Of the poet Hugo writes that it is his duty to lead the vanguard of the people like a pillar of fire, lead them back to the great principles of _order_, morality, and honour. The flaw in the literature of the century of Louis "the Great" is that its authors invoke the gods of heathendom instead of the God of Christianity. If in this matter, Hugo naïvely remarks, they had acted differently, the "triumph of the sophistical writings" of the eighteenth century would have been much impeded. What might not have been the fate of "philosophy," if the cause of God had been championed by genius instead of by virtue alone!
He vigorously objects to being called romantic. He affirms that he "has not the slightest idea of what is meant by classic and romantic literature." Refusing to be influenced by all the nonsense written on the subject at that time, he in the following sensible utterance declares the distinction to be an empty and meaningless one: "It is an acknowledged fact that every literature receives an impression, in some cases strong, in some weak, from the climate, customs, and history of the nation of which it is the expression. David, Homer, Virgil, Tasso, Milton, Corneille, men each one of whom represents a literature and a nation, have nothing in common but genius." It is impossible, therefore, to divide them into classical and romantic poets. He combats the assertion that the literary revival (evidently referring to Chateaubriand) is an outcome of the political revolution. "The literature of to-day may to a certain extent be the result of the Revolution, without on that account being its expression. Revolutionary society had its literature, _ugly and foolish as itself_. That society and that literature are dead and will never come to life again. _Order_ has revived in all the institutions of society; it is also reviving in literature.... Just as the Revolution originated in literature, so the literature of our day is _the anticipatory expression of the pious and loyal society_ which will most certainly arise from those ruins."
Hugo was mistaken; the literature in question was the exact expression of the intellectual mood of its day, and the attempts at reform which aroused such anxiety were really forerunners of a literary revolution. For they destroyed faith in authority as authority--in this particular case faith in Boileau. From the moment when it was discovered that there were spots even in this sun, it was not possible to confine doubt to the few points where it had first modestly and cautiously insinuated itself. Literary tradition was a principle; it had to be either accepted or rejected.