| Show Hugos Strange Belief Victor Hugo was always convinced that ho would meet all his friends in a future world He was equally sure that he had always existed from the antediluvian antedil-uvian times when the Creator placed him on earth He believed that he would exist ex-ist forever inasmuch as he felt in his soul thousands of hymns dramas and poems that had never found expression When the atheist would say to him The proof that you will not exist in the future is that you did not exist in the past Hugo would answer Who told you that I did not exist in the past centuries You will say that is the legend of the ages The poet has written writ-ten Life is a fairy tale twice written He might have said a thousand times written There is not an age in which I cannot find my spirit You do not believe be-lieve in the doctrine of surviving personalities person-alities for the reason that you do not recollect your anterior existence But how can the recollection of vanished ages remain imprinted on your memory when you do not remember a thousand and one scenes and events of your present pres-ent life Since 1802 there have been ten Victor Hugos in me Do you think that I can recall all their actions and all their thoughts The tomb is dark and when I shall have passed the tomb to emerge into life once more all these Victor Hugos will be almost wholly strangers tome to-me but it will always be the same soul M Viennet a wag asked Hugo one day who was the greatest poet of his time whereupon Hugo dryly answered Alfred de Musset is the second greatest poetPIom the Paris Figaro |
