Les Misérables, page 159
CHAPTER IV--HE MAY BE OF USE
Paris begins with the lounger and ends with the street Arab, twobeings of which no other city is capable; the passive acceptance, whichcontents itself with gazing, and the inexhaustible initiative; Prudhommeand Fouillou. Paris alone has this in its natural history. The whole ofthe monarchy is contained in the lounger; the whole of anarchy in thegamin.
This pale child of the Parisian faubourgs lives and develops, makesconnections, "grows supple" in suffering, in the presence of socialrealities and of human things, a thoughtful witness. He thinks himselfheedless; and he is not. He looks and is on the verge of laughter; he ison the verge of something else also. Whoever you may be, if your name isPrejudice, Abuse, Ignorance, Oppression, Iniquity, Despotism, Injustice,Fanaticism, Tyranny, beware of the gaping gamin.
The little fellow will grow up.
Of what clay is he made? Of the first mud that comes to hand. A handfulof dirt, a breath, and behold Adam. It suffices for a God to pass by. AGod has always passed over the street Arab. Fortune labors at this tinybeing. By the word "fortune" we mean chance, to some extent. That pigmykneaded out of common earth, ignorant, unlettered, giddy, vulgar, low.Will that become an Ionian or a Bootian? Wait, _currit rota_, the Spiritof Paris, that demon which creates the children of chance and the menof destiny, reversing the process of the Latin potter, makes of a jug anamphora.
