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diff --git a/old/3489.txt b/old/3489.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..77c8a11 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/3489.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8384 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Fabre, Poet of Science by Legros +Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the laws for your country before redistributing these files!!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. + +Please do not remove this. + +This should be the first thing seen when anyone opens the book. +Do not change or edit it without written permission. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.12.12.00*END* + + + + + +This etext was produced by Sue Asscher <asschers@dingoblue.net.au> + + + + + +FABRE, POET OF SCIENCE + +by DR. G.-V. LEGROS. + + + + +"De fimo ad excelsa." +J.-H. Fabre. + +WITH A PREFACE BY JEAN-HENRI FABRE. + +TRANSLATED BY BERNARD MIALL. + + + + +PREFACE. + +The good friend who has so successfully terminated the task which he felt a +vocation to undertake thought it would be of advantage to complete it by +presenting to the reader a picture both of my life as a whole and of the +work which it has been given me to accomplish. + +The better to accomplish his undertaking, he abstracted from my +correspondence, as well as from the long conversations which we have so +often enjoyed together, a great number of those memories of varying +importance which serve as landmarks in life; above all in a life like mine, +not exempt from many cares, yet not very fruitful in incidents or great +vicissitudes, since it has been passed very largely, in especial during the +last thirty years, in the most absolute retirement and the completest +silence. + +Moreover, it was not unimportant to warn the public against the errors, +exaggerations, and legends which have collected about my person, and thus +to set all things in their true light. + +In undertaking this task my devoted disciple has to some extent been able +to replace those "Memoirs" which he suggested that I should write, and +which only my bad health has prevented me from undertaking; for I feel that +henceforth I am done with wide horizons and "far-reaching thoughts." + +And yet on reading now the old letters which he has exhumed from a mass of +old yellow papers, and which he has presented and co-ordinated with so +pious a care, it seems to me that in the depths of my being I can still +feel rising in me all the fever of my early years, all the enthusiasm of +long ago, and that I should still be no less ardent a worker were not the +weakness of my eyes and the failure of my strength to-day an insurmountable +obstacle. + +Thoroughly grasping the fact that one cannot write a biography without +entering into the sphere of those ideas which alone make a life +interesting, he has revived around me that world which I have so long +contemplated, and summarized in a striking epitome, and as a strict +interpreter, my methods (which are, as will be seen, within the reach of +all), my ideas, and the whole body of my works and discoveries; and despite +the obvious difficulty which such an attempt would appear to present, he +has succeeded most wonderfully in achieving the most lucid, complete, and +vital exposition of these matters that I could possibly have wished. + +Jean-Henri Fabre. + +Sérignan, Vaucluse, +November 12, 1911. + + +CONTENTS. + + +PREFACE. + + +INTRODUCTION. + + +CHAPTER 1. THE INTUITION OF NATURE. + + +CHAPTER 2. THE PRIMARY TEACHER. + + +CHAPTER 3. CORSICA. + + +CHAPTER 4. AT AVIGNON. + + +CHAPTER 5. A GREAT TEACHER. + + +CHAPTER 6. THE HERMITAGE. + + +CHAPTER 7. THE INTERPRETATION OF NATURE. + + +CHAPTER 8. THE MIRACLE OF INSTINCT. + + +CHAPTER 9. EVOLUTION OR "TRANSFORMISM." + + +CHAPTER 10. THE ANIMAL MIND. + + +CHAPTER 11. HARMONIES AND DISCORDS. + + +CHAPTER 12. THE TRANSLATION OF NATURE. + + +CHAPTER 13. THE EPIC OF ANIMAL LIFE. + + +CHAPTER 14. PARALLEL LIVES. + + +CHAPTER 15. THE EVENINGS AT SÉRIGNAN. + + +CHAPTER 16. TWILIGHT. + + +NOTES. + + +INDEX. + + + +INTRODUCTION. + +Here I offer to the public the life of Jean-Henri Fabre; at once an +admiring commentary upon his work and an act of pious homage, such as ought +to be offered, while he lives, to the great naturalist who is even to-day +so little known. + +Hitherto it was not easy to speak of Henri Fabre with exactitude. An enemy +to all advertisement, he has so discreetly held himself withdrawn that one +might almost say that he has encouraged, by his silence, many doubtful or +unfounded rumours, which in course of time would become even more +incorrect. + +For example, although quite recently his material situation was presented +in the gloomiest of lights, while it had really for some time ceased to be +precarious, it is none the less true that during his whole life he has had +to labour prodigiously in order to earn a little money to feed and rear his +family, to the great detriment of his scientific inquiries; and we cannot +but regret that he was not freed from all material cares at least twenty +years earlier than was the case. + +But he was not one to speak of his troubles to the first comer; and it was +only after the sixth volume of the "Souvenirs entomologiques" had appeared +that his reserve was somewhat mitigated. Yet it was necessary that he +should speak of these troubles, that he should tell everything; and, thanks +to his conversation and his letters, I have been able to revive the past. + +Among the greatest of my pleasures I count the notable honour of having +known him, and intimately. As an absorbed and attentive witness I was +present at the accomplishment of his last labours; I watched his last years +of work, so critical, so touching, so forsaken, before his ultimate +resurrection. What fruitful and suggestive lessons I learned in his +company, as we paced the winding paths of his Harmas; or while I sat beside +him, at his patriarchal table, interrogating that memory of his, so rich in +remembrances that even the remotest events of his life were as near to him +as those that had only then befallen him; so that the majority of the +judgments to be found in this book, of which not a line has been written +without his approval, may be regarded as the direct emanation of his mind. + +As far as possible I have allowed him to speak himself. Has he not sketched +the finest pages of his "biography of a solitary student" in those racy +chapters of his "Souvenirs": those in which he has developed his genesis as +a naturalist and the history of the evolution of his ideas? +(Introduction/1.) In all cases I have only introduced such indications as +were essential to complete the sequence of events. It would have been idle +to re-tell in the same terms what every one may read elsewhere, or to +repeat in different and less happy terms what Fabre himself has told so +well. + +I have therefore applied myself more especially to filling the gaps which +he has left, by listening to his conversation, by appealing to his +memories, by questioning his contemporaries, by recording the impressions +of his sometime pupils. I have endeavoured to assemble all these data, in +order to authenticate them, and have also gleaned many facts among his +manuscripts (Introduction/2.), and have had recourse to all that portion of +his correspondence which fortunately fell into my hands. + +This correspondence, to be truthful, does not appear at any time to have +been very assiduous. Fabre, as we shall see in the story of his life +(Introduction/3.), disliked writing letters, both in his studious youth and +during the later period of isolation and silence. + +On the other hand, although he wrote but little, he never wrote with +difficulty or as a mere matter of duty. Among all the letters which I have +succeeded in collecting there are scarcely any that are not of interest +from one point of view or another. No frivolous narratives, no futile +acquaintances, no commonplace intimacies; everything in his life is +serious, and everything makes for a goal. + +But we must set apart, as surpassing all others in interest, the letters +which Fabre addressed to his brother during the years spent as schoolmaster +at Carpentras or Ajaccio; for these are more especially instructive in +respect of the almost unknown years of his youth; these most of all reveal +his personality and are one of the finest illustrations that could be given +of his life, a true poem of energy and disinterested labour. + +I have to thank M. Frédéric Fabre, who, in his fraternal piety, has +generously placed all his family records at my disposal, and also his two +sons, my dear friends Antonin Fabre, councillor at the Court of Nîmes, and +Henri Fabre, of Avignon, for these precious documents; and I take this +opportunity of expressing my profound gratitude. + +Let me at the same time thank all those who have associated themselves with +my efforts by supplying me with letters in their possession and furnishing +me with personal information; and in particular Mme Henry Devillario, M. +Achard, and M. J. Belleudy, ex-prefect of Vaucluse; not forgetting M. Louis +Charrasse, teacher at Beaumont-d'Orange, and M. Vayssières, professor of +the Faculty of Sciences at Marseilles, all of whom I have to thank for +personal and intimate information. + +I must also express my gratitude to M. Henri Bergson, Professor Bouvier, +and the learned M. Paul Marchal for the advice and the valuable suggestions +which they offered me during the preparation of this book. + +I shall feel fully repaid for my pains if this "Life" of one of the +greatest of the world's naturalists, by enabling men to know him better, +also leads them to love him the more. + + +FABRE, POET OF SCIENCE. + + +CHAPTER 1. THE INTUITION OF NATURE. + +Each thing created, says Emerson, has its painter or its poet. Like the +enchanted princess of the fairy-tales, it awaits its predestined liberator. + +Every part of nature has its mystery and its beauty, its logic and its +explanation; and the epigraph given me by Fabre himself, which appears on +the title-page of this volume, is in no way deceptive. The tiny insects +buried in the soil or creeping over leaf or blade have for him been +sufficient to evoke the most important, the most fascinating problems, and +have revealed a whole world of miracle and poetry. + +He saw the light at Saint-Léons, a little commune of the canton of Vezins +in the Haut Rouergue, on the 22nd December, 1823, some seven years earlier +than Mistral, his most famous neighbour, the greater lustre of whose +celebrity was to eclipse his own. + +Here he essayed his earliest steps; here he stammered his first syllables. + +His early childhood, however, was passed almost wholly at Malaval, a tiny +hamlet in the parish of Lavaysse, whose belfry was visible at quite a short +distance; but to reach it one had to travel nearly twenty-five rough, +mountainous miles, through a whole green countryside; green, but bare, and +lacking in charm. (1/1.) + +All his paternal forebears came from Malaval, and thence one day his +father, Antoine Fabre, came to dwell at Saint-Léons, as a consequence of +his marriage with the daughter of the huissier, Victoire Salgues, and in +order to prepare himself, as working apprentice, in the tricks and quibbles +of the law. (1/2.) + +In the roads of Malaval, bordered with brambles, in the glades of bracken, +and amid the meadows of broom, he received his first impressions of nature. +At Malaval too lived his grandmother, the good old woman who could lull him +to sleep at night with beautiful stories and simple legends, while she +wound her distaff or spun her bobbin. + +But what were all these imaginary marvels, what were the ogres who smelt +fresh meat, or "the fairies who turned pumpkins into coaches and lizards +into footmen" beside all the marvels of reality, which already he was +beginning to perceive? + +For above all things he was born a poet: a poet by instinct and by +vocation. From his earliest childhood, "the