sunbathers only a day before. In the beautiful sunset, the Ocean danced before us.

( )

I dedicate this book to the rock of hospitality and liberty, to that nook of ancient Norman soil where dwells the noble little race of the sea, to the isle of Guernsey, severe yet gentle. My present asylum, probably my tomb.
– V.H.

So reads the dedication for Toilers of the Sea, paying homage to the place where Victor Hugo lived for eighteen years and where he wrote this novel. And what a treat reading this Victor Hugo book has been for me. I really didn’t expect to like it so much, given some of the comments I’ve heard about Hugo’s style and long-windedness, mainly with respect to his most well-know work, Les Miserables. That book is on my shelf and “to read” list along with the Hunchback of Notre-Dame. To get a gauge for how much I like his language and what he says with it, I copied more passages I loved from this book than I have from anything I've read in a long time. Five pages worth of quotes and notes! This is a book that gets at the heart of what I mean by the “whole book experience.” A ripping piece of literature packaged in a very well designed and thought out edition. As Matthew Josephson notes in the introduction: “The Toilers of the Sea is, indeed, dreamlike, fantastic, and baroque. The reader may find in it a tale of high adventure on the seas, accompanied by a love story…On the other hand one may see it as a work of allegory or symbolism, embodying some of our oldest myths and race-memories, filled with evocations of the subconscious mind and leading into the strangest corridors of the most unimaginable caverns that ever were beneath the sea.”

This Limited Editions Club publication was published 50 years ago and it was the first time that the preliminary section entitled “The Channel Islands” and the chapter “The Sea and the Wind” appeared in an English translation. Since then, there has been at least one new translation. James Hogarth’s, for the Modern Library, claims to be the first complete rendering of the novel with endnotes. I assume it might also have the two parts included in the LEC edition as well. I have not had a chance to take a look at Hogarth’s translation to compare with Isabel Hapgood’s for the LEC. I found the Hapgood translation very readable and fluid but haven’t enough French left from my three years of high school to be able to read Hugo in the original to really judge the fidelity of the translation.

The hero in this book is Gilliat, a fisherman or “Toiler of the Sea”, who undertakes the herculean task of salvaging a steam engine from the dangerous reef that claimed it’s vessel. He does this essentially because the owner of the ship has promised his daughter, who Gilliat has fallen hopelessly in love with, to the man who can rescue him from the financial ruin of the shipwreck. Unfortunately, Mess. Lethierry makes this promise without the wholehearted agreement of his daughter, with the obvious future complications and heartbreaks that such a course entails.

While there are some minor villains, the antagonist is the sea itself. But for me it is really the other hero in the book. Hugo’s description of the sea in all its moods is amazing, making it into a living, breathing character.

See the complete review at: http://www.thewholebookexperience.com/ ( )

Hugo was a mystic, a visionary, a seer; he was one of the last of the Romantics as realism was coming into vogue; he was as Flaubert put it, “a pantheist with the sap of trees in his veins”. “The Toilers of the Sea” (1866) is the story of a lonely man’s battle with the ocean, and it feels Homeric in form. Hugo wrote the book while he was living in the British-ruled Channel Islands while in exile from France, and the book is clearly inspired by the seascape, lore, and people of Guernsey, who he dedicated the book to. One has to suspend disbelief while reading Hugo, for example, during the fight with the octopus, which we know today to be gentle and very shy creatures. If you can do that, and if you like his other more popular works, you should enjoy this book.

Quotes:
On charm:
“There are on earth few more important functions than this: to be charming. The forest would be in despair without the humming-bird. To scatter joy, to beam with happiness, to possess amid somber things an exhalation of light, to be the gilding of destiny, to be harmony, to be grace, to be prettiness, is to render a service. “

On the cosmos:
“Night is the peculiar and normal state of the special creation of which we form a part. Daylight, brief in duration as in space, is but the proximity of a star.”

On destiny:
“Man participates in this movement of translation, and the amount of oscillation which he undergoes he calls destiny. Where does destiny begin? Where does nature end? What difference is there between an event and a season, between a grief and a shower, between a virtue and a star? Is not an hour a wave? The wheel-work continues, without replying to man, its impassive revolutions. The starry heaven is a vision of wheels, balances, and counterpoises.”

“Life is a perpetual succession! We undergo it. We never know from what quarter fate’s abrupt descent will be made. Catastrophes and happiness enter, then depart, like unexpected personages. They have their law, their orbit, their gravitation, outside of man. Virtue does not bring happiness, crime does not bring unhappiness; conscience has one logic, fate has another; no coincidence. Nothing can be foreseen. We live pell-mell, and in confusion. Conscience is a straight line, life is a whirlwind. This whirlwind unexpectedly casts black chaos and blue skies upon the head of man.”

