erior. It was not that he knew best the heart of man, or had
apprehended most thoroughly the conditions of life; for Balzac so far
surpassed him in these sciences that comparison was impossible. It was
not that he sang the truest song or uttered the deepest word, for Musset
is the poet of _Rolla_ and the _Nuits_ in verse and the poet of
_Fantasio_ and _Lorenzaccio_ and _Carmosine_ in prose. But the epoch
Hugo represented was interested in the manner rather than the substance
of things: the revolution at whose front he had been set and whose most
shining figure he became was largely a revolution of externals. With an
immense amount of enthusiasm there was, as Sainte-Beuve confessed, an
incredible amount of ignorance--so that _Cromwell_ was supposed to be
historical; and with a passionate delight in form there co-existed a
strangely imperfect understanding of material--so that _Hernani_ was
supposed to be Shakespearean. To this ignorance and to this imperfect
understanding Hugo owed a certain part of his authority; the other and
greater he got from his unrivalled mastery of style, from his
extraordinary skill as an artist in words. To the opposing faction his
innovations were horrible: his verse was poison, his example an outrage,
his prosody a violation of all laws, his rhymes and tropes and metaphors
so many offences against Heaven and the Muse. But to the ardent
youngsters who fought beneath his banner it was his to give a something
priceless and unique--a something glorious to France and never before
exampled in her literature. For the distichs of Boileau--'strong, heavy,
useful, like pairs of tongs,'--he found them alexandrines with the leap
and sparkle of sea waves and the sound of clashing swords and the colours
of sunset and the dawn. They were tired of whitewash and cold distemper;
and he gave them hangings of brocade and tapestries of price and tissues
stiff with gold and glowing with new dyes. He flung them handfuls of
jewels where his rivals scattered handfuls of marbles. And they paid him
for his gifts with an intemperance of worship, a fury of belief, a
rapture of admiration, such as no other man has known. The substance was
striking, was peculiar, was novel and full of charm; but the manner was
all this and something besides--was magnificent, was intoxicating, was
irresistible; and Victor Hugo by virtue of it became the foremost man of
literary France. The great battle of _Hernani_ was merely a ba