It walks abroad in the streets of the great city with such unblushing self-satisfaction--such a brazen sense of its own superiority--that any Englishman must long to import a hundred London street boys, with their sense of ridicule and fearless tongue.

At all times the world has possessed an army of geniuses whose greatness consists of faith and not of works--of faith in themselves which takes the outward form of weird clothing, long hair, and a literary or artistic pose.

Paris streets were so full of such in 1870 that all thoughtful men could scarce fail to recognise a nation in its decadence.
"The asses preponderate in the streets," said John Turner to me.

"You may hear their bray in every cafe, and France is going to the devil." And indeed the voices raised in the drinking dens were those of the fool and the knave.
I busied myself with looking into the money affairs of my poor patron, and found them in great disorder.

All the ready cash had fallen into the hands of Miste.