brain hardly released from the +swaddling-bands of unconsciousness," the things of the outer world left a +profound and living impression. As far back as he can remember, while still +quite a child, "a little monkey of six, still dressed in a little baize +frock," or just "wearing his first braces," he sees himself "in ecstasy +before the splendours of the wing-cases of a gardener-beetle, or the wings +of a butterfly." At nightfall, among the bushes, he learned to recognize +the chirp of the grasshopper. To put it in his own words, "he made for the +flowers and insects as the Pieris makes for the cabbage and the Vanessa +makes for the nettle." The riches of the rocks; the life which swarms in +the depth of the waters; the world of plants and animals, that "prodigious +poem; all nature filled him with curiosity and wonder." "A voice charmed +him; untranslatable; sweeter than language and vague as a dream." (1/3.) + +These peculiarities are all the more astonishing in that they seem to be +absolutely spontaneous and in nowise hereditary. What his parents were he +himself has told us: small farmers, cultivating a little unprofitable land; +poor "husbandmen, sowers of rye, cowherds"; and in the wretched +surroundings of his childhood, when the only light, of an evening, came +from a splinter of pine, steeped in resin, which was held by a strip of +slate stuck into the wall; when his folk shut themselves in the byre, in +times of severe cold, to save a little firewood and while away the +evenings; when close at hand, through the bitter wind, they heard the +howling of the wolves: here, it would seem, was nothing propitious to the +birth of such tastes, if he had not borne them naturally within him. + +But is it not the very essence of genius, as it is the peculiarity of +instinct, to spring from the depths of the invisible? + +Yet who shall say what stores of thought unspoken, what unknown treasures +of observation never to be communicated, what patient reflections +unuttered, may be housed in those toil-worn brains, in which, perhaps, +slowly and obscurely, accumulate the germs of faculties and talents by +which some more favoured descendant may one day benefit? How many poets +have died unpublished or unperceived, in whom only the power of expression +was lacking! + +When he was seven years old his parents recalled him to Saint-Léons, in +order to send him to the school kept by his godfather, Pierre Ricard, the +village schoolmaster, "at once barber, bellringer, and singer in the +choir." Rembrandt, Teniers, nor Van Ostade never painted anything more +picturesque than the room which served at the same time as kitchen, +refectory, and bedroom, with "halfpenny prints papering the walls" and "a +huge chimney, for which each had to bring his log of a morning in order to +enjoy the right to a place at the fireside." + +He was never to forget these beloved places, blessed scenes of his +childhood, amid which he grew up like a little savage, and through all his +material sufferings, all his hours of bitterness, and even in the +resignation of age, their idyllic memory sufficed to make his life +fragrant. He would always see the humble paternal garden, the brook where +he used to surprise the crayfish, the ash-tree in which he found his first +goldfinch's nest, and "the flat stone on which he heard, for the first +time, the mellow ringing of the bellringer frog." (1/4.) Later, when +writing to his brother, he was to recall the good days of still careless +life, when "he would sprawl, the sun on his belly, on the mosses of the +wood of Vezins, eating his black bread and cream" or "ring the bells of +Saint-Léons" and "pull the tails of the bulls of Lavaysse." (1/5.) + +For Henri had a brother, Frédéric, barely two years younger than he; +equally meditative by nature, and of a serious, upright mind; but his +tastes inclined rather to matters of administration and the understanding +of business, so that where Frédéric was bored, Henri was more than content, +thirstily drinking in science and poetry "among the blue campanulas of the +hills, the pink heather of the mountains, the golden buttercups of the +meadows, and the odorous bracken of the woods." (1/6.) Apart from this the +two brothers "were one"; they understood one another in a marvellous +fashion, and always loved one another. Henri never failed to watch over +Frédéric with a wholly fatherly solicitude; he was prodigal of advice, +helpful with his experience, doing his best to smooth away all +difficulties, encouraging him to walk in his footsteps and make his way +through the world behind him. He was his confidant, giving an ear to all +that befell him of good or ill; to his fears, his disappointments, his +hopes, and all his thoughts; and he took the keenest interest in his +studies and researches. On the other hand, he had no more sure and devoted +friend; none more proud of his first success, and in later days no more +enthusiastic admirer, and none more eager for his fame. (1/7.) + +He was twelve years old when his father, "the first of all his line, was +tempted by the town," and led all his family to Rodez, there to keep a +café. The future naturalist entered the school of this town, where he +served Mass on Sunday, in the chapel, in order to pay his fees. There again +he was interested in the animal creation above all. When he began to +construe Virgil the only thing that charmed him, and which he remembered, +was the landscape in which the persons of the poem move, in which are so +many "exquisite details concerning the cicada, the goat, and the laburnum." + +Thus four years went by: but then his parents were constrained to seek +their fortune elsewhere, and transported their household to Toulouse, where +again the father kept a café. The young Henri was admitted gratuitously to +the seminary of the Esquille, where he managed to complete his fifth year. +Unfortunately his progress was soon interrupted by a new exodus on the part +of his family, which emigrated this time to Montpellier, where he was +haunted for a time by dreams of medicine, to which he seemed notably +adapted. Finally, a run of bad luck persisting, he had to bid farewell to +his studies and gain his bread as best he could. We see him set out along +the wide white roads: lost, almost a wanderer, seeking his living by the +sweat of his brow; one day selling lemons at the fair of Beaucaire, under +the arcades of the market or before the barracks of the Pré; another day +enlisting in a gang of labourers who were working on the line from +Beaucaire to Nîmes, which was then in process of construction. He knew +gloomy days, lonely and despairing. What was he doing? of what was he +dreaming? The love of nature and the passion for learning sustained him in +spite of all, and often served him as nourishment; as on the day when he +dined on a few grapes, plucked furtively at the edge of a field, after +exchanging the poor remnant of his last halfpence for a little volume of +Reboul's poems; soothing his hunger by reciting the verses of the gentle +baker-poet. Often some creature kept him company; some insect never seen +before was often his greatest pleasure; such as the pine-chafer, which he +encountered then for the first time; that superb beetle, whose black or +chestnut coat is sprinkled with specks of white velvet; which squeaks when +captured, emitting a slight complaining sound, like the vibration of a pane +of glass rubbed with the tip of a moistened finger. (1/8.) + +Already this young mind, romantic and classic at once, full of the ideal, +and so positive that it seemed to seek support in an intense grasp of +things and beings--two gifts well-nigh incompatible, and often mutually +destructive--already it knew, not only the love of study and a passion for +the truth, but the sovereign delight of feeling everything and +understanding everything. + +It was under these conditions--that is, amid the rudest privations--that he +ventured to enter a competitive examination for a bursary at the École +Normale Primaire of Avignon; and his will-power realized this first miracle +of his career--he straightway obtained the highest place. + +In those days, when education had barely reached the lower classes, the +instruction given in the primary normal school was still of the most +summary. Spelling, arithmetic, and geometry practically exhausted its +resources. As for natural history, a poor despised science, almost unknown, +no one dreamed of it, and no one learned or taught it; the syllabus ignored +it, because it led to nothing. For Fabre only, notwithstanding, it was his +fixed idea, his constant preoccupation, and "while the dictation class was +busy around him, he would examine, in the secrecy of his desk, the sting of +a wasp or the fruit of the oleander," and intoxicate himself with poetry. +(1/9.) His pedagogic studies suffered thereby, and the first part of his +stay at the normal school was by no means extremely brilliant. In the +middle of his second year he was declared idle, and even marked as an +insufficient pupil and of mediocre intelligence. Stung to the quick, he +begged as a favour that he should be given the opportunity of following the +third year's course in the six months that remained, and he made such an +effort that at the end of the year he victoriously won his superior +certificate. (1/10.) + +A year in advance of the regulation studies, his curiosity might now +exercise itself freely in every direction, and little by little it became +universal. A chance chemistry lesson finally awakened in him the appetite +for knowledge, the passion for all the sciences, of which he thirsted to +know at least the elements. Between whiles he returned to his Latin, +translating Horace and re-reading Virgil. One day his director put an +"Imitation" into his hands, with double columns in Greek and Latin. The +latter, which he knew fairly well, assisted him to decipher the Greek. He +hastened to commit to memory the vocables, and idioms and phrases of all +kinds (1/11.), and in this curious fashion he learned the language. This +was his only method of learning languages. It is the process which he +recommended to his brother, who was commencing Latin: + +"Take Virgil, a dictionary, and a grammar, and translate from Latin into +French for ever and for ever; to make a good version you need only common +sense and very little grammatical knowledge or other pedantic accessories. + +"Imagine an old inscription half-effaced: correctness of judgment partly +supplies the missing words, and the sense appears as if the whole were +legible. Latin, for you, is the old inscription; the root of the word alone +is legible: the veil of an unknown language hides the value of the +termination: you have only the half of the words; but you have common sense +too, and you will make use of it." (1/12.) + + +CHAPTER 2. THE PRIMARY TEACHER. + +Furnished with his superior diploma, he left the normal school at the age +of nineteen, and commenced as a primary teacher in the College of +Carpentras. + +The salary of the school teacher, in the year 1842, did not exceed 28 +pounds sterling a year, and this ungrateful calling barely fed him, save on +"chickpeas and a little wine." But we must beware lest, in view of the +increasing and excessive dearness of living in France, the beggarly +salaries of the poor schoolmasters of a former day, so little worthy of +their labours and their social utility, appear even more disproportionately +small than they actually were. What is more to the point, the teachers had +no pension to hope for. They could only count on a perpetuity of labour, +and when sickness or infirmity arrived, when old age surprised them, after +fifty or sixty years of a narrow and precarious existence, it was not +merely poverty that awaited them; for many there was nothing but the +blackest destitution. A little later, when they began to entertain a vague +hope of deliverance, the retiring pension which was held up to their gaze, +in the distant future, was at first no more than forty francs, and they had +to await the advent of Duruy, the great minister and liberator, before +primary instruction was in some degree raised from this ignominious level +of abasement. + +It was a melancholy place, this college, "where life had something +cloistral about it: each master occupied two cells, for, in consideration +of a modest payment, the majority were lodged in the establishment, and ate +in common at the principal's table." + +It was a laborious life, full of distasteful and repugnant duties. We can +readily imagine, with the aid of the striking picture which Fabre has drawn +for us, what life was in these surroundings, and what the teaching was: +"Between four high walls I see the court, a sort of bear-pit where the +scholars quarrelled for the space beneath the boughs of a plane-tree; all +around opened the class-rooms, oozing with damp and melancholy, like so +many wild beasts' cages, deficient in light and air...for seats, a plank +fixed to the wall...in the middle a chair, the rushes of the seat departed, +a blackboard, and a stick of chalk." (2/1.) + +Let the teachers of our spacious and well-lighted schools of to-day ponder +on these not so distant years, and measure the progress accomplished. +Evoking the memory of their humble colleague of Carpentras, may they feel +the true greatness of his example: a noble and a glorious example, of which +they may well be proud. + +And what pupils! "Dirty, unmannerly: fifty young scoundrels, children or +big lads, with whom," no doubt, "he used to squabble," but whom, after all, +he contrived to manage, and by whom he was listened to and respected: for +he knew precisely what to say to them, and how, while talking lightly, to +teach them the most serious things. For the joy of teaching, and of +continually learning by teaching others, made everything endurable. Not +only did he teach them to read, write, and cipher, which then included +almost the entire programme of primary education; he endeavoured also to +place his own knowledge at their service, as he himself acquired it. + +It was not only his love of the work that sustained him; it was the desire +to escape from the rut, to accomplish yet another stage; to emerge, in +short, from so unsatisfactory a position. Now nothing but physical and +mathematical science would allow him to entertain the hope of "making an +opening" in the world of secondary schoolmasters. He accordingly began to +study physics, quite alone, "with an impossible laboratory, experimenting +after his own fashion"; and it was by teaching them to his pupils that he +learned first of all chemistry, inexpensively performing little elementary +experiments before them, "with pipe-bowls for crucibles and aniseed flasks +for retorts," and finally algebra, of which he knew not a word before he +gave his first lesson. (2/2.) + +How he studied, what was the secret of his method, he told his brother a +few years later, when the latter, marking time behind him, was pursuing the +same career. A very disappointing career, no doubt, and far from lucrative, +but "one of the noblest; one of those best fitted for a noble spirit, and a +lover of the good." (2/3.) + +Listen to the lesson which he gives his brother: + +"To-day is Thursday; nothing calls you out of doors; you choose a +thoroughly quiet retreat, where the light is not too strong. There you are, +elbows on table, your thumbs to your ears, and a book in front of you. The +intelligence awakes; the will holds the reins of it; the outer world +disappears, the ear no longer hears, the eye no longer sees, the body no +longer exists; the mind schools itself, recollects itself; it is finding +knowledge, and its insight increases. Then the hours pass quickly, quickly; +time has no measure. Now it is evening. What a day, great God! But hosts of +truths are grouped in the memory; the difficulties which checked you +yesterday have fused in the fire of reflection; volumes have been devoured, +and you are content with your day... + +"When something embarrasses you do not abuse the help of your colleagues; +with assistance the difficulty is only evaded; with patience and reflection +IT IS OVERTHROWN. Moreover, one knows thoroughly only what one learns +oneself; and I advise you earnestly, as far as possible, to have recourse +to no aid other than reflection, above all for the sciences. A book of +science is an enigma to be deciphered; if some one gives you the key of the +enigma nothing appears more simple and more natural than the explanation, +but if a second enigma presents itself you will be as unskilful as you were +with the first... + +"It is probable that you will get the chance of a few lessons; do not by +preference accept the easier and more lucrative, but rather the more +difficult, even when the subject is one of which as yet you know nothing. +The self-esteem which will not allow one's true character to be seen is a +powerful aid to the will. Do not forget the method of Jules Janin, running +from house to house in Paris for a few wretched lessons in Latin: 'Unable +to get anything out of my stupid pupils, with the besotted son of the +marquis I was simultaneously pupil and professor: I explained the ancient +authors to myself, and so, in a few months, I went through an excellent +course of rhetoric...' + +"Above all you must not be discouraged; time is nothing provided the will +is always alert, always active, and never distracted; 'strength will come +as you travel.' + +"Try only for a few days this method of working, in which the whole energy, +concentrated on one point, explodes like a mine and shatters obstacles; try +for a few days the force of patience, strength, and perseverance; and you +will see that nothing is impossible!" (2/4.) + +These serious reflections show very clearly that his mind was already as +mature, as earnest, and as concentrated as it was ever to be. + +Not only did he join example to precept; he looked about him and began to +observe nature in her own house. The doings of the Mason-bee, which he +encountered for the first time, aroused his interest to such a pitch that, +being no longer able to constrain his curiosity, he bought--at the cost of +what privations!--Blanchard's "Natural History of the Articulata," then a +classic work, which he was to re-read a hundred times, and which he still +retains, giving it the first place in his modest library, in memory of his +early joys and emotions. + +The rocks also arrested and captivated his attention: and already the first +volumes were corpulent of what was eventually to become his gigantic +herbiary. His brother, about to leave for Vezins on vacation, was told of +the specimens which he wanted to complete his collection; for although he +had never set foot there since his first departure, he recalled, with +remarkable precision, all the plants that grew in his native countryside; +their haunts, their singularities, and the characteristics by which one +could not fail to recognize them: as well as all the places which they +chose by preference, where he used to wander as an urchin; the Parnassia +palustris, "which springs up in the damp meadows, below the beech-wood to +the west of the village; which bears a superb white flower at the top of a +slightly twisted stem, having an oval leaf about its middle"; the purple +digitalis, "whose long spindles of great red flowers, speckled with white +inside, and shaped like the fingers of a glove," border a certain road; all +the ferns that grow on the wastes, "amid which it is often no easy task to +recollect one's whereabouts," and on the arid hills all the heathers, pink, +white, and bluish, with different foliage, "of which the innumerable +species do not, however, very greatly differ." Nothing is to be neglected; +"every plant, whatever it may be, great or little, rare or common, were it +only a frond of moss, may have its interest." (2/5.) + +Never weary of work, he accumulated all these treasures in his little +museum, in order to study them the better; he collected all the coins +exhumed from this ancient soil, formerly Roman, "records of humanity more +eloquent than books," and which revealed to him the only method of learning +and actually re-living history: for he saw in knowledge not merely a means +of gaining his bread, but "something nobler; the means of raising the +spirit in the contemplation of the truth, of isolating it at will from the +miseries of reality, so to find, in these intellectual regions, the only +hours of happiness that we may be permitted to taste." (2/6.) + +Fabre was so steeped in this passion for knowledge that he wished to evoke +it in his brother, now teacher at Lapalud, on the Rhône, not far from +Orange. It seemed to him that he would delight in his wealth still better +could he share it with another. (2/7.) He stimulated him, pricked him on, +and sought to encourage the remarkable aptitude for mathematics with which +he believed him endowed. He employed his whole strength in breathing into +the other's mind "that taste for the true and the beautiful" which +possessed his own nature; he wished to share with him those stores of +learning "which he had for some years so painfully amassed"; he would +profit by the vacation to place them at his disposal; they would work +together "and the light would come." Above all his brother must not allow +his intelligence to slumber, must beware of "extinguishing that divine +light without which one can, it is true, attend to one's business, but +which alone can make a man honourable and respected." + +Let him, on the contrary, cultivate his mind incessantly, "the only +patrimony on which either of us can count"; the reward would be his moral +well-being, and, he hoped, his physical welfare also. + +Once more he reinforced his advice by that excellent counsel which was +always his own lodestar: + +"Science, Frédéric, knowledge is everything...You are too good a thinker +not to say with me that no one can better employ his time than by acquiring +fresh knowledge...Work, then, when you have the opportunity...an +opportunity that very few may possess, and for which you ought to be only +too thankful. But I will stop, for I feel my enthusiasm is going to my +head, and my reasons are so good already that I have no need of still more +triumphant reasons to convince you." (2/8.) + +He had only one passion: shooting; more especially the shooting of larks. +This sport delighted him, "with the mirror darting its intermittent beams +under the rays of the morning sun amid the general scintillation of the +dewdrops and crystals of hoarfrost hanging on every blade of grass." (2/9.) + +His sight was admirably sure, and he rarely missed his aim. His passion for +shooting was always sustained by the same motive: the desire to acquire +fresh knowledge; to examine unknown creatures close at hand; to discover +what they ate and how they lived. + +Later, when he again took up his gun, it was still because of his love of +life: it was to enable him to enumerate, inventory, and interrogate his new +compatriots, his feathered fellow-citizens of Sérignan; to inform himself +of their diet, to reveal the contents of their crops and gizzards. + +At one time he suddenly ceased to employ this distraction; he seems to have +sacrificed it easily, under the stress of present necessities and cruel +anxieties as to his uncertain future. "When we do not know where we shall +be tomorrow nothing can distract us." (2/10.) + +His responsibilities were increasing. He had lately married. On the 30th +October, 1844, he was wedded to a young girl of Carpentras, Marie Villard, +and already a child was born. His parents, always unlucky, met nowhere with +any success. By dint of many wanderings they had finally become stranded at +Pierrelatte, the chief town of the canton of La Drôme, sheltered by the +great rock which has given the place its name; and there again, of course, +they kept a café, situated on the Place d'Armes. + +The whole family was now assembled in the same district, a few miles only +one from another: but Henri was really its head. Having