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 



