< Hugo's "Art of Being a Grandfather" (continued from page 3-53) >
In each forest vista a fire glows. |
“ La Lune ’’ concludes with a very pretty thought and phrase, à propos of a child's wish for the moon :
Peut-étre la-haut, il est, dans l'ignoré. |
“ Le poeme du Jardin des Plantes ” is a very pretty little thing, beginning
Le comte de Buffon fut bonhomme, il créa |
It is, however, more notable for an angry verse.
God, says the poet, is capable of all, |
The stanzas dedicated “ To George,” and containing an invitation to visit the menagerie, are a little like Dickens's rhyme on a similar subject, but have some good lines, such as the comparison of a tiger’s head to a mask of ebony with two flaming holes through which hell is seen, and the concluding verse :
Il est bon quand on vient d entendre parler l’homme, |
In the second poem, “Jeanne Eudormie ” is repeated the effect in the first, the poet sitting by the cradle and reading in the pious papers denunciations of him as a Communard, a drinker of blood, a being; who could not have been much worse if Napoleon bad taken him into the Cabinet, and in the midst of his consequent rage feeling the sleeping child’s hand tighten round his finger. The foes of France, Rome, the basilisk, these spiders the Jesuits, and that vulture. Bismarck, come in for their punishment in due course. With as much vigor and egotism there is combined in “Une Tape” an unusual airiness. The little one has slapped the poet, who does not scold, for after seeing the world and righting immense wrongs, and fighting gigantic battles, one enters the house a little tired and prepared to submit to domestic indignities.
Bah ! do we fight against Aurora should she come ! |
There should not here be passed over a bizarre little ronde, not very easy to translate off-hand, acceptably :
Grand bal sous le tamarin. |
In “ Le Pot Cassé ” Hugo develops his idea of an amiable anarchy under grandfatherly rule, which contains a couple of characteristic allusion’s :
* * * J’irais clignant de la paupière |
Contrasted immediately and strongly with the gentille “ Chanson de Grand-Père,” published in THE WORLD on Sunday—
Dansez, les petites filles, |
^s a stately and severe “ Chanson d'Ancêtre,” recalling and praising the lofty courage and civic virtue of the Gauls. Its burden is somewhat of a blemish, but there are some strong passages, as :
Rien n'est plus sublime |
There is a very jolly little bit where Charles, wearied with studying Juvenal, sets to drawing caricatures on the margins, and is ignominiously given as a pœna a thousand lines of Latin to write out. The unhappy Nisard comes in for it again :
Un âne, qui ressemble à Monsieur Nisard, brait |
The great satirist himself appears to the schoolboy, consoles him with the reflection that he als^ caught it heavily for drawing caricatures in Rom^ and cancels the punishment.
This poem is followed by " Graudpa’s Boy Fli^tarions," a romance in Hugo’s oddest style and wit^ -a ^ng of De Musset at times.
Comme elle avait la-résille, |
If space allowed us we should like to give a few verses from “ Le Trouble-Fète,” for the sake of their melody, but the poem must be passed. "With “ The Epic of the Lion,” readers of THE WORLD are familiar from the translations published on Tuesday. A sweet little thing succeeds, “ To Spirits Plown,” which is full of the bubbling, exulting life that characterizes all Hugo's simple lyrics :
Nous avions sous los tonnelles |
The concluding section of the hook, “ Que les petits liront quand ils seront grands," probably will be regarded as containing its highest poetry and some of its best literary workmanship, though, on the other hand, there are many Hugonians who will hold with us that it is in his less pretentious pieces that the poet is always at his best. In “ Progrès " a few lines may be quoted. Of God, says the author in a characteristic comparison :
From the same emerald he flings |
The last poem of the concluding section describes the flight of the soul after truth. Any reader of Hugo can imagine how with the nervous measure above indicated and with such a subject the poem sweeps through some three hundred lines starred with vigorous phrases and pictures. As when the shadow taunts humanity with age after age creating the same gods from the same materials :
You get you some ideal power |
With the poet’s answer we may conclude these f^stily-made selections. Is it for nothing, he asks,
For nought, O graves that open lie. |
And thus spake on that ancient man
A Curiosity of Crime
Louis Jacquin, a boy of fifteen, has been on trial at the Court of Assizes of the Seine, Paris for the murder of his brother, a lad of fourteen. The murder occurred on the 5th of May last, and is certainly a truly French curiosity of crime.
The two boys worked in common in a cabinetmaker's shop. One morning, in the course of certain jocular exchanges of conversation, Alexander Jacquin, the murdered boy, called his brother “Bolloir and Magaux,”
“Why do you name me after those infamous assassins ?” insisted Louis.
“Because I choose,” returned his brother, laughing. “You are not foolish enough to get angry, are you ?”
“But there is Clemence [their employer’s daughter] laughing at me ” demanded Louis.
“ Pshaw ! who would not laugh ?” returned Alexander. “You arc a goose. Go on with your work. ”
Louis complied, muttering and grumbling constantly: –
“Magaux and Billoir, eh! Oh, I am to be called an assassin, am I ? Then I will be one. One might as well be a murderer as have people call one so.”
The next morning, while Alexander was planing down a plank, Louis came up to him and asked sharp]y :—
“What is it I am called ?”
“Buloir and Magaux,” answered his brother.
“Then I will be Them !” yelled the young assassin, and before his brother could defend himself he plunged a long knife into his abdomen with such force as to literally disembowel him.
Alexander rolled on the floor and the murderous boy again and again drove the knife into his body until, when aid arrived, his victim was at the last gasp.
The precocious assassin gave no reason for his crime other than that noted above.
“He called me Billoir and Magaux,” he said, “and made Clemence laugh at ... So I might as well have the crime as the rcputa^.”
After a long trial he was acquitted on the ground of insanity.—Shanandoah Herald.
Editor's notes