Page:French life in town and country (1917).djvu/317

 Paris that I have become converted to Tolstoi's belief that the humble class is the vrai grand monde, a thousand times more interesting and instructive, worthier of our admiration, than the wealthy and educated classes. The deeper you penetrate into these obscure lives, the deeper you feel a sense of humiliation by confrontation with the futility of education, breeding, blood,—the accepted adjuncts of superiority. The poor and humble of the world are inarticulate, and they live and die unconscious of the heroism of their existence. But the average woman of the people gathers more virtue into a single day than the educated woman, who enjoys the priceless benefits of leisure, space, and ease, spreads over a week. Mark the gaiety and content with which she will toil for inadequate pay, rising early, resting late, with few pleasures, fewer distractions, maintaining through all her never-*ending trials a dignity of bearing, an ideal of honesty, an incomparable altitude of disinterestedness that should shame us for the idle price we put upon birth and education. Let us pick out of the crowd one figure of the small dressmaker Dickens or Daudet might have made a charming study of. I have been observing her life now for some years with friendly interest, and have not found a flaw in it. She is good to look upon, a supple French figure, clear skin, pretty features, reddish soft eyes, and red hair a