New-York tribune., 1902-02-24
VICTOR HUGO.

letter from our Paris correspondent
printed yesterday gave details OF the celebra-
ton of Victor Hugo's centenary. Parisians
will rise next Wednesday morning to think
and TO talk of him. All day long and far
into the night President Loubet and the OBJ
scurest bourgeois, the boulevarder and the
schoolboy, the rdpin and the cocher, will be con-
tributing to the mighty susurrus OF a tribute in
which the voice Of all France will be heard.
Just what will happen at BesancOn. where
Hugo was born in 1902, is not stated, nor does
II greatly matter. Paris, for the present pur-
pose, is most emphatically France. There Vic
tor Hugo lived and worked through the major
part of his long career; there he achieved his
greatest honors, and there ii is fitting that the
admiration of his counrymen should find its
most elaborate expression as the hundredth an
niversary Of his birth comes round.
To the details of the celebration we need not
here allude. Taking the commemorative move
ment in its broad significance, it may be said
that 1t testifies to exactly the kind of apprecia-
ton in which the poet and romancer would
have rejoiced, the kind exactly sympathetic to
his genius. France acclaims him with so 10
say, blare of trumpets and a national anthem
of stupendous volume. Not for him the erection
of some modest memorial unveiled in the pres
ence of a select few, with delicately critical
speeches the lips of fastidious men of letters
Not for him the measured homage which an
swered, not so very long ago, in the case Of the
critic of the romantic era, his confrere Sainte-
Beuve. For him rather the famboyant and
monumental festivity as for the most popular
of popular idols. The world outside looks on
| with sympathy. More or less explicitly it is
asked by the French to share in the whole busi-
ness with equal enthusiasm, with equally un-
grudging acceptance of Victor Hugo as one of
fhoSa
due to difference of race or language As
matter OF fact, the verdict of posterty on the
work of Victor Hugo is perhaps more accurately
prefgured by the general drift of foreign opin-
ion than by the present judgment OF his coun-
trymen and it is scarcely cordial. We speak
of the general drift" of that opinion advisedIy.
Eulogists like Swinburne are too lavish of their
applause to serve as safe guides for the inquir-
ing student. The truth is more likely to be
reached by observation of the fortunes of
Hugos books among many readers of all shades
of opinion in the last generation and reflection
on the standing of those books among readers
to-day.
If he remains upon an eminence by virtue of
foreign as well as French admiration IL must
be confessed that among his alien readers there
are. nevertheless. fewer illusions touching his
character than exist TO this day in his own
v
where. His personality-and 10 writer ever
put more Of himself into his books than Victor
Hugo did-is regarded by the French as having
a certain grandiose quality We who can escape
the binding force OF national pride in the
matter can see clearly that the grandeur If It
was there ar all. was seriously impaired by an
overweening egotism and by a carriage which
may have been sincere. but was so often grossly
theatrical as to proclaim the poseur rather than
the great man. In his poetry there is less of
this meretrcious strain than there is in his
prose. To those whose initiation into the Ian
guage has been thorough enough TO make them
Tree or victor Hugo's verse, he is one of the
most engaging Wrists of his time. The mpetu-
GUS Irregular and certainly passionate move
ment of his mind was never more effective than
In the sphere of song He found in that sphere
color and sweetness, beguiling music and. at
times. dangerous note which seems the very
expression Of that romantic emotion by which