GIRL-GUIDE CORNER

Waikato Independent, Volume XXX, Issue 2305, 1 March 1930, Page 2

GIRL-GUIDE CORNER

Dear Guides, Rangers and Brownies, tory of Victor Hugo, as I am sure you have .all heard of this wonderful Frenchman, and would like to know a little more about him.

The Everlasting Man of Modern France (Victor Hugo).

Of all the great figures in French literature none stands forth so wholly acceptable to British readers as the noble figure of Victor Hugo.

In essence he was a poet from first, to last; whether he wrote in verse or prose he was a poet on fire with a great love of liberty and an intense humanity. In that spirit he lived his life from childhood to an' honoured age, and when he died all France mourned for him as for a nation's hero.

He was born in an atmosphere of romance, and all the changes of a varied life moulded him in romance. In whatever form his genius showed itself, whether as a lyrical poet, as a daring and georgeous dramatist, or as a humanitarian novelist, he was a poet readinglife in an intensely personal way, but always as romance.

Perhaps it is because English literature so often finds expression in a similar strain —in Shakespeare, in Scott, in Dickens —that we feel a' deep sympathy with Victor Hugo. Noble romance and a passionate love of liberty give English readers everywhere and must always do so. Here is given an appreciation of the immortal Frenchman by one of his compatriots. (To follow next week).

A Recipe for Imagining Sweden. Take a few low hills, Cover them with pine trees. Clear a little at the foot for hay fields, Fleck here and there with vivid vcr

milion houses, Lay down a long lake, the waters dashed and dotted even with Ipgs, cither grouped into flats, floating separately, Logs like huge stitches of blue wool on watered blue silk. .Stretch before all a foreground always green, and You have a typical landscape of Sweden. My Creed. To live as gently as I can, To be, no matter where, a man; To take what comes of good or ill, To cling to faith and honour still, To do my v best and let that stand The record of my brain and hand; And then should disappointment come to mo, k . Still work .and hope for victory. To have no secret place wherein, I stoop unseen to consider sin, To be the same when I'm alone As when my every deed is known; To live undaunted, unafraid Of any step that I have made; To be without pretence or sham Exactly what men think I am. Cheerio! BIRDIE.