The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1902-04-15
ailleurs de la Mer" n "L'Homme
Out Rit-"

0ui Kit
When ordinary critics, and their
name is legion. throw stones at Hugo,
n try to reduce his intellectual sta
tue. we turn to Alfred Tennyson's noble
some and defy:
Victor In Drama, Victor in Romance,
C~loud-weaver of phantasmal hopes and
fears.
French of the French. n Lord of
m tears:
Child-lover: Bard whose fame-lit lau-
refs glance
DarkCning the wreaths OF all that
would advance,
Beyond our strait, their claim to be thy
peers;
Weird Titan by thy winter weight Of
As yet unbroken, stormy voice of
Francei"
It is we'll known to students OF French
literature in the last century that not
only was Hugo a dominating power,
but that really he was in some re-
spects the most masterful genius of
his country in that Iich, prolific GEN.
fury. He really for a long time reigned
as a monarch in the realms of letters,
and his name and fame were' in every
ones mouth. He was criticised, at
tackled, but still he ruled and domi-
mated. He lost ground for perhaps
three decades, but now that his body
reposes in the mausoleum erected to
his memory, there is i reaction and all
France joins in honoring his centennial
birthday. Mr.. Edmund Gosse. the dis
tinguished English critic, n the Lon
don Daily Chronicle, very recently
wrote this and inspiringly and artis-
tically:
But now, when his peers have taken
their seats again and are in no further
danger Of being Excluded, Victor Hugo
joins them once more, and in the roar
of applause which meets his name to-
day we see how much greater he is
than they, great n charming as
they are. In the first place, is he not
the ancestor. the founder? 1t was he
who made France what she is today, a
poetical country, a country where the
divine lyric art is living as perhaps
nowhere else in Europe. All the school,,
Parnassians and Decadents alike, point
back to him. In his body, somewhere
or other, as in the flesh of Jesse in the
old charts of ~genea1ogy, every French
poet of yesterday and of today I'M
4 LAAS DNoA AlAS- u iNSAA NHS -
point L'Homme qui rit.' 1t was Victor
| Hugo who first proved that the lyric
cry could be given in French, as it had
been given in Greek n English. 1t
was he first who displayed, with incom-
parable prodigality, the recoruces of a
language which, since the days of Rom
Sard, had seemed niggard1y in it's elO-
quence and measured refinement. His
| extraordinary inventiveness IN the use
! of verbal color and sound, his force, his
vfrtuosity on the Instruments of
| rhythm and rhyme, the vast tumult of
| his emotions-all these qualities. when
once they were accepted by France,
gave Victor Hugo a prominence which
we have a difficulty in appreciating.'
+ + =
Fenimore Cooper has ABOUT disap-
peared from the reading world Of fic-
ton. Strange. when II is remembered
that he was for forty years the most
popular of all American novelists, and
was read in Great Britain and much
admired by distinguished men and cad
ing authors. His Spy" "Deerslayer,"
Last of the Mohicans' and others
were the delight of the best minds In
two great countries. Up to now
Cooper stands head as the best praised
IN iiIooI popdlol VI VI = -
Is not great like Nathaniel Hawthorne.
but was much more generally read. Mr..
John Habberton in The r for April,
says that the communication as high
as was lavished upon some of Coope-'s
stories by Sir Walter Scott, Miss Edge
worth. Ba1zac and the elder Dumas
would astonish and delight the great
est American %novelists today. whoever
he may be. Not only were his greater
books translated into most languages
of Europe, but at least one of them,
The Spy" is still read in Arabic and
Persian"
Now who reads him in our land? 1t
is pleasant to see a paper Of eleven
pages. amply and strikirgly illustrated,
by Habberton, a writer Of parts, upon
him
The Messenger tries once-a-week to
keep u readers posted as 10 literary
matters in part. 1t told of the high
praise bestowed by some critics on a
recent novel called THE House of the
Green Shutters" by George Douglas, a
fictitious name. The Era" says it is
a hideous tragedy and the author
spares us no pang that he can give in
the telling of it." A healthful mind
will not desire such glrfsh and putrid
stuff .Crawford's last novel he calls
Marietta" is probably a success as
he is a good writer and a novelist of
reputation. The New York Critic says
that it is IAN excellent romance, in the
true romantic vein with all the grace
and finish which Mr.. Crawford has
taught us to expect Of him"