causes which do not triumph in their hands; men who have holes enough in their armor, God knows, easy to be hit by respectabilities sitting in their lounging-chairs, and having large balances at their bankers'? But you are brave, gallant boys, who hate easy-chairs, and have no balances or bankers. You only want to have your heads set straight to take the right side; so bear in mind that majorities, especially respectable ones, are nine times out often in the wrong; and that if you see man or boy striving earnestly on the weak side, however wrong-headed or blundering he may be, you are not to go and join the cry against him. If you can't join him and help him and make him wiser, at any rate remember that he has found something in the world which he will fight and suffer for, which is just what you have got to do for yourselves; and so think and speak of him tenderly. VICTOR HUGO VICTOR MARIE HUGO. Born at Besançon, February 26, 1802; died in Paris, May 22, 1885. Author of "Various Odes and Poems," "New Odes,” "Odes and Ballads," "The Orientals," "Autumn Leaves," "Twilight Songs," "Inner Voices," "Sunbeams and Shadows," "The Chastisements," "The Contemplations," "The Legend of the Ages," "Songs of the Streets and Woods," "The Terrible Year," "The Art of being a Grandfather," "The Legend of the Ages," second series; "The Pope," "The Four Winds of the Spirit," and other volumes of poetry. His plays include: "Cromwell," "Amy Robsart," "Marion Delorme," "Hernani," "Lucretia Borgia," "Angelo," "Esmeralda," "Ruy Blas," "Torquemada." His prose includes: "The Last Day of a Condemned Man," "Notre Dame de Paris,” "Claude Gueux," "The Rhine," "Napoleon the Little," "Les Misérables," "The Toilers of the Sea," 'Ninety-Three," "The History of a Crime." How much does he lose out of life who does not know Victor Hugo in his marvelous creative energy and the wide range of his intellectual abilities, so like our Shakespeare, of inexhaustible resource! Victor Hugo was not only a novelist, but a historian; a poet of imperial power; a patriot; the champion of freedom; and a philosopher, as well as a dramatist. The fire of the Hebrew prophets abode in him. His spirit suggested the infinite VII. 12 force of the sea that surrounded the home of his political exile on the island of Guernsey. Yet his limitless energy was offset by the tenderness of his love for mankind. Everywhere and always his great heart was in sympathy with the toilers of sea and land, and his loving kindness sought to cheer the most miserable of the sons of men with the songs of a triumphant faith and the hope of an immortal heritage. (From "LES MISERABLES") THE REFORMATION THE WATERS AND THE SHADOW A MAN Overboard! What matters it! the ship does not stop. The wind is blowing, that dark ship must keep on her destined course. passes away. She The man disappears, then reappears, he plunges and rises again to the surface, he calls, he stretches out his hands, they hear him not; the ship, staggering under the gale, is straining every rope, the sailors and passengers see the drowning man no longer; his miserable head is but a point in the vastness of the billows. He hurls cries of despair into the depths. What a specter is that disappearing sail! He looks upon it, he looks upon it with frenzy. It moves away; it grows dim; it diminishes. He was there but just now, he was one of the crew, he went and came upon the deck with the rest, he had his share of the air and of the sunlight, he was a living man. Now, what has become of him? He slipped, he fell; and it is finished. He is in the monstrous deep. He has nothing under his feet but the yielding, fleeing element. The waves, torn and scattered by the wind, close round him hideously; the rolling of the abyss bears him along; shreds of water are flying about his head; a populace of waves spit upon him; confused openings half swallow him when he sinks he catches glimpses of yawning precipices full of darkness; fearful unknown vegetations seize upon him, bind his feet, and draw him to themselves; he feels that he is becoming the great deep; he makes part of the foam; the billows toss him from one to the other; he tastes the bitterness; the greedy ocean is eager to devour him; the monster plays with his agony. It seems as if all this were liquid hate. |