The home journal. (Winchester, Tenn.) 1858-188?, 1878-07-18
Victor Hugo as an Orator n Splendid
Pencil Sketch OF Him.

the footlights The house rose and
cheered him again and again. He stands
while the applause lasts, his hands rest.
ing on the table, the shoulders STOPPING,
bending the noble head, whose crown of
snow white, thick hair ia the luminous
center to which all eyes are turned, He
has certainly grown old. The figure is
less erect the step less sure the lines
are cut deeper in the face the muscles |
OF the neck seem weaker the indefnable
impress of extreme age isupon him, The
theater is lighted with gas, not very
brilliantly, but he looks five years
older than when / saw him in public,
at the funeral of Theirs in September.
The abrupt energy of movement once
so characteristic of him, has grown
a little languid. When the applause
died away, he sat down almost sleep
lily His figure is short and bulky,
though compact, and you can't see much
of him behind the table. He is dressed
in black; the white tie, which fills all the
space between collar and the narrow open.
ing of his waistcoat, il scarcely whittier
than the full white beard that rests on it.
A few people come up and shake hands
with him; when that is over, he announ-
ces, without rising, that the meeting is
open and that NJ. Edmond About will
speak.
NJ. Edmond About is gray. haired, high
colored, thick set, delicate handed, with
one Of the shrewdest pairs OF twinkling
black eyes ever set in human face. One
of the cleverest brains in France il slowed
away fehind them. NJ. Jules Simon re-
Marked a little later, that you could
not say whether his wit WAS more re-
markab!e than bis good sense or his good
sense than his wit.
When Victor Hugo rose to speak the
five years OF added age fell easily off his
shoulders. He stood straight and square,
The eyes which had been half masked
beneath dropping lids, began to dilate
and glow The fires which you thought
extinguished blazed up; the Hugo who
stood before you was the Huge of "Her-
man," of "Les Orientales," fresh, vigor-
Gus, alert, in all the imperishabe youth
fulness of genius. The first word he ut
tered rang through the vast amphithe-
ater, grave, sonorous and powerful
There was not a trace of effort. Fro.n
beginning to end the note first struck
was maintained but never mOnotonous.
! called him an orator Just now, but or
ator he is not, in the large sense of
word too often and too Carelessly used.
His speech was written, every word, and
read from manuscript; and what a
manuscript! Sheets of paper two feet
square, covered with writing so large
and free that you could almost
read it from the balcony fifty
feet off; full of corrections, of erasures
dene as if with painters brush, or with
the pen of giant, as he is, The can~
delahra, each OF six lights, stood on either
side of him. He put them together on
his right, added two large lamps from
the table in front, and final y sent to
borrow third from the secretary, who
sat hard by. and thenceiorward was in
darkness. He held his manuscript close
under this cluster of light. When he
wished to use tis right hand for gest.
ure, he dropped the paper on the table or
transferred it to his left He never
parted company with it for two sentences
in succession.
Orator or not, no speaker ever felt
more strongly what he was saying, or
made it felt more strongly by his audi.
ence He read slowly, with singular
distinctness and purity OF articu.
Iation, and Victor Hugo's is Il
style which gains rather than loses by
spoken delivery. Read, the occurrences
of antithesis are too frequent, the orna-
ment sometimes overdene; the intense
sincerity Of the man seems artificial be-
cause it is so intense. 1t is only when
you hear him, when he himself adjusts
and regulates the movement OF MS
periods, that the due effect OF each IN
given in due succession. He did what he
liked with his hearers, but it was not by
the magnetic current which the true
orator establishes between himself a d
his audience; nor by sympathy, nor by
action and reaction, rather ny the sheer
supremacy OF intellect, by force OF will,
by force of his own unquestloning and
absolute conviction, and by The large-
hearted humanity OF the man. He took
possession of you whether you wsuld or
no; no personality, no hostility was
strong enough to stand up against the
torrent that swept down upon you.
sat next an English friend, no admire'
of Hugo, who heard him and saw MN io'
the first time in her lite, whose associations
lie mostly among royal'sts and priests
who came to see Hugo as a curloslty-tt
adopt one of his own comparisons which