On eating animals:
“All beings enter into each other. To decay is to nourish…Man, a carnivorous animal, is also one who buries. Our life is made up of death. Such is the appalling law. We are sepulchres.”

On God, and religion:
“Chance having led him to hear a sermon on hell by the Reverend Jacquemin Herode, a magnificent sermon filled from one end to the other with sacred texts proving eternal pains, punishments, torments, damnations, inexorable chastisements, endless burnings, inextinguishable curses, the wrath of the Omnipotent, celestial furies, divine vengeances, incontestable facts, he was heard to say gently, as he was coming out with one of the faithful: ‘You see, I have such a queer idea, I imagine that God is good.’”

On the human spirit:
“Man, this short-lived being, this creature always surrounded by death, undertakes the infinite.”

On the moment of truth:
“One often encounters in deeds of devotions or duty, interrogation points which seem placed there by death. ‘Wilt thou do this?’ says the shadow.”

On obstinacy:
“The obstinate are the sublime. He who is merely brave acts from impulse…the man obstinate in the true sense has greatness. Nearly the whole secret of great hearts lies in this word, perseverando…Whatever the goal may be, in earth or heaven, the whole secret lies in proceeding to that goal…”

On oneness:
“There is a work of the whole composed of all the works of isolation being swept along towards a common goal, without even the workers’ knowledge, by the one great central soul.” ( )

The Toilers of the Sea is a bittersweet story, and while not in quite the vein of Hunchback and Les Mis it is still completely Victor Hugo. Gilliatt, the protagonist of this novel, undergoes what I can only compare to the mythical trials of Odysseus. In order to receive what he wants most, he must undertake the impossible. But, in the end, though he conquered wind and sea, battled monsters and his own failings, he forgot to anticipate the working of another human heart. His ending is both heartfelt and heartbreaking. Simply a lovely novel. While filled with typical Hugo over indulgence in descriptions, the final narrative is definitely worth the read. ( )

I had mixed feelings about this. The first 140 pages were quite colourful and absorbing, albeit complete with the lengthy digressions and evocative descriptions of buildings, especially old and dilapidated ones, that are typical of Hugo's prose. However, the next 140 pages were very dull and overblown, with endless description of rocks and sea and storms and a wrecked ship, with no characters other than the central one. After a while, I simply had to skim most of this section to get to the more interesting final section. That was worth it, with a bittersweet and tragic ending. So a mixed bag, a book of two halves, not in the same league as Les Miserables or Hunchback, but worth having got through in the end. ( )

Classics

355/1500
will plan to rebind ( )

(Two Volumes in One)

PREFACE

Religion, Society, and Nature! these are the three struggles of man. They constitute at the same time his three needs. He has need of a faith; hence the temple. He must create; hence the city. He must live; hence the plough and the ship. But these three solutions comprise three perpetual conflicts. The mysterious difficulty of life results from all three. Man strives with obstacles under the form of superstition, under the form of prejudice, and under the form of the elements. A triple ἁναγκη weighs upon us. There is the fatality of dogmas, the oppression of human laws, the inexorability of nature. In Notre Dame de Paris the author denounced the first; in the Misérables he exemplified the second; in this book he indicates the third. With these three fatalities mingles that inward fatality—the supreme ἁναγκη, the human heart.

Page 134:
The Channel Islands are like England, an aristocratic region. Castes exist there still. The castes have their peculiar ideas, which are, in fact, their protection. These notions of caste are everywhere similar; in Hindostan, as in Germany, nobility is won by the sword; lost by soiling the hands with labour: but preserved by idleness. To do nothing, is to live nobly; whoever abstains from work is honoured. A trade is fatal. In France, in old times, there was no exception to this rule, except in the case of glass manufacturers. Emptying bottles being then one of the glories of gentlemen, making them was probably, for that reason, not considered dishonourable. In the Channel archipelago, as in Great Britain, he who would remain noble must contrive to be rich. A working man cannot possibly be a gentleman. If he has ever been one, he is so no longer. Yonder sailor, perhaps, descends from the Knights Bannerets, but is nothing but a sailor.

