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| So long as there shall exist, by virtue of law and custom,
decrees of damnation pronounced by society, artificially creating
hells amid the civilization of earth, and adding the element of
human fate to divine destiny; so long as the three great problems
of the century-- the degradation of man through pauperism, the corruption
of woman through hunger, the crippling of children through lack
of light-- are unsolved; so long as social asphyxia is possible
in any part of the world;--in other words, and with a still wider
significance, so long as ignorance and poverty exist on earth, books
of the nature of Les Miserables cannot fail to be of use.
HAUTEVILLE HOUSE, 1862.
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