L'aïeul semble d'ombre et de pierre construit.
The light seems solid in this line from _Le Satyre_:
Son pied fourchu faisait des trous dans la lumière.
Again, in _La Conscience_, shadow is vast and oppressive:
L'ombre des tours faisait la nuit dans les campagnes.
And in _Au Lion d'Androclès_ it is the fitting emblem of the human race
in a degenerate age:
La créature humaine, importune au ciel bleu,
Faisait une ombre affreuse à la cloison de Dieu.
Very curious is the connexion between the legends of a countryside and
the smoke of its cottages in the lines:
Les légendes toujours mêlent quelque fantôme
A l'obscure vapeur qui sort des toits de chaume,
L'âtre enfante le rêve, et l'on voit ondoyer
L'effroi dans la fumée errante du foyer. (_Éviradnus_.)
Of the infinite variety of Hugo's poetic gifts such a selection as is
contained in this volume can of course give but a very inadequate
idea. The extraordinary versatility and fecundity of his genius can be
appreciated only by those who have read all, or at least much, of his
output. But the first series of the _Légende_ is perhaps that part of
the poet's work in which substance and beauty, original thought and
vivid expression, are found in the most perfect combination. Written in
middle life, it stands midway between his earlier poetry with its more
lyric note and his later work with its deeper and more prophetic tones.
In point of expression the poet's powers had attained their full
development; he has perfect command of rime; the versification is free
and shows no trace of the stilted style of his first volumes; the
language is copious and eloquent, but exhibits few signs of that
verbosity and tendency to vain repetition which, as has been already
remarked, marred some of his later poetry. In the _Légende_, no
doubt, are a thousand extravagances, _bizarreries_, anachronisms, and
negligences. But the greatest poet is not, like the greatest general, he
who makes fewest mistakes, but he who expresses the noblest and truest
feeling in the noblest and truest language. So judged, the _Légende_
will take its place amongst the best that the nineteenth century
produced in poetry.