cannot be considered indiscreet.

In my country of Alsace, on the solitary route whose interminable ribbon
stretches on and on under the forests of the Vosges, there is a
stone-breaker whom I have seen at his work for thirty years. The first
time I came upon him, I was a young student, setting out with swelling
heart for the great city. The sight of this man did me good, for he was
humming a song as he broke his stones. We exchanged a few words, and he
said at the end: "Well, good-by, my boy, good courage and good luck!"
Since then I have passed and repassed along that same route, under
circumstances the most diverse, painful and joyful. The student has
finished his course, the breaker of stones remains what he was. He has
taken a few more precautions against the seasons' storms: a rush-mat
protects his back, and his felt hat is drawn further down to shield his
face. But the forest is always sending back the echo of his valiant
hammer. How many sudden tempests have broken over his bent back, how
much adverse fate has fallen on his head, on his house, on his country!
He continues to break his stones, and, coming and going I find him by
the roadside, smiling in spite of his age and his wrinkles, benevolent,
speaking--above all in dark days--those simple words of brave men, which
have so much effect when they are scanned to the breaking of stones.

It would be quite impossible to express the emotion the sight of this
simple man gives me, and certainly he has no suspicion of it. I know of
nothing more reassuring and at the same time more searching for the
vanity which ferments in our hearts, than this coming face to face with
an obscure worker who does his task as the oak grows and as the good God
makes his sun to rise, without asking who is looking on.

I have known, too, a number of old teachers, men and women who have
passed their whole life at the same occupation--making the rudiments of
human knowledge and a few principles of conduct penetrate heads
sometimes harder than the rocks. They have done it with their whole
soul, throughout the length of a hard life in which the attention of men
had little place. When they lie in their unknown graves, no one
remembers them but a few humble people like themselves. But their
recompense is in their love. No one is greater than these unknown.

How many hidden virtues may one not discover--if he know how to
search--among people of a class he often ridicules without perceiving
th