Bret Harte

“ When a man commits a crime, society claps him in prison. A prison is one of the worst hotels imaginable. The people there are low and vulgar. The butter is bad, the coffee is green. Ah, it is horrible!
In prison, as in a bad hotel, a man soon loses, not only his morals, but what is much worse to a Frenchman, his sense of refinement and delicacy.
Jean Valjean came from prison with confused notions of society. ”

“ Fantine's native place had changed.
M. Madeline—an angel, and inventor of jetwork—had been teaching the villagers how to make spurious jet.
This is a progressive age. Those Americans,—children of the West,—they make nutmegs out of wood.
I, myself, have seen hams made of pine, in the wigwams of those children of the forest.
But civilization has acquired deception too. Society is made up of deception. Even the best French society. ”

“ When this good M. Madeline, whom the reader will perceive must have been a former convict, and a very bad man, gave himself up to justice as the real Jean Valjean, about this same time, Fantine was turned away from the manufactory, and met with a number of losses from society. Society attacked her, and this is what she lost:—
First her lover. ”