The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-05-31

not, like hypocrite, conceal it. He was no
stole. see in the morning paper that in the
Chamber of Deputies M De Lafarge moved that
the Pantheon be secularized in order that Victor
Hugo might be buried there. That is a crime
to me, that there is spot of ground on earth,
or crypt that is too good for the body of good
man. My difficulty would be to find place
good enough, in order that he might seem to
continue in death the work of his life. should
throw the dead kings out of their chamber in
Westminster Abbey and give Victor Hugo the
whole place.
1t is true that the kings of the mind and the
heart take their place of right l noticed In my
visit to Westminster that the people were in no
anxiety to get into the presence of dead royalty
heard no inquiries made for any one or the
Georges. The poets corner seemed to De the
point of attraction The slab on which is carved
Charles Dickens. was inquired for. The god
father of Victor Hugo, an old soldier and martyr,
said to the little boy playing in the garden:
Everything yields to liberty, remember that
my son" - We do not need to remember 1T now;
we see it. IL man wishes for himself decent
place In the memory of mankind, he must De
soldier of light-old things have passed away:
The aristocracy of genius, and genius devoted
to the miserable the abandoned, has come 10 the
front. He who came to seek and to save that
which was lost, is prince and chlettaln OF the
hearts of the men and women OF today. Devo.
tion loyalty selfsacrifce are in all the words or
Victor Hugo 1t is because of this that his BOOKS
are read by eight nations. HIS appeal is to the
universal conscience. and mankind responds. VI
that which is partisan, sectarian, provincial ana
dying, you will find nothing in his books; of that
which is living, and being born, and to be uni
versal you will find much.
or going Thomas Carlyle, Emerson,
George Eliot and now Victor Hugo
these are four, and there is no fifth.
have comforting thought for greatness Is
relative and preserves an average lttleness
Socrates is seen across the centuries a lonely
figure the one visible Of millions. What COM
pany in his own time had Marcus Aurelius?
Plutarch had to be patient and search diligently
and wide and long to recruit his battalion or
| heroes. But now the earth is getting nat
Every valley is exalted, and that is perhaps the
reason that the mountains are brought low.
There has been good deal of heavy filling
done The average grade of mankind is higher
Our common people are not the common people
of day before yesterday. The printed world
| tends to make an uneven world plain. The
swamp being drained lifts wholesome harvest
| to the sun, and the mountain being blown upon
| by the fierce wind. wrought upon by frost and
| heat, wears away. Who is the great man of to-
dayt 1t is an idle question. The great principles
| that make great men are now difTused among
| the people The lightning of fame instead of
| striking one man now strikes on the shields and
| swords of marching host No man now has
all eyes upon him in the senate or the street.
| One may well despair of being the great
man of the world What remains9 Let every
man make the most of himself. The result will
kind, new man in the world Take the princi
pies of Abraham Lincoln and work them out in
your way and in your ward God says to every
man as he did to Cyrus, ''for this purpose have
l raised thee up" No voice in the night, moth
ing myterious his faculty is his call. Even
Blind Tom, almost an idiot. found out early
what he was born to do; crept on hands and
knees toward piano and raised himself up and
began to make music Says Emerson 1.-THE
main difference between men is whether they
attend to their own affairs or not" When each
man attends to that, "the joint interest of man
kind is attended to. In order that
each man may attend to his
affair he must have light, he must have liberty
believe in the right of every man to have what
any man has, and to become what any man is on
the same terms. He shall not be hindered ex-
cept by his own limitation or his OWL choice
The road shall be free to his faculty.
The most powerful preacher of this doctrine
has fallen asleep-aged eighty three. Jacob said
of his 100 years: Few and evil have all the
days of the years of my life been" Long and
good have been the days of the eighty three
years of the great citizen of the world. Long,
because he filled them with work; and good, for
the work was for u.s. He enlisted early AS
color bearer He suffered, and he loved
suffering for child or cause does. The
careless volunteer become serious veteran. AS
the blood drips from the color-bearer and the
hand stiffens about the staff, you shall find him
dead By and by, with his hand frozen in the
grasp of duty fast to the splintered symbol
Victor Hugo, at the age of fifteen, faced the
right way-and at the age of eighty-three, never
turning backward, marching right on, fell the
way he faced. To have price set your
head-25, 900 francs-to be banished, to return;
to see all the Napoleons dead or dying, and the
empire republic-it is enough. His life is>an
inspiration to all soldiers in the sane army.
There are two voices that speak to the young
soldier Hear the first:
Creep into thy narrow bed,
Creep and let no be said;
Vain thy onset, all stands fast:
Thou myself must break at last.
Let the long contention cease;
Geese swans and swans geese;
Let them hear it as they will,
Thou art tired, best be still.
And then hear the other voice:
They out-taked thee, Kissed thee tore thee;
Better men Jared thus before thee,
Fired their ringing shot and passed
Holly charged, and broke at last
Charge more, then, and be dumb;
Let the vctors when they come
When the forts of folly fall,
Find thy body by the wall;