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KEMAKKS ON VICTOR HUGO'S " LES MISIEIRAB...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
¦ « By Frances Power Cobbe. It Is Either...
and the Barricades , and the inimitable pictures of character—MariusJaverfcthe gamin Gavroehe . Our concern in this little
paper is , only with , the main purpose of Victor Hugo , the appeal for mercy for the wretched . Among these , the most piteous of all are
assuredly fallen women . Fantine is one of those waifs and strays of the great human
family for whom / from the first , a life of misery seems inevitable . Few men ever dream of marrying themand thousands of men ,
, alas ! look on them as the fowler regards the wild game upon his moors . Poor Fantine loves truly in her heart a man who deserts
her , with a scoff and a jest , that he may henceforth lead an " honourable " married life . She goes with her child into the country in
search of honest work , leaving little Cosette with a woman who seemed kindly disposed , but proves to be a brutal and grasping
virago . To meet this woman's ever-increasing demands , poor Fantine labours on , but grows poorer and poorer , sick , helpless ,
without character or friends . Temptations come ; " for her child ' s sake" downlower—lower yet she sinksonly the one holy mother's
,, , love lighting up the poor darkened soul—the hope , not that Cosette will one day come to her ( for what is she to take an
inno-, cent girl to her home ?) but that she is happy , and cared for , growing in beauty and goodness . Her child is said to be
sickshe sells all for her—her beautiful long * hair , all , everything , every remnant of womanly shame—she is at the lowest of all—that
awful Lowest wherefrom there is no further fall . She dies at last under the tender care of Jean Valjean , while yet he was the rich
mayor of M ., and we feel , as the soul' leaves that poor ruined formit is of those which " go into heaven " longlong before half
the Pharisees , and righteous men of earth will be permitted , to enter there .
Last of all among the " Miserables " for whom Victor Hugo has claimed our compassion , comes a class for whom , so far as we
know , no plea has ever yet been made , nay , their sufferings have been treated by poets and fiction-writers with something very like
disdain . It is the peculiarity of old age to contract , not its powers of
loving , but the number of those to whom its love is extended . As imagination and memory are enfeebled , the sympathies with the
remote or the rarely seen grow feeble also , and all the affections ( except in rare instances ) are concentrated on a few near and dear
ones , who fill the whole scope of the poor , fading vision . But do they love these few less well than formerly they loved the many ?
Far , far , otherwise . The aged heart clings to its yet remaining earthly props with a tenderness deeper than youthful passion . The
experience of years , which has taught indulgence for error , has taken away from their love whatever was bitter or stern in it
hitherto , and it is more than " as a father pitieth his children /'
that the grandsire lays his trembling hand round the neck of his
Kemakks On Victor Hugo's " Les Misieirab...
KEMAKKS ON VICTOR HUGO ' S " LES _MISIEIRABIJSS . " 223
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Dec. 1, 1862, page 223, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01121862/page/7/
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