Page 115.
To my Grandchildren. This piece is taken from the work mentioned in the preceding note.
Page 122.
The Sower. This is one of Victor Hugo's earlier poems.
Page 123.
On the Death of his Daughter. Have we not here the same cry that thrilled the hearts of hearers three thousand years ago!
तिष्ठेल्लोको विना सूर्य्यं शस्यं वा सलिलं विना।
न तु रामं विना देहे तिष्ठेत्त मम जीवितम्॥
Page 124.
After the Battle. A good account of Victor Hugo's father, the hero here mentioned, and a colonel in Napoleon's army, will be found in the poet's life published in England under the title of 'Victor Hugo, a Life Related by One Who has Witnessed It,' 2 vols.
Page 125.
In Praise of Women. Auguste Brizeux came of an Irish family settled in France after the Revolution of 1688. He was born in 1803. Passionately fond of Brittany the province, and Lorient the town in which he was born, after long and repeated residence in Italy, he used to hail his native place as the best in every respect on earth; and in one of his poems he says of the town—
'Dans notre Lorient tout est clair dès qu'on entre;
De la Porte de Ville on va droit jusqu'au centre:
Ainsi marchent ses fils au sentier du devoir.'
It is remarkable that Brizeux never condescended to write in prose. Whether lie felt that he was born to be a poet, and would degrade himself by being anything else, or whether he had any diffidence in the matter, it is certain that, while every other poet wrote romances, essays, histories, criticism, he rigidly held to his lyre, and excepting one poor attempt in early life, would not even try the field of the drama. His two best poems are 'Marie' and the 'Fleur d'Or.' There is a pastoral beauty, a chastity, a delicacy, in these flowers of his creation, which can scarcely be too highly praised. It has been a moot question, whether Brizeux personally knew and loved this Marie with the naked feet,
'Cette grappe du Scorf, Cette fleur du blé noir.'
A schoolfellow of his says, she never existed, except in his imagination. A brother, on the other hand, avers that she lived, that he had known her,
