The words written in the past often acquire a life of their own in the present. The shadow that befalls our understanding will linger long in our minds creating imageries of the past, unveiling the present, and constructing the hope for the future.
The following is the author's preface from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo, translated by Charles E. Wilbour:
The following is the author's preface from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo, translated by Charles E. Wilbour:
So long as there shall exist, by reason of law and custom, a social condemnation, which, in the face of civilisation, artificially creates hells on earth, and complicates a destiny that is divine, with human fatality; so long as the three problems of the age- the degradation of man by poverty, the ruin of woman by starvation, and the dwarfing of childhood by physical and spiritual night- are not solved; so long as, in certain regions, social asphyxia shall be possible; in other words, and from a yet more extended point of view, so long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, books like this cannot be useless.
Hauteville House, 1862.
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