New-York tribune., 1907-06-22

The selection OF Homer is not the selection OF
Rabelais Sometimes what one rejects the other
keeps. Both know what they doing. though
neither can swear as 10 this; the ideal which is
the infinite is above them. and there may well
colhe Gay "nen the nerolc hsHthlhs anu tile
sinister thunder intermingle. when a word of Rabe-
lais becomes word Of Homer-and then 1t is that
Cambronne utters il.
To try to exalt the author of these sopho-
morcal periods to the rank of Homer. Hschy-
lus, Dante and Shakespeare. is after all, so
quaint as to be funny. Hugo always con-
fusing the big with the sublime, the orotund
phrase with the great thought There are in
this volume delightful Illustrations of his
passion for eXaggeration. When he wishes 10
describe the killing of one insect by another he
tries 20 make epic out of the Incident. In
the chapter on Things of the Infinite he rolls
figures like sweet morsels under his tongue
He dwells with gusto upon the immeasurable
distance of the stars" and he talks about that
distance in this way:
What vehicle shall we adopt?
The locomotive travels fifteen leagues an hour.
The hurricane travels sixty leagues an hour. The
cannon ball travels seven hundred leagues hour.
The locomotive drags, the hurricane limps. the
cannon ball is tortoise
Let bestride a ray of light.
This is mount four thousand times swifter than
the cannon ball, four million two hundred thousand
times swtfter than the hurricane and seventeen
million times swifter than the locomotive.
1t makes. as you know, seventy thousand leagues
a second
Light launches you from the Earth TO the Sun
in eight minutes, from the sun 10 OceaHuS IN
hours from Oceanus to Centaurus in three years
and eight months. from Centaurus to the pole star
in twenty-eight years. from the pole star to the
Milky Way in sixteen thousand eight hundred
years, from the Milky Way to the nebula OF canes
Ventca in five million years, you have not yet
taken a ste.
The apparitions of the universe will continue to
loom.
The unsoundabIe will remain before you in its
entirety.
Beyond the visible the invisible. beyond the in
visible the unknown
Now and then, floating about on the verbal
food we find something of merely human sig
nilicance, some note of personal feeling. or OF
'Lamartine's study on Les Miserables IL
might be called "A Swans Attempt to Bite
on the subject Of horses he has this passage
Horace said two thousand years ago that
from all time youth has loved horses Only.
fashion has changed. Our fathers the youth or
former time. loved horses after the fashion or
cavaliers The Young men Of to-day love horses
after the fashion OF grooms Here is Gu
rious note own country:
A republic like the United States OF America con-
structed on a single principle, accepts with calm
the struggles and shocks Of thought under all
forms the most grandiose the most savage. Ihere
all the forms OF license of the human mind may
without peril execute their formidable dance the
bulls are vast the elephants enormous, the lions
are gigantic; but the circus is OF granite.
Few readers take Victor Hugo. IN his dithy-
rambic moments, as seriously as he took him-
self or as he is taken by Mr. O'Rourke. But
few readers will find this scrapbook dull. When
all is said 1t remains charmingly Hugoesque