the pages; they are turn
by turn historical, narrative, descriptive, philosophical (with such
philosophy as Hugo has to offer), humanitarian, lyrical, dramatic,
at times realistic; a vast invention, beautiful, incredible, sublime,
absurd, absorbing in its interest, a nightmare in its tedium.

We have passed beyond the mid-century, but Hugo is not to be presented
as a torso. In the tale _Les Travailleurs de la Mer_ (1866) the choral
voices of the sea cover the thinness and strain of the human voices;
if the writer's genius is present in _L'Homme qui Rit_ (1869), it
often chooses to display its most preposterous attitudes; the better
scenes of _Quatre-vingt Treize_ (1874) beguile our judgment into the
generous concessions necessary to secure an undisturbed delight.
These are Hugo's later poems in prose. In verse he revived the feelings
of youth with a difference, and performed happy caprices of style
in the _Chansons des Rues et des Bois_ (1865); sang the incidents
and emotions of his country's sorrow and glory in _L'Annee Terrible_
(1872), and--strange contrast--the poetry of babyland in _L'Art
d'etre Grandpere_ (1877). Volume still followed volume--_Le Pape_,
_La Pitie Supreme_, _Religions et Religion_, _L'Ane_, _Les Quatre
Vents de l'Esprit_, the drama _Torquemada_. The best pages in these
volumes are perhaps equal to the best in any of their author's
writings; the pages which force antithesis, pile up synonyms, develop
commonplaces in endless variations, the pages which are hieratic,
prophetic, apocalyptic, put a strain upon the loyalty of our
admiration. The last legend of Hugo's imagination was the Hugo legend:
if theism was his faith, autotheism was his superstition. Yet it is
easy to restore our loyalty, and to rediscover the greatest lyric
poet, the greatest master of poetic counterpoint that France has
known.

V

ALFRED DE MUSSET has been reproached with having isolated himself
from the general interests and affairs of his time. He did not isolate
himself from youth or love, and the young of two generations were
his advocates. Born in 1810, son of the biographer of Rousseau, he
was a Parisian, inheriting the sentiment and the scepticism of the
eighteenth century. Impressionable, excitable, greedy of sensations,
he felt around him the void left by the departed glories of the Empire,
the void left by the passing away of religious faiths. One thing was
new and living--poetry. Chenier's remains had appeared; V