Argot!
Why, argot is horrible! It is the language of prisons, galleys, convicts, of everything that is most abominable in society!" etc., etc.
[39] The Day of a Condemned Man.
We have never understood this sort of objections.
Since that time, two powerful romancers, one of whom is a profound observer of the human heart, the other an intrepid friend of the people, Balzac and Eugene Sue, having represented their ruffians as talking their natural language, as the author of The Day of a Condemned Man did in 1828, the same objections have been raised. People repeated:．思．兔．在．線．閱．讀．
"What do authors mean by that revolting dialect? Slang is odious!
Slang makes one shudder!"
Who denies that?
Of course it does.
When it is a question of probing a wound, a gulf, a society, since when has it been considered wrong to go too far? to go to the bottom?
We have always thought that it was sometimes a courageous act, and, at least, a simple and useful deed, worthy of the sympathetic attention which duty accepted and fulfilled merits. Why should one not explore everything, and study everything? Why should one halt on the way?
The halt is a matter depending on the sounding-line, and not on the leadsman.