even so kept him a long time waiting. "One has to besiege the paymaster's
door merely to obtain a trifle on account. I am ashamed of the whole
business, and I would gladly abandon my claim if I knew where to raise any
money." (2/13.)

The genius of Balzac has recorded some unforgettable types of those poor
and notable lives, at once so humble and so lofty. He has described the
village curé and the country doctor. But how we should have loved to
encounter in his gallery, among so many living portraits, a picture of the
university life of fifty years ago; and above all a picture of the small
schoolmaster of other days, living a life so narrow, so slavish, so
painful, and yet so full of worth, so imbued with the sense of duty, and
withal so resigned; a portrait for which Fabre might have served as model
and prototype, and for which he himself has drawn an unforgettable sketch.

He awaited impatiently the news of his removal, very modestly limiting his
ambitions to the hope of entering some lycée as professor of the sciences.
His rector was not unnaturally astonished that a young man of such unusual
worth, already twice a licentiate, should be so little appreciated by those
in high places and allowed to stagnate so long in an inferior post, and one
unworthy of him.

In the end, however, after much patient waiting, he became indignant; as
always, he could see nothing ahead. The chair of mathematics at Tournon
escaped him. Another position, at Avignon, also "slipped through his
fingers"; why or how he never knew. He "began to see clearly what life is,
and how difficult it is to make one's mark amid all this army of schemers,
beggars and imbeciles who besiege every vacant post."

But his heart was "none the less hot with indignation"; he had had enough