heard that a +quarrel had arisen between his brother and his mother, he wrote to Frédéric +in reprimand; gently scolding him and begging him to set matters right, +"even if all the wrongs were not on his side." + +"My father, in one of his letters, complains that in spite of your nearness +you have not yet been to see them. I know very well there is some reason +for sulking; but what matter? Give it up: forget everything; do your best +to put an end to all these petty and ugly estrangements. You will do so, +won't you? I count on it, for the happiness of all." (2/11.) + +He was their arbitrator, their adviser, their oracle, their bond of union. + +With all this, he was ready to attempt the two examinations which were to +decide his future. Very shortly, at Montpellier, he passed almost +successively, at an interval of only a few months the examinations for both +his baccalauréats; and then the two licentiate examinations in mathematics +and physical science. + +While he was ardently studying for these examinations, sorrow for the first +time knocked at his door. His first-born fell suddenly ill, and in a few +days died. On this occasion all his ardent spirituality asserted itself, +though in stricken accents, in the letter which he wrote to his brother to +announce his loss: + +"After a few days of a marked improvement, which made me think he was +saved, two large teeth were cut...and in three days a dreadful fever took +him, not from us, who will follow him, but from this miserable world. Ah, +poor child, I shall always see you as you were during those last moments, +turning those wide, wandering eyes toward heaven, seeking the way to your +new country. With a heart full of tears, I shall often let my thoughts go +straying after you; but alas! with the eyes of the body I shall never see +you again. I shall see you no more: yet only a few days ago I was making +the finest plans for you. I used to work for you only; in my studies I +thought only of you. Grow up, I used to say, and I will pour into your mind +all the knowledge which has cost me so dear, which I am hoarding little by +little...But reflection leads me to higher thoughts. I choke back the tears +in my heart, and I congratulate him that Heaven has mercifully spared him +this life of trials...My poor child...you will never, like your father, +have to struggle against poverty and misfortune; you will never know the +bitterness of life, and the difficulties of creating a position at a time +when there are so many paths that lead to failure...I weep for you because +we have lost you, but I rejoice because you are happy...You are happy, and +this is not the mad hope of a father broken by sorrow; no, your last glance +told me so, too eloquently for me to doubt it. Oh, how beautiful you were +in your mortal pallor; the last sigh on your lips, your gaze upon heaven, +and your soul ready to fly into the bosom of God! Your last day was the +most beautiful!" (2/12.) + +Although study was his refuge, although he was thereby able to live through +these evil days without too greatly feeling their weight, his position was +hateful, and he lived a wretched life "from one day to another, like a +beggar." + +In those troublous times, when education was of no account, it often +happened that his teacher's salary was several months in arrears, and the +city of Carpentras, "not being in funds," paid it only by instalments, and +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 +of "Carpentras, that accursed little hole"; and when the vacations came +round once more he "plainly considered the question" and declared "that he +would never again set foot inside a communal school." (2/14.) + +He wrote to the rector: "If instead of crushing me into the narrow round of +a primary school they would give me some employment of the kind for which +my studies and ideas fit me, they would know then what is hatching in my +head and what untirable activity there is in me." (2/15.) + +He resigned himself nevertheless; he cursed and swore and stormed at his +fate; but he had once more to put up with it "for want of a better." All +the same "the injustice was too unheard-of, and no one had ever seen or +would ever see the like: to give him two licentiate's diplomas, and to make +him conjugate verbs for a pack of brats! It was too much!" (2/16.) + + +CHAPTER 3. CORSICA. + +At last the chair of physics fell vacant at the college of Ajaccio, the +salary being 72 pounds sterling, and he left for Corsica. His stay there +was well calculated to impress him. There the intense impressionability +which the little peasant of Aveyron received at birth could only be +confirmed and increased. He felt that this superb and luxuriant nature was +made for him, and that he was born for it; to understand and interpret it. +He would lose himself in a delicious intoxication, amid the deep woodlands, +the mountains rich with scented flowers, wandering through the maquis, the +myrtle scrub, through jungles of lentisk and arbutus; barely containing his +emotion when he passed beneath the great secular chestnut-trees of +Bastelica, with their enormous trunks and leafy boughs, whose sombre +majesty inspired in him a sort of melancholy at once poetic and religious. +Before the sea, with its infinite distances, he lingered in ecstasy, +listening to the song of the waves, and gathering the marvellous shells +which the snow-white breakers left upon the beach, and whose unfamiliar +forms filled him with delight. + +He was soon so accustomed to his new life in peaceful Ajaccio, whose +surroundings, decked in eternal verdure, are so captivating and so +beautiful, that in spite of a vague desire for change he now dreaded to +leave it. He never wearied of admiring and exalting the beautiful and +majestic aspects of his new home. How he longed to share his enthusiasm +with his father or his brother, as he rambled through the neighbouring +maquis! + +"The infinite, glittering sea at my feet, the dreadful masses of granite +overhead, the white, dainty town seated beside the water, the endless +jungles of myrtle, which yield intoxicating perfumes, the wastes of +brushwood which the ploughshare has never turned, which cover the mountains +from base to summit; the fishing-boats that plough the gulf: all this forms +a prospect so magnificent, so striking, that whosoever has beheld it must +always long to see it again." (3/1.) + +"What is their rock of Pierrelatte, that enormous block of stone which +overhangs the place where they dwell, a reef which rises from the surface +of the ancient sea of alluvium, compared with these blocks of uprooted +granite which lie upon the hillsides here?" + +And what were the Aubrac hills which traversed his native country; what was +the Ventoux even, that famous Alp, "beside the peaks which rise about the +gulf of Ajaccio, always crowned with clouds and whitened with snow, even +when the soil of the plains is scorching and rings like a fired brick?" + +Time did nothing to abate these first impressions, and after more than a +year on the island he was still full of wonder "at the sight of these +granite crests, corroded by the severities of the climate, jagged, +overthrown by the lightning, shattered by the slow but sure action of the +snows, and these vertiginous gulfs through which the four winds of heaven +go roaring; these vast inclined planes on which snow-drifts form thirty, +sixty, and ninety feet in depth, and across which flow winding watercourses +which go to fill, drop by drop, the yawning craters, there to form lakes, +black as ink when seen in the shadow, but blue as heaven in the light... + +"But it would be impossible for me to give you the least idea of this dizzy +spectacle, this chaos of rocks, heaped in frightful disorder. When, closing +my eyes, I contemplate these results of the convulsion of the soil in my +mind's eye, when I hear the screaming of the eagles, which go wheeling +through the bottomless abysses, whose inky shadows the eye dares hardly +plumb, vertigo seizes me, and I open my eyes to reassure myself by the +reality." + +And he sends with his letter a few leaves of the snow immortelle--the +edelweiss--plucked on the highest summits, amid the eternal snows; "you +will put this in some book, and when, as you turn the leaves, the +immortelle meets your eyes, it will give you an excuse for dreaming of the +beautiful horrors of its native place." (3/2.) + +What a misfortune for him, what regret he would feel, "if he had now to go +to some trivial country of plains, where he would die of boredom!" + +For him everything was unfamiliar: not only the flora, but the maritime +wealth of this singular country. He would set out of a morning, visiting +the coves and creeks, roving along the beaches of this magnificent gulf, a +lump of bread in his pocket, quenching his thirst with sea-water in default +of fresh! + +They were mornings full of rosy illusions, whose smiling hopes were +revealed in his admirable letters to his brother. Already he meditated a +conchology of Corsica, a colossal history of all the molluscs which live +upon its soil or in its waters. (3/3.) He collected all the shells he could +procure. He analysed, described, classed, and co-ordinated not only the +marine species, but the terrestrial and freshwater shells also, extant or +fossil. He asked his brother to collect for him all the shells he could +find in the marshes of Lapalud, in the brooks and ditches of the +neighbourhood of Orange. In his enthusiasm he tried to convince him of the +immense interest of these researches, which might perhaps seem ridiculous +or futile to him; but let him only think of geology; the humblest shell +picked up might throw a sudden light upon the formation of this or that +stratum. None are to be disdained: for men have considered, with reason, +that they were honouring the memory of their eminent fellows by giving +their names to the rarest and most beautiful. Witness the magnificent Helix +dedicated to Raspail, which is found only in the caverns where the +strawberry-tree grows amid the high mountains of Corsica. (3/4.) + +Moreover, he said, "the infinitesimal calculus of Leibnitz will show you +that the architecture of the Louvre is less learned than that of a snail: +the eternal geometer has unrolled his transcendent spirals on the shell of +the mollusc that you, like the vulgar profane, know only seasoned with +spinach and Dutch cheese." (3/5.) + +For all that, he did not neglect his mathematics, in which, on the +contrary, he found abundant and suggestive recreation. The properties of a +figure or a curve which he had newly discovered prevented his sleep for +several nights. + +"All this morning I have been busy with star-shaped polygons, and have +proceeded from surprise to surprise...perceiving in the distance, as I +advanced, unforeseen and marvellous consequences." + +Here, among others, is one question which suddenly presented itself to his +mind "in the midst of the spikes" of his polygons: what would be the period +of the rotation of the sun on its own centre if its atmosphere reached as +far as the earth? And this question gave rise to another, "without which +the sequence stops then and there; number, space, movement, and order form +a single chain, the first link of which sets all the rest in motion." +(3/6.) And the hours went by quickly, so quickly with "x," the plants and +the shells, that "literally there was no time to eat." + +For Fabre was born a poet, and mathematics borders upon poetry; he saw in +algebra "the most magnificent flights," and the figures of analytical +geometry unrolled themselves in his imagination "in superb strophes"; the +Ellipse, "the trajectory of the planets, with its two related foci, sending +from one to the other a constant sum of vector radii"; the Hyperbole, "with +repulsive foci, the desperate curve which plunges into space in infinite +tentacles, approaching closer and closer to a straight line, the asymptote, +without ever finally attaining it"; the Parabola, "which seeks fruitlessly +in the infinite for its