Page 236:
It is the self-willed ones who are sublime. He who is only brave, has but a passing fit, he who is only valiant has temperament and nothing more, he who is courageous has but one virtue. He who persists in the truth is the grand character.[Pg 236] The secret of great hearts may be summed up in the word: Perseverando. Perseverance is to courage what the wheel is to the lever; it is the continual renewing of the centre of support. Let the desired goal be on earth or in heaven, only make for the goal. Everything is in that; in the first case one is a Columbus, in the second a god. Not to allow conscience to argue or the will to fail—this is the way to suffering and glory. In the world of ethics to fall does not exclude the possibility of soaring, rather does it give impetus to flight. The mediocrities allow themselves to be dissuaded by the specious obstacles—the great ones never. To perish is their perhaps, to conquer their conviction. You may propose many good reasons to the martyr why he should not allow himself to be stoned to death. Disdain of every reasonable objection begets that sublime victory of the vanquished which we call martyrdom.

Page 238:
The pressure of darkness acts in inverse proportion upon different kinds of natures. In the presence of night man feels his own incompleteness. He perceives the dark void and is sensible of infirmity. It is like the vacancy of blindness. Face to face with night, man bends, kneels, prostrates himself, crouches on the earth, crawls towards a cave, or seeks for wings. Almost always he shrinks from that vague presence of the Infinite Unknown. He asks himself what it is; he trembles and bows the head. Sometimes he desires to go to it.

This curiosity is evidently forbidden to the spirit of man; for all around him the roads which bridge that gulf are broken up or gone. No arch exists for him to span the Infinite. But there is attraction in forbidden knowledge, as in the edge of the abyss. Where the footstep cannot tread, the eye may reach; where the eye can penetrate no further, the mind may soar. There is no man, however feeble or insufficient his resources, who does not essay. According to his nature he questions or recoils before that mystery. With some it has the effect of repressing; with others it enlarges the soul. The spectacle is sombre, indefinite.

Another great masterpiece by Victor Hugo, one of the greatest French writers.

The English version of this book can be found at Gutenberg Project. ( )

PREFACE

Religion, Society, and Nature! these are the three struggles of man. They constitute at the same time his three needs. He has need of a faith; hence the temple. He must create; hence the city. He must live; hence the plough and the ship. But these three solutions comprise three perpetual conflicts. The mysterious difficulty of life results from all three. Man strives with obstacles under the form of superstition, under the form of prejudice, and under the form of the elements. A triple ἁναγκη weighs upon us. There is the fatality of dogmas, the oppression of human laws, the inexorability of nature. In Notre Dame de Paris the author denounced the first; in the Misérables he exemplified the second; in this book he indicates the third. With these three fatalities mingles that inward fatality—the supreme ἁναγκη, the human heart.

Page 134:
The Channel Islands are like England, an aristocratic region. Castes exist there still. The castes have their peculiar ideas, which are, in fact, their protection. These notions of caste are everywhere similar; in Hindostan, as in Germany, nobility is won by the sword; lost by soiling the hands with labour: but preserved by idleness. To do nothing, is to live nobly; whoever abstains from work is honoured. A trade is fatal. In France, in old times, there was no exception to this rule, except in the case of glass manufacturers. Emptying bottles being then one of the glories of gentlemen, making them was probably, for that reason, not considered dishonourable. In the Channel archipelago, as in Great Britain, he who would remain noble must contrive to be rich. A working man cannot possibly be a gentleman. If he has ever been one, he is so no longer. Yonder sailor, perhaps, descends from the Knights Bannerets, but is nothing but a sailor.

Page 236:
It is the self-willed ones who are sublime. He who is only brave, has but a passing fit, he who is only valiant has temperament and nothing more, he who is courageous has but one virtue. He who persists in the truth is the grand character.[Pg 236] The secret of great hearts may be summed up in the word: Perseverando. Perseverance is to courage what the wheel is to the lever; it is the continual renewing of the centre of support. Let the desired goal be on earth or in heaven, only make for the goal. Everything is in that; in the first case one is a Columbus, in the second a god. Not to allow conscience to argue or the will to fail—this is the way to suffering and glory. In the world of ethics to fall does not exclude the possibility of soaring, rather does it give impetus to flight. The mediocrities allow themselves to be dissuaded by the specious obstacles—the great ones never. To perish is their perhaps, to conquer their conviction. You may propose many good reasons to the martyr why he should not allow himself to be stoned to death. Disdain of every reasonable objection begets that sublime victory of the vanquished which we call martyrdom.

Page 238:
The pressure of darkness acts in inverse proportion upon different kinds of natures. In the presence of night man feels his own incompleteness. He perceives the dark void and is sensible of infirmity. It is like the vacancy of blindness. Face to face with night, man bends, kneels, prostrates himself, crouches on the earth, crawls towards a cave, or seeks for wings. Almost always he shrinks from that vague presence of the Infinite Unknown. He asks himself what it is; he trembles and bows the head. Sometimes he desires to go to it.

