VICTOR HUGO.

VICTO

ICTOR HUGO was born at Besançon, on the 26th of February, 1802. His father, General Hugo, distinguished himself in the first French Revolution, under Napoleon. His mother was of the old royalist Vendean stock. Thus we find that Victor Hugo came from a good family. He received an excellent classical education in France, and afterward spent a year in Spain, in a school devoted to the sons of nobles. At the age of fourteen, Victor Hugo distinguished himself in the production of a tragedy called Irtamene, and two lyric pieces of excellent qualities.

Besides other remarkable works, he produced in 1822 a volume of Odes et Ballades, in which, although the old classic form was not quite thrown aside, may be discovered traces of that romantic spirit which became the prevailing characteristic of Victor Hugo's writings. This volume announced the poet and author in all the strength, richness, and brilliancy of his genius. It raised Victor at once to the highest rank of modern poets, a position which he has since maintained.

His romance, Notre Dame de Paris, in which he displayed treasures of style, of imagination, of antiquarian knowledge, and great powers of description, raised him to the very foremost rank of romancers. In addition to the wonderful powers of description, Victor Hugo's writings possess a charm and sonority of language, and a remarkable

brilliancy of fancy which make his style very picturesque and attractive.

In the Revolution of 1830, which drove Charles X from his throne, Hugo was on the side of the Revolution. When Louis Philippe was on the throne, he raised Victor Hugo to the peerage. When the monarchy was at an end, Hugo was with the Republic, and received the high compliment of being sent to the Assembly as a representative of the city of Paris. In 1851 Hugo opposed the change in which Louis Napoleon established the throne again in France. For his opposition he was obliged to leave his native land and live in exile. He firmly refused to compromise himself and return to France under the rule of Louis Napoleon. During the greater portion of his absence from his own country he occupied Hauteville House, a pretty residence with a charming garden, standing on the high ground over St. Peter's Port. The house belonged to the Queen of England. In speaking of the matter, Hugo once said: "My position is somewhat anomalous. I am a republican, and also a peer of France; a Frenchman in exile, who is the tenant of a house held by the Queen of England as Duchess of Normandy."

While in exile Hugo wrote quite extensively both in prose and poetry. His Les Miserables is sufficient to crown his eminent literary career, and, indeed, it is enough glory for one man to have given birth to what may be considered the greatest work of the imagination which the century has produced.

Upon the overthrow of Louis Napoleon in the war with Prussia, and the consequent return of France to a Republic, Victor Hugo returned to his native land. It was a happy day both to him and his countrymen when the long spell of exile was broken and he returned to his own loved France.

A Paradise on Earth,

OR,

THE BLIND BISHOP AND HIS SISTER.

[The following charming selection is taken from Les Miserables. It is written in remembrance of a blind bishop who died in 1821, at the age of eighty-two. He had been prominent in the affairs of his country, and in his old age was satisfied to be blind, as his sister was by his side.]

Let us say, parenthetically, that to be blind and to be loved, is one of the most strangely exquisite forms of happiness upon this earth, where nothing is perfect. To have continually at your side a wife, a sister or a daughter, a charming being, who is there because you have need of her, and because she cannot do without you; to know yourself indispensable to a woman who is necessary to you; to be able constantly to gauge her affection by the amount of her presence which she gives you, and to say to yourself: "She devotes all her time to me because I possess her entire heart;" to see her thoughts in default of her face; to prove the fidelity of a being in the eclipse of the world; to catch the rustling of a dress like the sound of wings; to hear her come and go, leave the room, return, talk, sing, and then to dream that you are the center of those steps, those words, those songs; to manifest at every moment your own attraction, and to feel yourself powerful in proportion to your weakness; to become in darkness and through darkness the planet round which this angel gravitates-but few felicities equal this. The supreme happiness of life is the conviction of being loved for yourself, or more correctly speaking, loved in spite of yourself; and this conviction the blind man has. to be served is to be caressed. Does he want for anything? No. When you possess love, you have not lost the light. And what a love! a love entirely made of virtues. There is no blindness where there is certainty; the groping soul seeks a soul and finds it, and

In this distress