second, lost centre: it is the trajectory of the +bomb: it is the path of certain comets which come one day to visit our sun, +then flee into the depths whence they never return." (3/7.) + +And one fine morning we behold him mounting, thrilled by a lyric passion, +to the lofty regions in which Number, "irresistible, omnipotent, keystone +of the vault of the universe, rules at once Time and Space." He ascends, he +rushes forward, farther than the chariot-- + +"Beyond the Husbandman who ploughs in space +And sows the suns in furrows of the skies." + +He ascends those tracks of flame, where on high + + "in those lists inane +Wise regulator, Number holds the reins + Of those indomitable steeds; +Number has set a bit i' the foaming mouths +Of these Leviathans, and with nervous hand + Controls them in their tracks; + +Their smoking flanks beneath the yoke in vain +Quiver; their nostrils vainly void as foam +Dense tides of lava; and in vain they rear; +For Number on their mettled haunches poised +Holds them, or duly with the rein controls, +Or in their flanks buries his spur divine." (3/8.) + +Later he confessed all that he owed, as a writer, to geometry, whose severe +discipline forms and exercises the mind, gives it the salutary habit of +precision and lucidity, and puts it on its guard against terms which are +incorrect or unduly vague, giving it qualities far superior to all the +"tropes of rhetoric." + +It was then that he became the pupil of Requien of Avignon, the retired +botanist, a lofty but somewhat limited mind, who was hardly capable of +opening up other horizons to him. But Requien did at least enrich his +memory by a prodigious quantity of names of plants with which he had not +been acquainted. He revealed to him the immense flora of Corsica, which he +himself had come to study, and for which Fabre was to gather such a vast +amount of material. + +Fabre found in Requien more especially a friend "proof against anything"; +and when the latter died almost suddenly at Bonifacio, Fabre was +overwhelmed by the sad news. On that very day he had on the table before +him a parcel of plants gathered for the dead botanist. "I cannot let my +eyes rest upon it," he wrote at the time, "without feeling my heart wrung +and my sight dim with tears." (3/9.) + +But the most admirably fruitful encounter, as it exercised the profoundest +influence upon his destiny, was his meeting with Moquin-Tandon, a Toulouse +professor who followed Requien to Corsica, to complete the work which the +latter had left unfinished: the complete inventory of the prodigious wealth +of vegetation, of the innumerable species and varieties which Fabre and he +collected together, on the slopes and summits of Monte Renoso, often +botanizing "up in the clouds, mantle on back and numb with cold." (3/10.) + +Moquin-Tandon was not merely a skilful naturalist; he was one of the most +eloquent and scholarly scientists of his time. Fabre owed to him, not his +genius, to be sure, but the definite indication of the path he was finally +to take, and from which he was never again to stray. + +Moquin-Tandon, a brilliant writer and "an ingenious poet in his +Montpellerian dialect," (3/11.) taught Fabre never to forget the value of +style and the importance of form, even in the exposition of a purely +descriptive science such as botany. He did even more, by one day suddenly +showing Fabre, between the fruit and the cheese, "in a plate of water," the +anatomy of the snail. This was his first introduction to his true destiny +before the final revelation of which I shall presently speak. Fabre +understood then and there that he could do decidedly better than to stick +to mathematics, though his whole career would feel the effects of that +study. + +"Geometers are made; naturalists are born ready-made," he wrote to his +brother, still excited by this incident, "and you know better than any one +whether natural history is not my favourite science." (3/12.) + +>From that time forward he began to collect not only dead, inert, or +dessicated forms, mere material for study, with the aim of satisfying his +curiosity; he began to dissect with ardour, a thing he had never done +before. He housed his tiny guests in his cupboard; and occupied himself, as +he was always to do in the future, with the smaller living creatures only. + +"I am dissecting the infinitely little; my scalpels are tiny daggers which +I make myself out of fine needles; my marble slab is the bottom of a +saucer; my prisoners are lodged by the dozen in old match-boxes; maxime +miranda in minimis." (3/13.) + +Roaming at night along the marshy beaches, he contracted fever, and several +terrible attacks, accompanied by alarming tremors, left him so bloodless +and feeble that, much against his will, he had to beg for relief, and even +insist upon his prompt return to the mainland. in the meantime he obtained +sick-leave, and returned to Provence after a terrible crossing which lasted +no less than three days and two nights, on a sea so furious that he gave +himself up for lost. (3/14.) + +Slowly he recovered his health, and after a second but brief stay at +Ajaccio he received the news of his appointment to the lycée of Avignon. +(3/15.) + +He returned with his imagination enriched and his mind expanded, with +settled ideas, and thoroughly ripe for his task. + + +CHAPTER 4. AT AVIGNON. + +The resolute worker resumed his indefatigable labours with an ardour +greater than ever, for now he was haunted by a noble ambition, that of +becoming a teacher of the superior grade, and of "talking plants and +animals" in a chair of the faculty. With this end in view he added to his +two diplomas--those of mathematics and physics--a third certificate, that +of natural sciences. His success was triumphant. + +Already tenacious and fearless in affirming what he believed to be the +truth, he astonished and bewildered the professors of Toulouse. Among the +subjects touched upon by the examiners was the famous question of +spontaneous generation, which was then so vital, and which gave rise to so +many impassioned discussions. The examiner, as it chanced, was one of the +leading apostles of this doctrine. The future adversary of Darwin, at the +risk of failure, did not scruple to argue with him, and to put forward his +personal convictions and his own arguments. He decided the vexed question +in his own way, on his own responsibility. A personality already so +striking was regarded with admiration; a candidate so far out of the +ordinary was welcomed with enthusiasm, and but for the insufficiency of the +budget which so scantily met the needs of public instruction his +examination fees would have been returned. (4/1.) + +Why, after this brilliant success, was Fabre not tempted to enter himself +for a fellowship, which would later in his career have averted so many +disappointments? It was doubtless because he felt, obscurely, that his +ideal future lay along other lines, and that he would have been taking a +wrong turning. Despite all the solicitations which were addressed to him he +would think of nothing but "his beloved studies in natural history" (4/2.); +he feared to lose precious time in preparing himself for a competitive +examination; "to compromise by such labour, which he felt would be +fruitless" (4/3.), the studies which he had already commenced, and the +inquiries already carried out in Corsica. He was busy with his first +original labours, the theses which he was preparing with a view to his +doctorate in natural science, "which might one day open the doors of a +faculty for him, far more easily than would a fellowship and its +mathematics." (4/4.) + +At heart he was utterly careless of dignities and degrees. He worked only +to learn, not to attain and follow up a settled calling. What he hoped +above all was to succeed in devoting all his leisure to those marvellous +natural sciences in which he could vaguely foresee studies full of +interest; something animated and vital; a thousand fascinating themes, and +an atmosphere of poetry. + +His genius, as yet invisible, was ripening in obscurity, but was ready to +come forth; he lacked only the propitious circumstance which would allow +him to unfold his wings. + +He was seeking them in vain when a volume by Léon Dufour, the famous +entomologist, who then lived in the depths of the Landes, fell by chance +into his hands, and lit the first spark of that beacon which was presently +to decide the definite trend of his ideas. + +It was this incident which then and there developed the germs already +latent within him. These had only awaited such an occasion as that which so +fortunately came to pass one evening of the winter of 1854. + +Fabre offers yet another example of the part so often played by chance in +the manifestations of talent. How many have suddenly felt the unexpected +awakening of gifts which they did not suspect, as a result of some unusual +circumstance! + +Was it not simply as a result of having read a note by the Russian chemist +Mitscherlich on the comparison of the specific characteristics of certain +crystals that Pasteur so enthusiastically took up his researches into +molecular asymmetry which were the starting-point of so many wonderful +discoveries? + +Again, we need only recall the case of Brother Huber, the celebrated +observer of the bee, who, having out of simple curiosity undertaken to +verify certain experiments of Réaumur's, was so completely and immediately +fascinated by the subject that it became the object of the rest of his +life. + +Again, we may ask what Claude Bernard would have been had he not met +Magendie? Similarly Léon Dufour's little work was to Fabre the road to +Damascus, the electric impulse which decided his vocation. + +It dealt with a very singular fact concerning the manners of one of the +hymenoptera, a wasp, a Cerceris, in whose nest Dufour had found small +coleoptera of the genus Buprestis, which, under all the appearances of +death, retained intact for an incredible time their sumptuous costume, +gleaming with gold, copper, and emerald, while the tissues remained +perfectly fresh. In a word, the victims of Cerceris, far from being +desiccated or putrefied, were found in a state of integrity which was +altogether paradoxical. + +Dufour merely believed that the Buprestes were dead, and he gave an +attempted explanation of the phenomenon. + +Fabre, his curiosity and interest aroused, wished to observe the facts for +himself; and, to his great surprise, he discovered how incomplete and +insufficiently verified were the observations of the man who was at that +time known as "the patriarch of entomologists." + +>From that moment he saw his way ahead; he suspected that there was still +much to discover and much to revise in this vast department of nature, and +conceived the idea of resuming the work so splendidly outlined by Réaumur +and the two Hubers, but almost completely neglected since the days of those +illustrious masters. He divined that here were fresh pastures, a vast +unexplored country to be opened up, an entire unimagined science to be +founded, wonderful secrets to be discovered, magnificent problems to be +solved, and he dreamed of consecrating himself unreservedly, of employing +his whole life in the pursuit of this object; that long life whose fruitful +activity was to extend over nearly ninety years, and which was to be so +"representative" by the dignity of the man, the probity of the expert, the +genius of the observer, and the originality of the writer. + +The year 1855 saw the first appearance, in the "Annales des sciences +naturelles," of the famous memoir which marked the beginning of his fame: +the history, which might well be called marvellous and incredible, of the +great Cerceris, a giant wasp and "the finest of the Hymenoptera which hunt +for booty at the foot of Mont Ventoux." (4/5.) + +Fabre was now thirty-two years old, and his situation as assistant- +professor of physics was somewhat precarious. From the 72 pounds sterling +which he drew at Ajaccio, an overseas post, his salary was reduced, on