This curiosity is evidently forbidden to the spirit of man; for all around him the roads which bridge that gulf are broken up or gone. No arch exists for him to span the Infinite. But there is attraction in forbidden knowledge, as in the edge of the abyss. Where the footstep cannot tread, the eye may reach; where the eye can penetrate no further, the mind may soar. There is no man, however feeble or insufficient his resources, who does not essay. According to his nature he questions or recoils before that mystery. With some it has the effect of repressing; with others it enlarges the soul. The spectacle is sombre, indefinite.

Another great masterpiece by Victor Hugo, one of the greatest French writers.

The English version of this book can be found at Gutenberg Project. ( )

PREFACE

Religion, Society, and Nature! these are the three struggles of man. They constitute at the same time his three needs. He has need of a faith; hence the temple. He must create; hence the city. He must live; hence the plough and the ship. But these three solutions comprise three perpetual conflicts. The mysterious difficulty of life results from all three. Man strives with obstacles under the form of superstition, under the form of prejudice, and under the form of the elements. A triple ἁναγκη weighs upon us. There is the fatality of dogmas, the oppression of human laws, the inexorability of nature. In Notre Dame de Paris the author denounced the first; in the Misérables he exemplified the second; in this book he indicates the third. With these three fatalities mingles that inward fatality—the supreme ἁναγκη, the human heart.

Page 134:
The Channel Islands are like England, an aristocratic region. Castes exist there still. The castes have their peculiar ideas, which are, in fact, their protection. These notions of caste are everywhere similar; in Hindostan, as in Germany, nobility is won by the sword; lost by soiling the hands with labour: but preserved by idleness. To do nothing, is to live nobly; whoever abstains from work is honoured. A trade is fatal. In France, in old times, there was no exception to this rule, except in the case of glass manufacturers. Emptying bottles being then one of the glories of gentlemen, making them was probably, for that reason, not considered dishonourable. In the Channel archipelago, as in Great Britain, he who would remain noble must contrive to be rich. A working man cannot possibly be a gentleman. If he has ever been one, he is so no longer. Yonder sailor, perhaps, descends from the Knights Bannerets, but is nothing but a sailor.

Page 236:
It is the self-willed ones who are sublime. He who is only brave, has but a passing fit, he who is only valiant has temperament and nothing more, he who is courageous has but one virtue. He who persists in the truth is the grand character.[Pg 236] The secret of great hearts may be summed up in the word: Perseverando. Perseverance is to courage what the wheel is to the lever; it is the continual renewing of the centre of support. Let the desired goal be on earth or in heaven, only make for the goal. Everything is in that; in the first case one is a Columbus, in the second a god. Not to allow conscience to argue or the will to fail—this is the way to suffering and glory. In the world of ethics to fall does not exclude the possibility of soaring, rather does it give impetus to flight. The mediocrities allow themselves to be dissuaded by the specious obstacles—the great ones never. To perish is their perhaps, to conquer their conviction. You may propose many good reasons to the martyr why he should not allow himself to be stoned to death. Disdain of every reasonable objection begets that sublime victory of the vanquished which we call martyrdom.

Page 238:
The pressure of darkness acts in inverse proportion upon different kinds of natures. In the presence of night man feels his own incompleteness. He perceives the dark void and is sensible of infirmity. It is like the vacancy of blindness. Face to face with night, man bends, kneels, prostrates himself, crouches on the earth, crawls towards a cave, or seeks for wings. Almost always he shrinks from that vague presence of the Infinite Unknown. He asks himself what it is; he trembles and bows the head. Sometimes he desires to go to it.

This curiosity is evidently forbidden to the spirit of man; for all around him the roads which bridge that gulf are broken up or gone. No arch exists for him to span the Infinite. But there is attraction in forbidden knowledge, as in the edge of the abyss. Where the footstep cannot tread, the eye may reach; where the eye can penetrate no further, the mind may soar. There is no man, however feeble or insufficient his resources, who does not essay. According to his nature he questions or recoils before that mystery. With some it has the effect of repressing; with others it enlarges the soul. The spectacle is sombre, indefinite.

Another great masterpiece by Victor Hugo, one of the greatest French writers.

The English version of this book can be found at Gutenberg Project. ( )

Wonderful, if slightly torn, dust wrapper showing comic octopus grabbing hold of man. Very colourful if lacking horror.