Tender-hearted as he was, Victor Hugo was much tried in his lifetime. One of his daughters was drowned with her husband almost under his eyes when she had been hardly married a year; both his sons and his wife were taken from him. He lavished all his love on two grandchildren, and to them many of his later poems are dedicated. Jeanne and Georges have been immortalized in the verse of their immortal grandfather. Lord Tennyson has paid the following tribute to the "king of human hearts," as Victor Hugo has been styled: Victor in drama, Victor in romance, Cloud-weaver of phantasmal hopes and fears, Yield thee full thanks for thy full courtesy To younger England in the boy, my son. Victor Hugo was regarded as a representative Frenchman in the vivacity and versatility of his genius, the epigrammatic brilliancy of his style, and the devotion to an idea in all its practical applications. The one motive which in all his constancy, as well as in all his changes, seemed to actuate him, was a love of liberty--political, religious, and intellectual-and back of this, as its spring, was a love of mankind which transcended all bounds of condition, nationality, faith, or even moral desert. He was by nature a revolutionist, not only in politics, but in society, religion, and literature, and his influence has been great in turning the world into new paths in all these respects. His life has been one of opposition, and he has been suppressed, 305 proscribed, and exiled perhaps more than any man of the century. Three kings persecuted him, but he lived to see them all dethroned, and he died the most honored and loved man in all France. All France was at Hugo's funeral. Six orations were delivered under the Arc de Triomphe, in the presence of nearly all the illustrious men of and in France. M. Leroyer, President of the Senate, said Victor Hugo constantly pursued the higher ideal of justice and humanity, and thus exercised an immense influence over the moral feeling of France. M. Floquet said that the ceremony to-day was not a funeral—it was an apotheosis. He hailed Victor Hugo as the immortal apostle who bequeathed to humanity that gospel which could lead the people to the definite conquest of liberty and equality. M. Augier, a member of the Academy, elaborated the fact made evident to-day: "To the sovereign poet France renders sovereign honors." M. Gohlet, President of the Chamber of Deputies, declared that Victor Hugo will remain the highest personification of the nineteenth century, the history of which, in its contradictions, doubts, ideas and aspirations, was best reflected in his works. The character of Victor Hugo was profoundly human, and represented the spirit of toleration and of peace. M. Floquet's oration touched the hearts of his hearers, and was greatly applauded. MARK TWAIN. (SAMUEL CLEMENS.) INCE the death of poor "Artemus Ward," no man has filled so large a place in the roll of honor as "Mark Twain." All the world has laughed at the quiet, subtle wit of the man who wrote the Innocents Abroad, and the Pilgrim's Progress. He is now in the full bloom of life, and in the possession of an ample fortune, and of worldwide fame, both of which he has fully earned. His pleasant home at Hartford is the gathering place of literary men, such as George Cable, with whom he has recently entered into a sort of public friendship. Each of these gentlemen reciting from their own works, has given the literary people of our great cities ample opportunity of enjoying many delightful evenings. The events in the life of Mark Twain have not greatly varied from those of the enterprising journalist of America. Some interesting peeps into Mark's early life will be sure to prove entertaining. In an interview held not long ago with his venerable mother many amusing things were elicited. "Sam was always a good hearted boy," said Mrs. Clemens, "but he was a very wild and mischievous one, and do what we would we could never make him go to school. This used to trouble his father and me dreadfully, and we were convinced that he would never amount to as much in the world as his brothers, because he was not near so steady and sober-minded as they were." "I suppose, Mrs. Clemens, that your son in his boyhood days somewhat resembled his own 'Tom Sawyer,' and that a fellow feeling is what made him so kind to the many hairbreadth escapades of that celebrated youth?" "Ah, no,” replied the old lady with a merry twinkle in her eye, "he was more like 'Huckleberry Finn' than Tom Sawyer.' Often his father would start him off to school and in a little while would follow him to ascertain his whereabouts. There was a large stump on the way to the schoolhouse, and Sam would take his position behind that and as his father went past would gradually circle around it in such a way as to keep out of sight. Finally his father and the teacher both said it was of no use to try to teach Sam anything, because he was determined not to learn. But I never gave up. He was always a great boy for history and could never get tired of that kind of reading, but he hadn't any use for schoolhouses and text-books." "It must have been a great trial to you." "Indeed it was," rejoined the mother, "and when Sam's father died, which occurred when Sam was eleven years of age, I thought then, if ever, was the proper time to make a lasting impression on the boy and work a change in him, so I took him by the hand and went with him into the room where the coffin was and in which the father lay, and with it between Sam and me I said to him that here in this presence I had some serious requests to make of him, and that I knew his word once given was never broken. For Sam never told a falsehood. He turned his streaming eyes upon me and cried out, "Oh, mother, I will do anything, anything you ask of me except to go to school; I can't do that!" That was the very request I was going to make. Well, we afterward had a sober talk, and I concluded to let him go into a printing office to learn the trade, as I couldn't have him running wild. He did so, and has gradually picked up enough education to enable him to do about as well as those who were more studious in early life. He was about twenty years old when he went on the Mississippi as a pilot. I gave him up then, for I always thought steamboating was a wicked business, and was sure he would meet bad associates, I asked him if he would promise me on the Bible not to touch intoxicating liquors, nor swear, and he said, "Yes, mother, I will." He repeated the words after me, with my hand and his clasped on the holy Book, and I believe he always kept that promise. But Sam has a good wife now who would soon bring him back if he was inclined to stray away from the right. He obtained for his brother Henry a place on the same boat as clerk, and soon after Sam left the river, Henry was blown up with the boat by an explosion, and killed." The dear old lady gave her last reminiscences in a trembling voice and with eyes filled with tears, but in a moment recovered her wonted serenity of expression and told many more incidents and entertaining stories of the then embryo humorist. "Mark Twain inherited the humor and the talents which have made him famous, from his mother," stated the younger Mrs. Clemens. "He is all 'Lampton,' and resembles her as strongly in person as in mind. Tom Sawyer's Aunt Polly and Mrs. Hawkins, in 'Gilded Age,' are direct portraits of his mother." Mrs. Clemens was Miss Jane Lampton before her marriage, and was a native of Kentucky. Mr. Clemens was of the F. F. V.'s of Virginia. They did not accumulate property, and the father left the family at his death nothing but, in Mark's own words, "a sumptuous stock of pride and a good old name,' which, it will be allowed, has proved in this case at least a sufficient inheritance. We here insert a portion of the inimitable story of the way Tom Sawyer whitewashed the fence: HOW TOM SAWYER WHITEWASHED HIS FENCE. [Tom Sawyer, having offended his sole guardian, Aunt Polly, is by that sternly affectionate dame punished by being set to whitewash the fence in front of the garden.] Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and |