The Professor: Avignon 



goes to prove as much. But of this sort of 

 discipline, like that which extols the advan- 

 tages of ignorance, we may remark that one 

 may have too much of it; that it succeeds 

 only on condition of being applied with mod- 

 eration and discretion. 



A robust child of the Rouergat peasantry, 

 such as Fabre, is capable of enduring an 

 abnormal dose with unusual results. But un- 

 der too great strain steel of the toughest 

 temper is in danger of being broken or fa- 

 tigued. In hours of difficulty and suffering, 

 if they are unduly prolonged, the most reso- 

 lute and courageous feel the need of an en- 

 couraging voice, and a hand outstretched to 

 give the moral or even the material help with 

 which one cannot always dispense with im- 

 punity. 



This friendly voice, this helping hand, 

 which Fabre failed to find in the great bene- 

 factor of humanity who witnessed his distress 

 so true is it that the best of us have their 

 defects and their seasons of inattention he 

 was presently to find unexpectedly enough, in 

 one of his official chiefs, whose first appear- 

 ance in his life was to him like a warm " ray 

 of sunlight " piercing the icy atmosphere of 

 winter. 



The incident is worth recording: it is all 

 169 



