LITERARY AND DRAMATIC.
Utopian as some of Victor Hugo's social theories might be, his
aspirations after the perfection of the race were unquestionably noble.
What is more, he furnished practical evidence of the sincerity of his
desire to bridge over the gulf which separates humanity into classes. At
his house in Guernsey he entertained periodically the children of the
poor, frequently to the number of forty, at his own table. They would be
accompanied by their mothers, and would sit down to an excellent repast,
the hospitable board being presided over by the poet himself. In this
fraternal spirit he endeavoured to carry out his democratic ideas. At
one of his Christmas feasts at Hauteville House, Hugo remarked: 'My idea
of providing a substantial dinner for the destitute has been well
received almost everywhere; as an institution of fraternity it is
accepted with a cordial welcome--accepted by Christians as being in
conformity with the Gospel, and by democrats as being agreeable to the
principles of the Revolution.' He also advocated the education of
children, as well in the principles of justice and real happiness as in
the various branches of knowledge; for by elevating the child they would
elevate the people of the future.
The good work thus initiated in Guernsey was imitated by humanitarians
in London, who provided acceptable meals for the poor in the Ragged
Schools, and for the neglected and the outcast. Hugo's example was
therefore not barren of results, though systematic care for the poor was
still a dream of the future.
A strangely interesting scene took place at Brussels, when Victor Hugo's
publishers in that city, Messrs. Lacroix and Verboeckhoven, gave a grand
banquet to the author in celebration of the success of _Les Miserables_.
Distinguished representatives of the English, French, Italian, Spanish
and Belgian press attended, and amongst the chief guests were the
Burgomaster of Brussels, the President of the Chamber of
Representatives, MM. Eugene Pelletan, De Banville, Champfleury, and
Louis Blanc. The illustrious exile was much moved as he listened to
speeches breathing sympathy and affection for himself as a man, and
admiration for him as a writer. 'Eleven years ago, my friends,' he said
in reply, 'you saw me departing from among you comparatively young. You
see me now grown old. But though my hair has changed, my heart remains
the same. I thank you for coming here to-day, and beg you to accept my
best and warmest acknowledgments. In the midst of you I seem to be
breathing my native air again; every Frenchman seems to bring me a
fragment of France; and while thus I find myself in contact with your
spirits, a beautiful glamour appears to encircle my soul, and to charm
me like the smile of my mother-country.' The Empire had made this
gathering impossible in Paris, the city where it should naturally have
been held.
A pleasant act of reparation for past injustice was performed when, on
the 18th of May, 1860, the inhabitants of Jersey once more welcomed Hugo
to their island. He went over upon the requisition of five hundred
sympathizers with liberty, who invited him to speak on behalf of the
subscription which was being raised to assist Garibaldi in the
liberation of Italy. The occasion was pre-eminently one to unseal the
fount of eloquence in the exile and the poet. His own deep love for
France led him to feel profoundly with the noble patriot who was
struggling for a united Italy. Hugo spoke with great energy, first
depicting Italy in her bondage, then pleading for her freedom and
independence, and prophesying the near approach of the time when, with
the sword of Garibaldi, aided by the support of France and England,
Italy would rise victorious in the struggle for liberty.
A few years later, and we have some glimpses of the domestic relations
of the poet. His son Charles was married in 1866, at Brussels, to the
ward of M. Jules Simon. In April, 1867, Victor Hugo became a
grandfather, and amongst the many evidences of his affection for
children this little letter, written upon his grandson's birth, is well
worthy of preservation: 'Georges,--Be born to duty, grow up for liberty,
live for progress, die in light! Bear in thy veins the gentleness of thy
mother, the nobleness of thy father. Be good, be brave, be just, be
honourable! With thy grandmother's kiss, receive thy father's
blessing.' The child had scarcely come, however, to gladden the
household before he was taken away again. He lived a twelvemonth only;
but in his place there soon came another Georges, and he was followed by
a sister Jeanne--offshoots of humanity which twined themselves round the
heart of the grandfather, and on more than one occasion inspired his
pen.