his +return to the mainland, to 64 pounds sterling, and during the whole of his +stay at Avignon he obtained neither promotion nor the smallest increase of +pay, excepting a few additional profits which were unconnected with his +habitual duties. When he left the university after twenty well-filled +years, he left as he had entered, with the same title, rank, and salary of +a mere assistant-professor. + +Yet all about him "everywhere and for every one, all was black indeed": his +family had increased and therewith his expenses; there were now seven at +table every day. Very shortly his modest salary would no longer suffice; he +was obliged to supplement it by all sorts of hack-work--classes, +"repetitions," private lessons; tasks which repelled him, for they absorbed +all his available time; they prevented him from giving himself up to his +favourite studies, to his silent and solitary observations. Nevertheless, +he acquitted himself of these duties patiently and conscientiously, for at +heart he loved his profession, and was rather a fellow-disciple than a +master to his pupils. For this reason all those about him worked with +praiseworthy assiduity; even the worst elements, the black sheep, the "bad +eggs" of other classes, with him were suddenly transformed and as attentive +as the rest. Although he knew how to keep order, how to make himself +respected, and could on occasion deal severely and speak sternly, so that +very few dared to forget themselves before him, he knew also how to be +merry with his pupils, chatting with them familiarly, putting himself in +their place, entering into their ideas, and making himself their rival. If +life was laborious under his ferula, it was also merry. The best proof of +this is the fact that of all his colleagues at the lycée he was the only +one who had no nickname, a rarity in scholastic annals. + +He did not therefore object to these lessons; but while at Carpentras he +was made much of and praised by the principal, was a general favourite, and +had perfect liberty to follow his inspiration during his partly gratuitous +classes, here the hours and the programme tied him down, which was +precisely what he found insupportable. + +Everything made things difficult for him here: his external self; his +character, ever so little shy and unsocial; his temperament, which was made +for solitude. + +In the thick of this hierarchical society of university professors he +remained independent; he knew nothing of what was said or what was +happening in the college, and his colleagues were always better informed +than he. (4/6.) As he was not a fellow, he was made to feel the fact and +was treated as a subordinate; the others, who prided themselves on the +title, and who were incapable of recognizing his merit, which was a little +beyond them, were jealous of him, all the more inasmuch as his name was +momentarily noised abroad, and they revenged themselves by calling him "the +fly" among themselves, by way of allusion to his favourite subject. (4/7.) + +Indifferent to distinctions, as well as to those who bore them, +contemptuous of etiquette, and incapable of putting constraint upon his +nature, he remained an "outsider," and refused to comply with a host of +factitious or worldly obligations which he regarded as useless or +disgusting. Thus even at Ajaccio he managed to escape the customary +ceremonies of New Year's Day. + +"Good society I avoid as much as possible; I prefer my own company. So I +have seen no one; I did not respond to the principal's invitation to make +the official round of visits." (4/8.) + +When obliged to accept some invitation, apart from occasions of too great +solemnity, when he was really constrained to dress himself in the complete +livery of circumstance and ceremony, he remained faithful to his black felt +hat, which made a blot among all the carefully polished "toppers" of his +colleagues. He was called to order; he was reprimanded; he obeyed +unwillingly, or worse, he resisted; he revolted, and threatened to send in +his resignation. To pay court to people, to endeavour to make himself +pleasant, to grovel before a superior, were to him impossibilities. He +could neither solicit, nor sail with the wind, nor force himself on others, +nor even make use of his relations. + +However, when he went to Paris to take his doctor's degree in natural +sciences, he did not forget Moquin-Tandon, who had formerly, in Corsica, +revealed to him the nature of biology, and whom he himself had received and +entertained in his humble home. + +The ex-professor of Toulouse, who was now eminent in his speciality, +occupied the chair of natural history in the faculty of medicine in Paris. +What better occasion could he wish of introducing himself to a highly +placed official? Fabre had formerly been his host; he could recall the +happy hours they had spent together; he could explain his plans, and ask +for the professor's assistance! Fate pointed to him as a protector. But if +Fabre had been capable of climbing the professor's stairs with some such +ambitious desires, he would quickly have been disabused. + +The "dear master" had long ago forgotten the little professor of Ajaccio, +and his welcome was by no means such as Fabre had the right to expect. Far +from insisting, he was disheartened, perhaps a little humiliated, and +hastened to take his leave. + +The theses which Fabre brought with him, and which, he had thought, ought +to lead him one day to a university professorship, did not, as a matter of +fact, contain anything very essentially original. + +He had been attracted, indeed fascinated, by all the singularities +presented by the strange family of the orchids; the asymmetry of their +blossoms, the unusual structure of their pollen, and their innumerable +seeds; but as for the curious rounded and duplicated tubercles which many +of them bore at their base, what precisely were they? The greatest +botanists--de Candolle, A. de Jussieu--had perceived in them nothing more +than roots. Fabre demonstrated in his thesis that these singular organs are +in reality merely buds, true branches or shoots, modified and disguised, +analogous to the metamorphosed tubercle of the potato. (4/9.) + +He added also a curious memoir on the phosphorescence of the agaric of the +olive-tree, a phenomenon to which he was to return at a later date. + +In the field of zoology his scalpel revealed the complicated structure of +the reproductive organs of the Centipedes (Millepedes), hitherto so +confused and misunderstood; as also certain peculiarities of the +development of these curious creatures, so interesting from the point of +view of the zoological philosopher (4/10.), for he had become expert in +handling not only the magnifying glass, which was always with him, but also +the microscope, which discovers so many infinite wonders in the lowest +creatures, yet which was not of particular service in any of the beautiful +observations upon which his fame is built. + +Returning to Avignon, in the possession of his new degree, he commenced an +important task which took him nearly twenty years to complete: a +painstaking treatise on the Sphaeriaceae of Vaucluse, that singular family +of fungi which cover fallen leaves and dead twigs with their blackish +fructifications; a remarkable piece of work, full of the most valuable +documentation, as were the theses whose subjects I have just detailed; but +without belittling the fame of their author, one may say that another, in +his place, might have acquitted himself as well. + +Although he continued to undertake researches of limited interest and +importance, although he persisted in dissecting plants, and, although he +disliked it, in "disembowelling animals," the fact was that apart from +Thursdays and Sundays it was scarcely possible for him to escape from his +week's work; hardly possible to snatch sufficient leisure to undertake the +studies toward which he felt himself more particularly drawn. Tied down by +his duties, which held him bound to a discipline that only left him brief +moments, and by the forced hack-work imposed upon him by the necessity of +earning his daily bread, he had scarcely any time for observation excepting +vacations and holidays. + +Then he would hasten to Carpentras, happy to hold the key to the meadows, +and wander across country and along the sunken lanes, collecting his +beautiful insects, breathing the free air, the scent of the vines and +olives, and gazing upon Mont Ventoux, close at hand, whose silver summit +would now be hidden in the clouds and now would glitter in the rays of the +sun. + +Carpentras was not merely the country in which his wife's parents dwelt: it +was, above all, a unique and privileged home for insects; not on account of +its flora, but because of the soil, a kind of limestone mingled with sand +and clay, a soft marl, in which the burrowing hymenoptera could easily +establish their burrows and their nests. Certain of them, indeed, lived +only there, or at least it would have been extremely difficult to find them +elsewhere; such was the famous Cerceris; such again, was the yellow-winged +Sphex, that other wasp which so artistically stabs and paralyses the +cricket, "the brown violinist of the clods." + +At Carpentras too the Anthophorae lived in abundance; those wild bees with +whom the vexed and enigmatic history of the Sitaris and the Meloë is bound +up; those little beetles, cousins of the Cantharides, whose complex +metamorphoses and astonishing and peculiar habits have been revealed by +Fabre. This memoir marked the second stage of his scientific career, and +followed, at an interval of two years, the magnificent observations on the +Cerceris. + +These two studies, true masterpieces of science, already constituted two +excellent titles to fame, and would by themselves have sufficed to fill a +naturalist's whole lifetime and to make his name illustrious. + +>From that time forward he had no peer. The Institute awarded him one of its +Montyon prizes (4/11.), "an honour of which, needless to say, he had never +dreamed." (4/12.) Darwin, in his celebrated work on the "Origin of +Species," which appeared precisely at this moment, speaks of Fabre +somewhere as "the inimitable observer." (4/13.) + +Exploring the immediate surroundings of Avignon, he very soon discovered +fresh localities frequented almost exclusively by other insects, whose +habits in their turn absorbed his whole attention. + +First of these was the sandy plateau of the Angles, where every spring, in +the sunlit pastures so beloved of the sheep, the Scarabaeus sacer, with his +incurved feet and clumsy legs, commences to roll his everlasting pellet, +"to the ancients the image of the world." His history, since the time of +the Pharaohs, had been nothing but a tissue of legends; but stripping it of +the embroidery of fiction, and referring it to the facts of nature, Fabre +demonstrated that the true story is even more marvellous than all the tales +of ancient Egypt. He narrated its actual life, the object of its task, and +its comical and exhilarating performances. But such is the subtlety of +these delicate and difficult researches that nearly forty years were +required to complete the study of its habits and to solve the mystery of +its cradle. (4/14.) + +On the right bank of the Rhône, facing the embouchure of the Durance, is a +small wood of oak-trees, the wood of Des Issarts. This again, for many +reasons, was one of his favourite spots. There, "lying flat on the ground, +his head in the shadow of some rabbit's burrow," or sheltered from the sun +by a great umbrella, "while the blue-winged locusts frisked for joy," he +would follow the rapid and sibilant flight of the elegant Bembex, carrying +their daily ration of diptera to her larvae, at the bottom of her burrow, +deep in the fine sand." (4/15.) + +He did not always go thither alone: sometimes, on Sundays, he would take +his pupils with him, to spend a morning in the fields, "at the ineffable +festival of the awakening of life in the spring." (4/16.) + +Those