He looks and is on the verge of laughter; he is on the verge of something else also. Whoever you may be, if your name is Prejudice, 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 handful of dirt, a breath, and behold Adam.
It suffices for a God to pass by.
A God has always passed over the street Arab. Fortune labors at this tiny being.
By the word "fortune" we mean chance, to some extent.
That pigmy kneaded out of common earth, ignorant, unlettered, giddy, vulgar, low.
Will that become an Ionian or a Boeotian?
Wait, currit rota, the Spirit of Paris, that demon which creates the children of chance and the men of destiny, reversing the process of the Latin potter, makes of a jug an amphora.
BOOK FIRST.--PARIS STUDIED IN ITS ATOM
CHAPTER V
HIS FRONTIERS
The gamin loves the city, he also loves solitude, since he has something of the sage in him.
Urbis amator, like Fuscus; ruris amator, like Flaccus.
To roam thoughtfully about, that is to say, to lounge, is a fine employment of time in the eyes of the philosopher; particularly in that rather illegitimate species of campaign, which is tolerably ugly but odd and composed of two natures, which surrounds certain great cities, notably Paris.
To study the suburbs is to study the amphibious animal.
End of the trees, beginning of the roofs; end of the grass, beginning of the pavements; end of the furrows, beginning of the shops, end of the wheel-ruts, beginning of the passions; end of the divine murmur, beginning of the human uproar; hence an extraordinary interest.