In the summer of 1866, the poet and his two sons, with a party of
friends, went upon a tour of pleasure through Zealand. But the journey,
which was intended to be pursued strictly incognito, became in reality a
kind of progress. The principal traveller was recognised at Antwerp, and
Charles Hugo, who afterwards published a work entitled _Victor Hugo en
Zelande_, remarked that though his father had come to discover Zealand,
Zealand had discovered him instead. Many pleasant incidents marked the
journey, not the least gratifying being a reception at Ziericsee, when,
in addition to being welcomed by the municipal authorities, two little
girls, dressed in white, came forward and presented Hugo with
magnificent bouquets. On leaving Dordrecht, the farewell was one that
might have been tendered to a sovereign.
Shortly before making this tour Hugo had issued _Les Chansons des Rues
et des Bois_. In these songs of the streets and the woods will be
discovered the amusing recreations of a great spirit and the
representations of its lighter moods. Applying to the volume a
standpoint quite out of keeping with its scope and motive, some of the
reviewers saw in it a decadence of genius. They had no ear for its music
or for its more delicate undertones. It was so different from the work
they expected from such a writer that it must be bad. Charles Monselet
thought there were some passages in this book which, in pure musical
quality, were worthy of Rossini or Herold.
But those who complained of the poems had no reason to complain of the
work which followed it in 1866, _Les Travailleurs de la Mer_. This was
another of the great romances by which the name of Victor Hugo will
live. In announcing the completion of the work the author wrote, 'In
these volumes I have desired to glorify work, will, devotion, and
whatever makes man great. I have made it a point to demonstrate how the
most insatiable abyss is the human heart, and that what escapes the
sea, does not escape a woman.' In the work itself was the inscription,
'I dedicate this book to the rock of hospitality and liberty, to that
portion of old Norman ground inhabited by the noble little people of the
sea: to the island of Guernsey, severe yet kind, my present refuge, and
probably my grave.' This powerful story dealt with the last of three
great forces which Victor Hugo had now illumined by his
genius--religion, society, and Nature. In these forces were to be seen
the three struggles of man. They constitute at the same time, said the
writer, his three needs. Man has need of a faith; hence the temple. He
must create; hence the city. He must live; hence the plough and the
ship. But these three solutions comprise three perpetual conflicts. The
mysterious difficulty of life results from all three. Man strives with
obstacles under the form of superstition, under the form of prejudice,
and under the form of the elements. He is weighed down by a triple kind
of fatality or necessity. First, there is the fatality of dogmas, then
the oppression of human laws, and finally the inexorability of nature.
The author had denounced the first of these fatalities in _Notre-Dame de
Paris_; the second was fully exemplified in _Les Miserables_; and the
third was indicated in _Les Travailleurs de la Mer_. But with all these
fatalities there also mingled that inward fatality, the supreme
agonizing power, the human heart.
This book on the toilers of the sea has been compared with the
_Prometheus_ of AEschylus. The story or plot is very subordinate, the
author having devoted himself to the great contest between his hero and
the powers of Nature. In the whole range of literature there is probably
nothing more graphic than the account of Gilliatt's battle with the
devil-fish. 'This is St. George and the Dragon over again,' remarked a
critic in the _British Quarterly Review_; 'and you might as well blame
Ariosto or Dante, or great mediaeval painters and sculptors, for their
innumerable elaborate creations of such monstrous objects, as blame the
modern who has, by his study of modern science, seen and restored much
that our ancestors conceived. The Pieuvre, moreover, is an ugly symbol
of the evil spiritual powers with which man contends. For the rest, Hugo
may revel in his strength of creation in this region, as Ariosto and
Dante revelled before him, as the builders, too, of our great Gothic
cathedrals revelled in their gargoyles and hobgoblins. But before we
quit this romance, observe the perfect unity of it as a work of art.'
The career of Gilliatt, the hero of this romance, is important from
certain social and philosophical aspects, as well as from the individual
point of view. The work is a dissertation upon the dignity, duty, and
power of labour, the French writer thus endorsing the dictum of Carlyle
on this great question. Gilliatt, hand to hand with the elements,
grapples with the last form of external force that is brought against
him. It has been well observed that the artistic and moral lesson are
worked out together, and are, indeed, one. Gilliatt, alone upon the reef
at his herculean task, offers a type of human industry in the midst of
the vague 'diffusion of forces into the illimitable' and the visionary
development of 'wasted labour' in the sea, and the winds, and the
clouds. It is man harassed and disappointed, and yet unconquered.
