Think on the shame of dreams for deeds, The scandal of unnatural strife, The slur upon immortal needs, The treason done to life: Arise! no more a liv… - William Ernest Henley

Who says that we shall pass, or the fame of us fade and die,
While the living stars fulfil their round in the living sky?

I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Plainly Hugo was the greatest man of letters of his day. It has been given to few or none to live a life so full of effort and achievement, so rich in honour and success and fame. Born almost with the century, he was a writer at fifteen, and at his death he was writing still; so that the record of his career embraces a period of more than sixty years. There is hardly a department of art to a foremost place in which he did not prove his right. From first to last; from the time of Chateaubriand to the time of Zola, he was a leader of men; and with his departure from the scene the undivided sovereignty of literature became a thing of the past like Alexander's empire.