The Man Who Laughs

Victor Hugo's amazing novel, The Man Who Laughs, is evidently available in toto at this site.

Seeing this, I was floored. Since it's often out-of-print, I would have been happy just to find a reference or two.

My motivation for the web search was to refresh my memory of the character named Barkilphedro. His name came to mind while I was thinking of certain unpleasant characters at work.

Barkilphedro is Hugo's fascinating personification of hate. What makes this character study especially chilling is its relevance to the modern world. In my case, I see elements of this character in corporate America.

To give you just a tiny taste of Hugo's insights from which Barkilphedro evolved, here are some excerpts from the site:

He was given his way [by Queen Anne], so much was he feared. He who can make the king laugh makes the others tremble.

He was a powerful buffoon....

There are wheels within wheels at court. Barkilphedro became the motive power. Have you remarked, in certain mechanisms, the smallness of the motive wheel?...

Barkilphedro excelled in making the cunning discoveries which place the great in the power of the little. His walk in the dark was winding, soft, clever. Like every perfect spy, he was composed of the inclemency of the executioner and the patience of a micrograph. He was a born courtier. Every courtier is a noctambulist. The courtier prowls in the night, which is called power. He carries a dark lantern in his hand. He lights up the spot he wishes, and remains in darkness himself. What he seeks with his lantern is not a man, it is a fool. What he finds is the king....

Barkilphedro, once a candidate for orders, had studied a little of everything. Skimming all things leaves naught for result. One may be victim of the omnis res scibilis. Having the vessel of the Danaïdes in one's head is the misfortune of a whole race of learned men, who may be termed the sterile. What Barkilphedro had put into his brain had left it empty....

Hate indistinct is sweet and suffices for a time; but one must end by having an object. An animosity diffused over creation is exhausting, like every solitary pleasure. Hate without an object is like a shooting-match without a target. What lends interest to the game is a heart to be pierced.

One can not hate solely for honour; some seasoning is necessary--a man, a woman, somebody, to destroy.

This service of making the game interesting; of offering an end; of throwing passion into hate by fixing it on an object; of amusing the hunter by the sight of his living prey; of giving the watcher the hope of the smoking and boiling blood about to flow; of amusing the birdcatcher by the credulity of the uselessly-winged lark; of being a victim, unknowingly reared for murder by a master-mind; all this exquisite and horrible service, of which the person rendering it is unconscious, Josiana rendered Barkilphedro.

Ayn Rand once wrote: "Hugo gives me the feeling of entering a cathedral". Reading Hugo, I feel the same kind of reverence.

P.S., Can someone translate "omnis res scibilis" for me? I could not find a translation via Google.