In 1869 appeared a fourth important romance by Victor Hugo, the strange
and grotesque _L'Homme qui Rit_. In this book there is a good deal to
make the reader restive, for in some parts it is unquestionably
repulsive. But when this has been borne with, there is still much
invested with that peculiar interest which only the author can weave
round his creations. The movement of life plays a subordinate part in
the story, and the real purpose of the work is seen to be a description
of the battle waged in the individual breast, first with Fate, and then
with those ancient enemies of man, the World, the Flesh, and the Devil.
Criticizing this book, Mr. Swinburne remarked: 'Has it not been steeped
in the tears and the fire of live emotion? If the style be overcharged
and overshining with bright sharp strokes and points, these are no
fireworks of any mechanic's fashion; these are the phosphoric flashes of
the sea-fire moving in the depths of the limitless and living sea.
Enough that the book is great and heroic, tender and strong, full from
end to end of divine and passionate love, of holy and ardent pity for
men that suffer wrong at the hands of men; full, not less, of lyric
loveliness and lyric force; and I, for one, am content to be simply glad
and grateful: content in that simplicity of spirit to accept it as one
more benefit at the hands of the Supreme singer now living among us the
beautiful and lofty life of one loving the race of men he serves, and of
them in all time to be beloved.' Yet, notwithstanding its evidences of
power, _L'Homme qui Rit_ failed to obtain that deep hold upon the public
mind which was secured by its predecessors.
A writer in the _Cornhill_ pointed out that it was Hugo's object in this
romance to denounce the aristocratic principle as it is exhibited in
England. Satire plays a conspicuous part, but the constructive ingenuity
exhibited throughout is almost morbid. 'Nothing could be more happily
imagined, as a _reductio ad absurdum_ of the aristocratic principle,
than the adventures of Gwynplaine, the itinerant mountebank, snatched
suddenly out of his little way of life, and installed without
preparation as one of the hereditary legislators of a great country. It
is with a very bitter irony that the paper, on which all this depends,
is left to float for years at the will of wind and tide.' There are also
other striking contrasts. 'What can be finer in conception than that
voice from the people heard suddenly in the House of Lords, in solemn
arraignment of the pleasures and privileges of its splendid occupants?
The horrible laughter, stamped for ever "by order of the King" upon the
face of this strange spokesman of Democracy, adds yet another feature
of justice to the scene; in all time, travesty has been the argument of
oppression; and, in all time, the oppressed might have made this answer:
"If I am vile, is it not your system that has made me so?" This ghastly
laughter gives occasion, moreover, for the one strain of tenderness
running through the web of this unpleasant story: the love of the blind
girl Dea for the monster. It is a most benignant providence that thus
harmoniously brings together these two misfortunes; it is one of these
compensations, one of these after-thoughts of a relenting destiny, that
reconcile us from time to time to the evil that is in the world; the
atmosphere of the book is purified by the presence of this pathetic
love; it seems to be above the story somehow, and not of it, as the full
moon over the night of some foul and feverish city.' This last sentence
exhibits a misapprehension of Victor Hugo's method. It is part of his
plan to discover that which would be accounted as the most vile, the
most contemptible, the most loathsome in human nature, and to show that
it has some point of contact with the most educated, the most refined,
the most beautiful. Critics may complain that he sacrifices art
sometimes in doing so, but his reply would be that there can be no
sacrifice of art where truth is concerned. Falsehood alone is
destructive of art.
I must pause here to note some interesting dramatic reproductions which
took place in Paris in connection with the Exhibition of 1867. Existing
dramatic literature was at a very low ebb, when the Emperor felt that
this important international occasion ought to be further distinguished
by the production of some new dramas. The managers were nonplussed, for
they had nothing worth producing, and the Minister of Fine Arts ventured
to hint as much to his Majesty. Ultimately the name of Victor Hugo was
brought forward, and it was decided to bring out _Hernani_ at the
Theatre Francais, and _Ruy Blas_ at the Odeon. On the 20th of June,
accordingly, _Hernani_ was produced, and performed by a brilliant
company, including Delaunay, Bressant, and Mademoiselle Favart. Twenty
thousand applications had been made for tickets for the first
performance. The audience was a very mixed one, and as it was feared
that political disturbances might occur, the most rigid precautions were
taken by the authorities. But there was no need for this--the piece was
received with a favour that was practically unanimous; and although M.
