dunghill
and emerges from it covered with stars. The gamin of Paris is Rabelais
in this youth.

He is not content with his trousers unless they have a watch-pocket.

He is not easily astonished, he is still less easily terrified, he makes
songs on superstitions, he takes the wind out of exaggerations, he twits
mysteries, he thrusts out his tongue at ghosts, he takes the poetry out
of stilted things, he introduces caricature into epic extravaganzas.
It is not that he is prosaic; far from that; but he replaces the solemn
vision by the farcical phantasmagoria. If Adamastor were to appear to
him, the street Arab would say: "Hi there! The bugaboo!"

CHAPTER IV--HE MAY BE OF USE

Paris begins with the lounger and ends with the street Arab, two
beings of which no other city is capable; the passive acceptance, which
contents itself with gazing, and the inexhaustible initiative; Prudhomme
and Fouillou. Paris alone has this in its natural history. The whole of
the monarchy is contained in the lounger; the whole of anarchy in the
gamin.

This pale child of the Parisian faubourgs lives and develops, makes
connections, "grows supple" in suffering, in the presence of social
realities and of human things, a thoughtful witness. He thinks himself
heedless; and he is not. 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.

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; particular