Page 2094 - les-miserables

a living flame, or, like Phyles, father of Polydamas, to have
brought back from Ephyra a good suit of mail, a present
from the king of men, Euphetes; it suffices to give one’s life
for a conviction or a loyalty. This ingenuous little soldier,
yesterday a peasant of Bauce or Limousin, who prowls with
his clasp-knife by his side, around the children’s nurses in
the Luxembourg garden, this pale young student bent over
a piece of anatomy or a book, a blond youth who shaves his
beard with scissors,—take both of them, breathe upon them
with a breath of duty, place them face to face in the Carre-
four Boucherat or in the blind alley Planche-Mibray, and let
the one fight for his flag, and the other for his ideal, and let
both of them imagine that they are fighting for their coun-
try; the struggle will be colossal; and the shadow which this
raw recruit and this sawbones in conflict will produce in
that grand epic field where humanity is striving, will equal
the shadow cast by Megaryon, King of Lycia, tiger-filled,
crushing in his embrace the immense body of Ajax, equal
to the gods.

2094 Les Miserables