Victor Hugo on Les Misérables
People reduced to the extremity of need are also driven to the utmost limits of their resources, and woe to any defenceless person who comes in their way. Work and wages, food and warmth, courage and goodwill ~ all is lost to them. The daylight dwindles into shadow and darkness enters their hearts; and within this darkness man seizes upon the weakness of woman and child and forces them into ignominy.
No horror is then excluded. Desperation is bounded only by the flimsiest of walls, all giving access to vice and crime...
they appear utterly depraved, corrupt, vile and odious; but it is rare for those who have sunk so low not to be degraded in the process, and there comes a point, moreover, where the unfortunate and infamous are grouped togther, merged in a single fateful world.
They are 'Les Miserables' ~ the outcasts, the underdogs.
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