VICTOR HUGO ON BRITAIN.

Waikato Times, Volume XXX, Issue 2474, 19 May 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

VICTOR HUGO ON BRITAIN.

" Over the sea in calm majesty lien the grand island, whoso existence consoles me for a thousand continental crimes, and vindicates for me the goodness of Providence. Yes, proud England! Thou art justly proud of thy colossal strength, more justly proud of thy God-like repose. Stretched on the rook—but not iike Prometheus —with no evil bird to rend his side, rests tho genius of England. He waits his hour, but he counts not the hours between ; he knows it is rolling up through the mystic gloom of the ago*. Dare I murmur that th» mists will not clear for me, and that 1 shall not hoar the wheels of the chariot of England? It will come, it is coming, it is oomc ; aud the whole world, aroused as by some mighty galvanism, utters a wild cry of love, and adoration, and throws itsolf into the bounteous bosom of England. Henceforth there aro no nations, no peoples ; but one, and indivisible will bo the world, and the world will be one England. Her virtue and her patience have triumphed ; the lamp of her faith, lighted at tho Apostolic altars, burns as a beacon to mankind; her mildness has rebuked tho rebellious, her gentleness has enchanted the good. Sho is henceforth humanity, and London her type and her temple, shall be the Mecca and the Jerusalem of a renewed universe. Yes, proud England ! it shall be thine to undo the work of Babel, and with a pardoned sijfh, the son of France recognises in thy tongue the one language of the ages."