Page 1134 - les-miserables

true glory lies in convincing. But try to prove something!
If you are content with success, what mediocrity, and with
conquering, what wretchedness! Alas, vanity and coward-
ice everywhere. Everything obeys success, even grammar.
Si volet usus, says Horace. Therefore I disdain the human
race. Shall we descend to the party at all? Do you wish me
to begin admiring the peoples? What people, if you please?
Shall it be Greece? The Athenians, those Parisians of days
gone by, slew Phocion, as we might say Coligny, and fawned
upon tyrants to such an extent that Anacephorus said of Pi-
sistratus: ‘His urine attracts the bees.’ The most prominent
man in Greece for fifty years was that grammarian Philetas,
who was so small and so thin that he was obliged to load his
shoes with lead in order not to be blown away by the wind.
There stood on the great square in Corinth a statue carved
by Silanion and catalogued by Pliny; this statue represented
Episthates. What did Episthates do? He invented a trip. That
sums up Greece and glory. Let us pass on to others. Shall I
admire England? Shall I admire France? France? Why? Be-
cause of Paris? I have just told you my opinion of Athens.
England? Why? Because of London? I hate Carthage. And
then, London, the metropolis of luxury, is the headquarters
of wretchedness. There are a hundred deaths a year of hun-
ger in the parish of Charing-Cross alone. Such is Albion. I
add, as the climax, that I have seen an Englishwoman danc-
ing in a wreath of roses and blue spectacles. A fig then for
England! If I do not admire John Bull, shall I admire Brother
Jonathan? I have but little taste for that slave-holding broth-
er. Take away Time is money, what remains of England?

1134 Les Miserables