In all the large, wealthy cities of the civilized world, there exists a certain number of individuals of both sexes—some would say a certain breed of people—between the ages of twenty and thirty-five; almost always full of ingenuity, more advanced than their century; independent as the eagle of the Alps, ready for good as well as evil, restless, troubled, turbulent—who, due to certain terrible contradictions between their condition and their state, that is, between what they have in their heads and what they have in their pockets, and because of their eccentric and disorderly way of life, and because of... a thousand and a thousand other causes and a thousand other effects, [...] deserve to be classified in a new and particular subdivision of the great civil family, as those who form a caste sui generis distinct from all others. This caste or class - which would be better described as such - a veritable pandemonium of the century, the personification of dizziness and madness, a reservoir of disorder, of the spirit of independence and opposition to the established order...

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