Well, thou goest to thy dunghill alone—they to their social triumphs. And, when all’s said, the aristocratic ideal has brought rich harvests as well as the shearing of necks to its idolaters—and they have had their emotional moments in intervals of starving the race and filching from the poor and from the widow and the fatherless.
Nay, doth not Europe, bereft of protestations, bow, hat in hand, to the Almanach de Gotha? And the fine gentry therein, weak-knee’d and inbred and ridiculous, do they not claim divine rights and special places reserved in church and the tribute of the Formalities all set and square to their comical little greatnesses? And multitude of lackeys!... Gods! are they not even Envied!
Verily, Gavroche, thou hast been lacking in the diplomacies. It is that which has been thy chief offence against thyself. These others bray as loudly—but the accent is more tuneful.
So, the same dawn, the self-same lamp of day, sees us all going each on our so different way.