Francisque Sarcey (who was not then numbered amongst Hugo's admirers)
hinted that the applause was not precisely genuine, his insinuations
were soon rudely scattered to the winds. On the next night, and for
eighty succeeding nights, this remarkable play drew forth the most
genuine and vociferous applause.
A number of young authors, including Francois Coppee, Armand Silvestre,
and Sully Prudhomme, were so delighted with the success of _Hernani_
that they addressed the following letter to the poet: 'Master most dear
and most illustrious, we hail with enthusiastic delight the reproduction
of _Hernani_. The fresh triumph of the greatest of French poets fills us
with transports. The night of the 20th of June is an era in our
existence. Yet sorrow mingles with our joy. Your absence was felt by
your associates of 1830; still more was it bewailed by us younger men,
who never yet have shaken hands with the author of _La Legende des
Siecles_. At least they cannot resist sending you this tribute of their
regard and unbounded admiration.' Writing from Brussels, Hugo thus
replied: 'Dear poets, the literary revolution of 1830 was the corollary
of the Revolution of 1789; it is the speciality of our century. I am the
humble soldier of the advance. I fight for revolution in every form,
literary as well as social. Liberty is my principle, progress my law,
the ideal my type. I ask you, my young brethren, to accept my
acknowledgments. At my time of life, the end, that is to say the
infinite, seems very near. The approaching hour of departure from this
world leaves little time for other than serious meditations; but while I
am thus preparing to depart, your eloquent letter is very precious to
me; it makes me dream of being among you, and the illusion bears to the
reality the sweet resemblance of the sunset to the sunrise. You bid me
welcome whilst I am making ready for a long farewell. Thanks; I am
absent because it is my duty; my resolution is not to be shaken; but my
heart is with you. I am proud to have my name encircled by yours, which
are to me a crown of stars.' The writer who thus contemplated an early
departure from the stage of human life was to accomplish much more
before that event, and to witness many startling changes in his beloved
France.
The third Napoleon seems to have been inspired by a bitter jealousy of
the genius of Victor Hugo, whose great influence he dreaded; and the
poet answered this by an unconquerable distrust of the Emperor. After
the representations to which I have drawn attention, Hugo declined to
allow his play to be acted, and it was only at the close of Napoleon's
reign that he could be prevailed upon to allow the production of
_Lucrece Borgia_ at the Porte St. Martin. George Sand was present on
this occasion, and thus wrote to the dramatist: 'I was present
thirty-seven years ago at the first representation of _Lucrece_, and I
shed tears of grief; with a heart full of joy I leave the performance of
this day. I still hear the acclamations of the crowd as they shout,
"Vive Victor Hugo!" as though you were really coming to hear them.'
Hugo's sympathy with Garibaldi--for whom he had a profound
admiration--found vent in 1867, in a poem entitled _La Voix de
Guernesey_. It severely condemned the Mentana Expedition, and encouraged
Garibaldi under the check he had sustained at the hands of the Pope and
Napoleon III. Garibaldi replied with some verses styled 'Mentana,' and
this interchange of friendship and goodwill between the two patriots
stirred the worst blood of the French clerical party. The poems were
circulated by some means throughout France in considerable numbers, the
result being an Imperial order to stop the representations of _Hernani_,
while the following letter was also despatched to the poet in Guernsey:
'The manager of the Imperial Theatre de l'Odeon has the honour to inform
M. Victor Hugo that the reproduction of _Ruy Blas_ is
forbidden.--CHILLY.' From Guernsey came this pithy reply, addressed to
the Tuileries: 'To M. Louis Bonaparte.--Sir, it is you that I hold
responsible for the letter which I have just received signed
Chilly.--VICTOR HUGO.'
The Emperor would doubtless have given much could he have quenched the
genius and subdued the patriotism of the exile. But though the former
affected security in his power, and the latter looked for the triumph of
the people, neither could anticipate the dawning of that day of
humiliation and blood which in the course of a few years was to break
over unhappy France.