The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1901-07-16
DESULTORIA.

We greatly ADMIRE Victor Hugo'S
genius. He was the most mastery
writer in France of the last century.
he was many-sided. He was a splen-
Old lyric poet. He wrote great plavs
full of originality, movement and force
lie wrote great novels. Who wrote
d greater novel than Les Misera-
piles? He was full of fer
Vor, brilliancy and imaginative splen-
dor. As a lyric poet he has had hardly
an equal in his W country. Professor
Harper in his recent work on French
literature that is SO highly commended
by the very best critics OF this country
n England, says of Hugo and his
critics:
l nave purposely quoted some of the
seVerest things I could find in English
criticism, because I wish to conclude
with words of homage. which will car
ry more weight if it is perceived that
tney were not blindly penned. 1t is
In itself a great achievement to have
done so much honest work of a high
rae as Hugo did. 1t is no small
dlst1nctlon to have guided a peoples
hopes for eighteen years from his ISL
and OF exile. 1t is a noble end Of a
Jealous life to have worn for fifteen
years h crown of a nations kingship.
But when even these proud honors are
forgotten, children's voices will still
repeat and mems hearts still echo a
hundred songs of the greatest lyric
poet of France"
is the very greatest novel ever written.
We could never decide that question.
But we know none greater than the
one named above. 1t is quite mastery
and unique. Hugo wrote other famous
novels. but he hardly ever equalled the
wonderful story indicated. We would
rather have written Les Mlserabiles"
than a dozen of Balzac's much praised
"Pere Goriot." By the way, ii is very
strange to read the wild eulogies upon
Balzac by badly constructed critics,
and perhaps it is queer to read by
writer's of i Intelligence and critical
ability scathing depreciations of the
o~ver-praised Frenchman. We have
understood h a Professor Harper takes
a middle ground as to Balzac, neither
lauding him with perfervid extrava-.
gance, nor condemning him so incon-
tinently. He is a victim of crazy eul-
ogy when like two or three American
1ncompetents he is placed above
Shakespeare in genius, and he is SUBJ
jected to bitter condemnation by an
other class Of writer's. But try to think
Of a writer of the highest rank possible
greater than Shakespeare-who has
no humor and no pathos as is affirmed.
He may be the greatest novelist of
France" as is the present fashion to say
of him in New York city. but he has
not written the greatest novels nor told
the best stories. He would be a strange
reader Of stories. who would prefer him
to 'Dumas's Three Guardsmen," and
Twenty Years After" the two most
and best specimens of the art
Of story telling in French. or for hat
matter, in any language. Scott taught
Dumas how to do it, but the pupil in
the mere art of telling exceeded the
master perhaps. And yet Scott wrote
a half dozen or more novels to be pre-
ferred to Dumas masterpieces because
of the extraordinary qualities hat be-
long to them. Altogether in the field
of Scott has had no superior.
and. as we hold and believe, no peer.
He was first in creative genius, in linn
ming character. in reproducing the past,
in the richness of his best works. In
the Astounding, i~nexhaustible humor.
We were glad to see in reading the
very remarkable and most elaborate
paper in the London Quarterly Review
that the late Queen Victoria preferred
Scott to all other writer's. Eeven Lew !