Neighbor Next Door

Marius almost reproached himself with the fact that he had been so absorbed in his reveries and passion that he had not until now cast a glance upon his neighbors. Paying their rent was a mechanical impulse; everybody would have had that impulse; but, Marius, should have done better. What! a mere wall separated him from these abandoned beings, who lived by groping in the night without the pale of the living; he came in contact with them, he was in some sort the last link of the human race which they touched, he heard them live or rather breathe beside him, and he took no notice of them! every day at every moment, he heard them through the wall, walking, going, coming, talking, and he did not lend his ear! and  in these words there were groans, and he did not even listen, his thoughts were elsewhere, upon dreams, upon impossible glimmerings, upon loves in the sky, upon infatuations; and all the while human beings, his brothers in Jesus Christ, his brothers in the people, were suffering death agonies beside him! agonizing uselessly; he even caused a portion of their suffering and aggravated it. For had they had another neighbor, a less chimerical and more observant neighbor, an ordinary and charitable man, it was clear that their poverty would have been noticed, their signals of distress would have been see, and long ago perhaps they would have gathered up and saved! Undoubtedly they seemed very depraved, very corrupt, very vile, very hateful, even, but those are rare who fall without becoming degraded… And then, is it not when the fall is lowest that charity ought to be greatest? __from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo__