imagine that, after so long a time, any discovery can be
made, or any change of taste occur, which would interfere with the
supreme position of Victor Hugo. A new generation has been born in the
faith which to their elders is a matter of assured and triumphant
conviction. But it is a grateful office to go over again some of the
noblest productions which human genius has ever given forth, and to
contemplate in their unity the many works of a life as much longer
than that of ordinary men as its inspiration was above theirs.

[Illustration: Victor Hugo.]

It seems sad and strange, as well as laughable and ludicrous, that the
great poet should be regarded by a vast number of his countrymen, and
perhaps by the majority of the Paris mob which paid him the last
honors in so characteristic a way, as a revolutionary politician and a
democratic leader. We will take the privilege of the foreigner to
leave out that side of his life as much as may be practicable.
"Napoleon le Petit" and the "Histoire d'un Crime" are works but little
worthy of his genius. Political animosities, sharpened by personal
grievances, have in many cases an immense immediate effect in
literature, but they pay for this easy success by speedy collapse; and
scarcely even the magnificent rhetoric and splendid vituperation of
"Les Chatiments" will keep them living when the world has forgotten
the lesser Napoleon, as it already begins to do. His patriotic fury,
the impassioned utterances of his exile, the tremendous force of
feeling with which he flung himself into the struggles of France, took
up a large share of Victor Hugo's life, and will procure him a certain
place in the historical records of his period. But when all the
commotion and the din have died away, as indeed in a great measure
they have already done, these fiery diatribes, these burning
lava-streams, will be of little more importance than the dustiest
"memoires pour servir"--materials from which the historian, with much
smoothing down and apologies for the pyrotechnics of a past age, will
take here and there a vivid touch to illustrate his theories or
brighten his narrative. They will retain, too, a certain importance as
autobiography. But fortunately the great mass of the work which Victor
Hugo has left behind him can be separated from the polemics of his
troubled age and fiery temper. It is not in any sense a peaceful
literature. Conflict is its very inspiration. The struggle of human
misery wi