most dear to him, those who in the subsequent years have remained the +object of a special affection, were Devillario, Bordone, and Vayssières +(4/17.), "young people with warm hearts and smiling imaginations, +overflowing with that springtime sap of life which makes us so expansive +and so eager to know. + +Among them he was "the eldest, their master, but still more their companion +and friend"; lighting in them his own sacred fire, and amazing them by the +deftness of his fingers and the acuteness of his lynx-like eyes. Furnished +with a notebook and all the tools of the naturalist--lens, net, and little +boxes of sawdust steeped in anaesthetic for the capture of rare specimens-- +they would wander "along the paths bordered with hawthorn and hyaebla, +simple and childlike folk," probing the bushes, scratching up the sand, +raising stones, running the net along hedge and meadow, with explosions of +delight when they made some splendid capture or discovered some unrecorded +marvel of the entomological world. + +It was not only on the banks of the Rhône or the sandy plateau of Avignon +that they sought adventure thus, "discussing things and other things," but +as far as the slopes of Mont Ventoux, for which Fabre had always felt an +inexplicable and invincible attraction, and whose ascent he accomplished +more than twenty times, so that at last he knew all its secrets, all the +gamut of its vegetation, the wealth of the varied flora which climb its +flanks from base to summit, and which range "from the scarlet flowers of +the pomegranate to the violet of Mont Cenis and the Alpine forget-me-not" +(4/18.), as well as the antediluvian fauna revealed amid its entrails, a +vast ossuary rich in fossils. + +His disciples, all of whom, without exception, regarded him with absolute +worship, have retained the memory of his wit, his enthusiasm, his geniality +and his infectious gaiety, and also of the singular uncertainty of his +temperament; for on some days he would not speak a word from the beginning +to the end of his walk. + +Even his temper, ordinarily gentle and easy, would suddenly become hasty +and violent, and would break out into terrible explosions when a sudden +annoyance set him beside himself; for instance, when he was the butt of +some ill-natured trick, or when, in spite of the lucidity of his +explanations, he felt that he had not been properly understood. Perhaps he +inherited this from his mother, a rebellious, crotchety, somewhat fantastic +person, by whose temper he himself had suffered. + +But the young people who surrounded him were far from being upset by these +contrasts of temperament, in which they themselves saw nothing but natural +annoyance, and the corollary, as it were, of his abounding vitality. +(4/19.) + +It was because he was the only university teacher in Avignon to occupy +himself with entomology that Pasteur visited him in 1865. The illustrious +chemist had been striving to check the plague that was devastating the +silkworm nurseries, and as he knew nothing of the subject which he proposed +to study, not even understanding the constitution of the cocoon or the +evolution of the silkworm, he sought out Fabre in order to obtain from his +store of entomological wisdom the elementary ideas which he would find +indispensable. Fabre has told us, in a moving page (4/20), with what a +total lack of comprehension of "poverty in a black coat" the great +scientist gazed at his poor home. Preoccupied by another problem, that of +the amelioration of wines by means of heat, Pasteur asked him point-blank-- +him, the humble proletarian of the university caste, who drank only the +cheapest wine of the country--to show him his cellar. "My cellar! Why not +my vaults, my dusty bottles, labelled according to age and vintage! But +Pasteur insisted. Then, pointing with my finger, I showed him, in a corner +of the kitchen, a chair with all the straw gone, and on this chair a two- +gallon demijohn: 'There is my cave, monsieur!'" + +If the country professor was embarrassed by the chilliness of the other, he +was none the less shocked by his attitude. It would seem, from what Fabre +has said, that Pasteur treated him with a hauteur which was slightly +disdainful. The ignorant genius questioned his humble colleague, distantly +giving him his orders, explaining his plans and his ideas, and informing +him in what directions he required assistance. + +After this, we cannot be surprised if the naturalist was silent. How could +sympathetic relations have survived this first meeting? Fabre could not +forgive it. His own character was too independent to accommodate itself to +Pasteur's. Yet never, perhaps, were two men made for a better +understanding. They were equally expert in exercising their admirable +powers of vision in the vast field of nature, equally critical of self, +equally careful never to depart from the strict limits of the facts; and +they were, one may say, equally eminent in the domain of invention, +different though their fortunes may have been; for the sublimity of +scientific discoveries, however full of genius they may be, is often +measured only by the immediate consequences drawn therefrom and the +practical importance of their results. + +In reality, were they not two rivals, worthy of being placed side by side +in the paradise of sages? Both of them, the one by demolishing the theory +of spontaneous generation, the other by refuting the mechanical theory of +the origin of instincts, have brought into due prominence the great unknown +and mysterious forces which seem destined to hold eternally in suspense the +profound enigma of life. + +Now he was anxious not to leave the Vaucluse district, the scene of his +first success, and a place so fruitful in subjects of study. He wished to +remain close to his insects, and also near the precious library and the +rich collections which Requien had left by will to the town of Avignon. In +spite of the meagreness of his salary, he asked for nothing more; and, what +is more, by an inconsequence which is by no means incomprehensible, he +avoided everything that might have resulted in a more profitable position +elsewhere, and evaded all proposals of further promotion. Twice, at +Poitiers and Marseilles, he refused a post as assistant professor, not +regarding the advantages sufficient to balance the expenses of removal. +(4/21.) + +It is true that his modest position was slightly improved; at the lycée he +had just been appointed drawing-master, thanks to his knowledge of design, +for he could draw--indeed, what could he not do? The city, on the other +hand, appointed him conservator of the Requien Museum, and presently +municipal lecturer, so that his earnings were increased by 48 pounds +sterling per annum, and he was at last able to abandon "those abominable +private lessons" (4/22.), which the insufficiency of his income had +hitherto forced him to accept. These new duties, which naturally demanded +much time and much labour, kept him almost as badly tied as he had been +before. + +To be rich enough to set himself free; to be master of all his time, to be +able to devote himself entirely to his chosen work: this was his dream, his +constant preoccupation: it haunted him; it was a fixed idea. + +Such was the principal motive of his inquiry into the properties of madder, +the colouring principle of which he succeeded in extracting directly, by a +perfectly simple method, which for a time very advantageously replaced the +extremely primitive methods of the old dyers, who used a simple extract of +madder; a crude preparation which necessitated long and expensive +manipulations. (4/23.) + +He had been working at this for eight years when Victor Duruy, Minister of +Public Instruction and Grand Master of the University, came to surprise him +in his laboratory at Saint-Martial, in the full fever of research. Whatever +was Duruy's idea in entering into relations with him, it seems that from +their first meeting the two men were really taken with one another: there +were, between them, so many close affinities of taste and character. Duruy +found in Fabre a man of his own temper; for his, like Fabre's, was a modest +and simple nature. Both came of the people, and the principal motive of +each was the same ideal of work, emancipation, and progress. + +A little later Duruy summoned the modest sage of Avignon to Paris, with +particular insistence; he was full of attentions and of forethought, and +made him there and then a chevalier of the Legion of Honour; a distinction +of which Fabre was far from being proud, and which he was careful never to +obtrude; but he nevertheless always thought of it with a certain +tenderness, as a beloved "relic" in memory of this illustrious friend. + +On the following day the naturalist was conveyed to the Tuileries to be +presented to the Emperor. You must not suppose that he was in the least +disturbed at the idea of finding himself face to face with royalty. In the +presence of all these bedizened folk, in his coat of a cut which was +doubtless already superannuated, he cared little for the impression he +might produce. As good an observer of men as of beasts, he gazed quietly +about him; he exchanged a few words with the Emperor, who was "quite +simple," almost suppressed, his eyes always half-closed; he watched the +coming and going of "the chamberlains with short breeches and silver- +buckled shoes, great scarabaei, clad with café au lait wing-cases, moving +with a formal gait." Already he sighed regretfully; he was bored; he was on +the rack, and for nothing in the world would he have repeated the +experience. He did not even feel the least desire to visit the vaunted +collections of the Museum. He longed to return; to find himself once more +among his dear insects; to see his grey olive-trees, full of the frolicsome +cicadae, his wastes and commons, which smelt so sweet of thyme and cypress; +above all, to return to his furnace and retorts, in order to complete his +discovery as quickly as possible. + +But others profited by his happy conceptions. Like the cicada, the Cigale +of his fable (See "Social Life in the Insect World," by Jean-Henri Fabre +(T. Fisher Unwin, 1912).), which makes a "honeyed reek" flow from-- + + "the bark +Tender and juicy, of the bough," + +on which it is quickly supplanted by + +"Fly, drone, wasp, beetle too with hornèd head" (4/24.), + +who + +"Now lick their honey'd lips, and feed at leisure," + +so, after he had painfully laboured for twelve years in his well, he saw +others, more cunning than he, come to his perch, who by dint of "stamping +on his toe," succeeded in ousting him. Pending the appearance of artificial +alizarine, which was presently to turn the whole madder industry upside +down, these more sophisticated persons were able to benefit at leisure by +the ingenious processes discovered by Fabre, so that the practical result +of so much assiduity, so much patient research, was absolutely nil, and he +found himself as poor as ever. + +So faded his dream: and, if we except his domestic griefs, this was +certainly the deepest and cruellest disappointment he had ever experienced. + +Thenceforth he saw his salvation only in the writing of textbooks, which +were at last to throw open the door of freedom. Already he had set to work, +under the powerful stimulus of Duruy, preoccupied as he always was by his +incessant desire for freedom. The first rudiments of his "Agricultural +Chemistry," which sounded so fresh a note in the matter of teaching, had +given an instance and a measure of his capabilities. + +But he did not seriously devote himself to this project until after the +industrial failure and the distressing miscarriage of his madder process; +and not until he had been previously assured of the co-operation of Charles +Delagrave, a young publisher, whose fortunate intervention contributed in +no small degree to his deliverance. Confident in his vast powers of work, +and divining his incomparable talent as POPULARIZER, Delagrave felt that he +could promise Fabre that he would