u/EasedaleMoose

Once only in my life I have seen the likeness of Victor Hugo’s genius. Crossing over when a boy from Ostend, I had the fortune to be caught in midchannel by a thunderstorm strong enough to delay the packet some three good hours over the due time. About midnight the thundercloud was right overhead, full of incessant sound and fire, lightening and darkening so rapidly that it seemed to have life, and a delight in its life.

At the same hour the sky was clear to the west, and all along the sea-line there sprang and sank as to music a restless dance or chase of summer lightnings across the lower sky: a race and riot of lights, beautiful and rapid as a course of shining Oceanides along the tremulous floor of the sea. Eastward at the same moment the space of clear sky was higher and wider, a splendid semicircle of too intense purity to be called blue; it was of no colour nameable by man; and midway in it between the storm and the sea hung the motionless full moon; Artemis watching with a serene splendour of scorn the battle of Titans and the revel of nymphs, from her stainless and Olympian summit of divine indifferent light.

Underneath and about us the sea was paved with flame; the whole water trembled and hissed with phosphoric fire; even through the wind and thunder I could hear the crackling and sputtering of the water-sparks. In the same heaven and in the same hour there shone at once the three contrasted glories, golden and fiery and white, of moonlight and of the double lightnings, forked and sheet; and under all this miraculous heaven lay a flaming floor of water.

That, in a most close and exact symbol, is the best possible definition I can give of Victor Hugo’s genius. And the impression of that hour was upon me the impression of his mind; physical, as it touched the nerves with a more vivid passion of pleasure than music or wine; spiritual, as it exalted the spirit with the senses and above them to the very summit of vision and delight.

Once only in my life I have seen the likeness of Victor Hugo’s genius. Crossing over when a boy from Ostend, I had the fortune to be caught in midchannel by a thunderstorm strong enough to delay the packet some three good hours over the due time. About midnight the thundercloud was right overhead, full of incessant sound and fire, lightening and darkening so rapidly that it seemed to have life, and a delight in its life.

At the same hour the sky was clear to the west, and all along the sea-line there sprang and sank as to music a restless dance or chase of summer lightnings across the lower sky: a race and riot of lights, beautiful and rapid as a course of shining Oceanides along the tremulous floor of the sea. Eastward at the same moment the space of clear sky was higher and wider, a splendid semicircle of too intense purity to be called blue; it was of no colour nameable by man; and midway in it between the storm and the sea hung the motionless full moon; Artemis watching with a serene splendour of scorn the battle of Titans and the revel of nymphs, from her stainless and Olympian summit of divine indifferent light.

Underneath and about us the sea was paved with flame; the whole water trembled and hissed with phosphoric fire; even through the wind and thunder I could hear the crackling and sputtering of the water-sparks. In the same heaven and in the same hour there shone at once the three contrasted glories, golden and fiery and white, of moonlight and of the double lightnings, forked and sheet; and under all this miraculous heaven lay a flaming floor of water.

That, in a most close and exact symbol, is the best possible definition I can give of Victor Hugo’s genius. And the impression of that hour was upon me the impression of his mind; physical, as it touched the nerves with a more vivid passion of pleasure than music or wine; spiritual, as it exalted the spirit with the senses and above them to the very summit of vision and delight.

Byron mention this in one of his famous poems:

>The drilled dull lesson, forced down word by word > > In my repugnant youth, with pleasure to record > > lXXVI > > Aught that recalls the daily drug which turned > >My sickening memory; and, though Time hath taught > >My mind to meditate what then it learned, > >Yet such the fixed inveteracy wrought > >By the impatience of my early thought, > > That, with the freshness wearing out before > >My mind could relish what it might have sought, > > If free to choose, I cannot now restore > >Its health; but what it then detested, still abhor. > > LXXVII. > > Then farewell, Horace; whom I hated so, > > Not for thy faults, but mine; it is a curse > > To understand, not feel, thy lyric flow,

I feel like I was turned off from entire genres and periods of literature in this way too. I have to overcome a tremendous bias to pick up and touch certain books and authors which I know are good. it's entirely of psychological origin , there is nothing that merits my disdain!

i think the lesson is multifold.

a game like RuneScape shows the true nature of man in my view: the desire to mow an infinite lawn or paint an impossible barn under endless skies.

tasks noble, decent, humane, that will fix a boys attention forever. in most cases they would gladly substitute the mouse for a paintbrush or lawnmower if given the chance.

other games show lesser aspects like the instincts for survival that we all exhibit when under stress. Or the competitive drive for bettering our fellows in some sort of match. Or they even probe some narrow capacity of the mind like chess and test its limits.

But all these are strictly lesser, and exploit our vanity or the amygdala or the cerebral cortex or some other lone facet of our being in one way or another.

only the first game mentioned sets man to something approximating his proper task, albeit clumsily. We are not lured to slaughter cattle and prepare the meat by some cheap trick. This will forever be the natural fascination of man, and his rightful work on earth.

From Don Juan Canto II. Some of these roman numeral are beyond me but I like how they look on the page.

                       CLXXXVVVIII

They were alone, but not alone as they
Who shut in chambers think it loneliness;
The silent ocean, and the starlight bay,
The twilight glow which momently grew less,
The voiceless sands and dropping caves, that lay
Around them, made them to each other press,
As if there were no life beneath the sky
Save theirs, and that their life could never die.

                         CLXXXIV

They fear'd no eyes nor ears on that lone beach,
They felt no terrors from the night, they were
All in all to each other: though their speech
Was broken words, they thought a language there,—
And all the burning tongues the passions teach
Found in one sigh the best interpreter
Of nature's oracle—first love,—that all
Which Eve has left her daughters since her fall.

                            CXC

Haidde spoke not of scruples, ask'd no vows,
Nor offer'd any; she had never heard
Of plight and promises to be a spouse,
Or perils by a loving maid incurr'd;
She was all which pure ignorance allows,
And flew to her young mate like a young bird;
And, never having dreamt of falsehood, she
Had not one word to say of constancy.

                             CXCI

She loved, and was beloved—she adored,
And she was worshipp'd; after nature's fashion,
Their intense souls, into each other pour'd,
If souls could die, had perish'd in that passion,—
But by degrees their senses were restored,
Again to be o'ercome, again to dash on;
And, beating 'gainst his bosom, Haidee's heart
Felt as if never more to beat apart.