g you
take pious and patient counsel with your own soul, and wishing you
with great truth a happy result, I remain, dear sir,

"Faithfully yours,

"T. CARLYLE."

VICTOR HUGO

By MARGARET O. W. OLIPHANT

(1802-1885)

[Illustration: A man and children.]

The greatest of literary Frenchmen, the greatest man of genius whom
this century has known, the Altissimo Poeta, the most splendid
romancist of his age, has accomplished his great career. He was the
last survivor of a great period in French literature--the last member
of one of the greatest literary brotherhoods which has ever existed;
and he carried with him to the very portals of the grave a lamp of
genius scarcely dimmed, and a personal power and influence which every
year increased. Not very long ago, all Europe gathered round him to
offer congratulations on his hale and hearty old age; since then, with
more than the hands full of flowers of the classic tradition, with
honors and praises from every quarter of the earth, he has been
carried to his grave. The very sight of a man so distinguished, the
consciousness of his honored existence as the representative of the
noblest and most all-embracing of the arts--that which depends for its
effects upon the simplest and most universal of instincts--was an
advantage to the world. The extravagances of hero-worship are
inevitable, and in nothing is the ridiculous so tremblingly near to
the sublime; but allowing for all that, and for what is worse, the
almost equally inevitable foolishness which adulation creates, the
position of Victor Hugo was of itself an advantage to the world. In a
soberer _pose_ altogether, and with a noble modesty which we may claim
as belonging to our race, Walter Scott occupied a somewhat similar
position--which would have been all the greater had he lived to Hugo's
age, an element which must necessarily be taken into consideration;
but, save in this one case, there has been no parallel to the eminence
of the great Frenchman in the estimation of his country and of the
world.

It is not now that the critic requires to step forth to establish the
foundations of this great fame, or decide upon its reality or lasting
character. This has been done in the poet's lifetime by a hundred
voices, favorable and otherwise; no need to wait for death to give the
final decision, as in some cases has been necessary. It is scarcely
possible to