Hence a new logic of art, and of certain requirements of composition which modify everything, even the conditions, formerly narrow, of taste and language, which must grow broader like all the rest.
In France, certain critics have reproached me, to my great delight, with having transgressed the bounds of what they call “French taste”; I should be glad if this eulogium were merited.
In short, I am doing what I can, I suffer with the same universal suffering, and I try to assuage it, I possess only the puny forces of a man, and I cry to all: “Help me!”
This, sir, is what your letter prompts me to say; I say it for you and for your country. If I have insisted so strongly, it is because of one phrase in your letter. You write:—
“There are Italians, and they are numerous, who say: ‘This book, Les Misérables, is a French book. It does not concern us. Let the French read it as a history, we read it as a romance.’”—Alas! I repeat, whether we be Italians or Frenchmen, misery concerns us all. Ever since history has been written, ever since philosophy has meditated, misery has been the garment of the human race; the moment has at length arrived for tearing off that rag, and for replacing, upon the naked limbs of the Man-People, the sinister fragment of the past with the grand purple robe of the dawn.
If this letter seems to you of service in enlightening some minds and in dissipating some prejudices, you are at liberty to publish it, sir. Accept, I pray you, a renewed assurance of my very distinguished sentiments.
VICTOR HUGO.
FOOTNOTES:
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[Patois of the French Alps: chat de maraude, rascally marauder.]