would sweep this barren room; how he would buy a pennyworth of cheese,
waiting until dusk to get a loaf of bread, and slink home as furtively as
if he had stolen it; how carrying his book under his arm he would enter
the butcher's shop, and after being elbowed by jeering servants till he
felt the cold sweat standing out on his forehead, he would take off his
hat to the astonished butcher and ask for a single mutton-chop. This he
would carry to his garret, and cooking it himself it would be made to
last for three days.

In this way he managed to live on less than two hundred dollars a year,
derived from the proceeds of poems, pamphlets and essays. At this time he
was already an "Academy Laureate," having received honorable mention for
a poem submitted in a competition.

In his twentieth year, fortune came to him in triple form: he brought out
a book of poems that netted him seven hundred francs; soon after the
publication of this book, Louis the Eighteenth, who knew the value of
having friends who were ready writers, bestowed on him a pension of one
thousand francs a year; then these two pieces of good fortune made
possible a third--his marriage.

Early marriages are like late ones: they may be wise and they may not.
Victor Hugo's marriage with Adele Foucher was a most happy event.

A man with a mind as independent as Victor Hugo's is sure to make
enemies. The "Classics" were positive that he was defiling the well of
Classic French, and they sought to write him down. But by writing a man
up you can not write him down; the only thing that can smother a literary
aspirant is silence.

Victor Hugo coined the word when he could not find it, transposed
phrases, inverted sentences, and never called a spade an agricultural
implement. Not content with this, he put the spade on exhibition and this
often at unnecessary times, and occasionally prefaced the word with an
adjective. Had he been let alone he would not have done this.

The censors told him he must not use the name of Deity, nor should he
refer so often to kings. At once, he doubled his Topseys and put on his
stage three Uncle Toms when one might have answered. Like Shakespeare, he
used idioms and slang with profusion--anything to express the idea. Will
this convey the thought? If so, it was written down, and, once written,
Beelzebub and all his hosts could not make him change it. But in the
interest of truth let me note one exception:

"I do not like that word,"