never leave him without work; and this +promise was all the more comforting, in that the University, despite his +twenty-eight years of assiduous service, would not accord him the smallest +pension. + +Victor Duruy was the great restorer of education in France, from elementary +and primary education, which should date, from his great ministry, the era +of its deliverance, to the secondary education which he himself created in +every part. He was also the real initiator of secular instruction in +France, and the Third Republic has done little but resume his work, develop +his ideas, and extend his programme. Finally, by instituting classes for +adults, the evening classes which enabled workmen, peasants, bourgeois, and +young women to fill the gaps in their education, he gave reality to the +generous and fruitful idea that it is possible for all to divide life into +two parts, one having for its object our material needs and our daily +bread, and the other consecrated to the spiritual life and the delights of +the Ideal. + +At the same time he emancipated the young women of France, formerly under +the exclusive tutelage of the clergy, and opened to them for the first time +the golden gates of knowledge; an audacious innovation, and formidable +withal, for it shrewdly touched the interests of the Church, struck a blow +at her ever-increasing influence, and clashed with her consecrated +privileges and age-long prejudices. (4/25.) + +At Avignon Fabre was instructed to give his personal services. He gave them +with all his heart; and it was then that he undertook, in the ancient Abbey +of Saint-Martial, those famous free lectures which have remained celebrated +in the memory of that generation. There, under the ancient Gothic vault, +among the pupils of the primary Normal College, an eager crowd of listeners +pressed to hear him; and among the most assiduous was Roumanille, the +friend of Mistral, he who so exquisitely wove into his harmonies "the +laughter of young maidens and the flowers of springtime." No one expounded +a fact better than Fabre; no one explained it so fully and so clearly. No +one could teach as he did, in a fashion so simple, so animated, so +picturesque, and by methods so original. + +He was indeed convinced that even in early childhood it was possible for +both boys and girls to learn and to love many subjects which had hitherto +never been proposed; and in particular that Natural History which to him +was a book in which all the world might read, but that university methods +had reduced it to a tedious and useless study in which the letter "killed +the life." + +He knew the secret of communicating his conviction, his profound faith, to +his hearers: that sacred fire which animated him, that passion for all the +creatures of nature. + +These lectures took place in the evening, twice a week, alternately with +the municipal lectures, to which Fabre brought no less application and +ardour. In the intention of those who instituted them these latter were +above all to be practical and scientific, dealing with science applied to +agriculture, the arts, and industry. + +But might he not also expect auditors of another quality, in love only with +the ideal, "who, without troubling about the possible applications of +scientific theory, desired above all to be initiated into the action of the +forces which rule nature, and thereby to open to their minds more wondrous +horizons"? + +Such were the noble scruples which troubled his conscience, and which +appeared in the letter which he addressed to the administration of the +city, when he was entrusted by the latter with what he regarded as a lofty +and most important mission. + +"...Is it to be understood that every purely scientific aspect, incapable +of immediate application, is to be rigorously banished from these lessons? +Is it to be understood that, confined to an impassable circle, the value of +every truth must be reckoned at so much per hundred, and that I must +silently pass over all that aims only at satisfying a laudable desire of +knowledge? No, gentlemen, for then these lectures would lack a very +essential thing: the spirit which gives life!" (4/26.) + +Physically, according to the testimony of his contemporaries, he was +already as an admirable photograph represents him twenty years later: he +wore a large black felt hat; his face was shaven, the chin strong and +wilful, the eyes vigilant, deep-set and penetrating; he hardly changed, and +it was thus I saw him later, at a more advanced age. + +The ancient Abbey of Saint-Martial, where these lectures were given, was +occupied also by the Requien Museum, of which Fabre had charge. It was here +that he one day met John Stuart Mill. + +The celebrated philosopher and economist had just lost his wife: "the most +precious friendship of his life" was ended. (4/27.) It was only after long +waiting that he had been able to marry her. Subjected at an early age by a +father devoid of tenderness and formidably severe to the harshest of +disciplines, he had learned in childhood "what is usually learned only by a +man." Scarcely out of his long clothes, he was construing Herodotus and the +dialogues of Plato, and the whole of his dreary youth was spent in covering +the vast field of the moral and mathematical sciences. His heart, always +suppressed, never really expanded until he met Mrs. Harriett Taylor. + +This was one of those privileged beings such as seem as a rule to exist +only in poetry and literature; a woman as beautiful as she was +astonishingly gifted with the rarest faculties; combining with the most +searching intelligence and the most persuasive eloquence so exquisite a +sensitiveness that she seemed often to divine events in advance. + +Mill possessed her at last for a few years only, and he had resigned his +post in the offices of the East India Company to enjoy a studious retreat +in the enchanted atmosphere of southern Europe when suddenly at Avignon +Harriett Mill was carried off by a violent illness. (Mill retired in 1858, +when the government of India passed to the Crown. He had married Mrs. John +Taylor in 1851. [Tr.]) + +>From that time the philosopher's horizon was suddenly contracted to the +limit of those places whence had vanished the adored companion and the +beneficent genius who had been the sole charm of his entire existence. +Overwhelmed with grief, he acquired a small country house in one of the +least frequented parts of the suburbs of Avignon, close to the cemetery +where the beloved dead was laid to rest for ever. A silent alley of planes +and mulberry-trees led to the threshold, which was shaded by the delicate +foliage of a myrtle. All about he had planted a dense hedge of hawthorn, +cypress, and arborvitae, above which, from the vantage of a small terrace, +built, under his orders, at the level of the first floor, he could see, day +by day and at all hours, the white tomb of his wife, and a little ease his +grief. + +Thus he cloistered himself, "living in memory," having no companion but the +daughter of his wife; trying to console himself by work, recapitulating his +life, the story of which he has told in his remarkable "Memoirs." (4/28.) + +Fabre paid a few visits to this Thebaïd. A solitary such as Mill had become +could be attracted only by a man of his temper, in whom he found, if not an +affinity of nature, at least tastes like his own, and immense learning, as +great as his. For Mill also was versed in all the branches of human +knowledge: not only had he meditated on the high problems of history and +political economy, but he had also probed all branches of science: +mathematics, physics, and natural history. It was above all botany which +served them as a bond of union, and they were often seen to set forth on a +botanizing expedition through the countryside. + +This friendship, which was not without profit for Fabre (4/29.), was still +more precious to Mill, who found, in the society of the naturalist, a +certain relief from his sorrow. The substance of their conversation was far +from being such as one might have imagined it. Mill was not highly sensible +to the festival of nature or the poetry of the fields. He was hardly +interested in botany, except from the somewhat abstract point of view of +classification and the systematic arrangement of species. Always +melancholy, cold, and distant, he spoke little; but Fabre felt under this +apparent sensibility a rigorous integrity of character, a great capacity +for devotion, and a rare goodness of heart. + +So the two wandered across country, each thinking his own thoughts, and +each self-contained as though they were walking on parallel but distant +paths. + +However, Fabre was not at the end of his troubles; and secret ill-feeling +began to surround him. The free lectures at Saint-Martial offended the +devout, angered the sectaries, and excited the intolerance of the pedants, +"whose feeble eyelids blink at the daylight," and he was far from +receiving, from his colleagues at the lycée, the sympathy and encouragement +which were, at this moment especially, so necessary to him. Some even went +so far as to denounce him publicly, and he was mentioned one day from the +height of the pulpit, to the indignation of the pupils of the upper Normal +College, as a man at once dangerous and subversive. + +Some found it objectionable that this "irregular person, this man of +solitary study," should, by his work and by the magic of his teaching, +assume a position so unique and so disproportionate. Others regarded the +novelty of placing the sciences at the disposal of young girls as a heresy +and a scandal. + +Their bickering, their cabals, their secret manoeuvres, were in the long +run to triumph. Duruy had just succumbed under the incessant attacks of the +clericals. In him Fabre lost a friend, a protector, and his only support. +Embittered, defeated, he was now only waiting for a pretext, an incident, a +mere nothing, to throw up everything. + +One fine morning his landladies, devout and aged spinsters, made themselves +the instruments of the spite of his enemies, and abruptly gave him notice +to quit. he had to leave before the end of the month, for, simple and +confident as usual, he had obtained neither a lease nor the least written +agreement. + +At this moment he was so poor that he had not even the money to meet the +expenses of his removal. The times were troublous: the great war had +commenced, and Paris being invested he could no longer obtain the small +earnings which his textbooks were beginning to yield him, and which had for +some time been increasing his modest earnings. On the other hand, having +always lived far from all society, he had not at Avignon a single relation +who could assist him, and he could neither obtain credit nor find any one +to extricate him from his embarrassments and save him from the extremity of +need with which he was threatened. He thought of Mill, and in this +difficult juncture it was Mill who saved him. The philosopher was then in +England; he was for the time being a member of the House of Commons, and he +used to vary his life at Avignon by a few weeks' sojourn in London. His +reply, however, was not long in coming: almost immediately he sent help; a +sum of some 120 pounds sterling, which fell like manna into the hands of +Fabre; and he did not, in exchange, demand the slightest security for this +advance. + +Then, filled with disgust, the "irregular person" shook off the yoke and +retired to Orange. At first he took shelter where he could, anxious only to +avoid as far as possible any contact with his fellow-men; then, having +finally discovered a dwelling altogether in conformity with his tastes, he +moved to the outskirts of the city, and settled at the edge of the fields, +in the middle of a great meadow, in an isolated house, pleasant and +commodious, connected with the road to Camaret by a superb avenue of tall +and handsome plane-trees. This hermitage in some respects recalled that of +Mill in the outskirts of Avignon; and thence his eyes, embracing a vast +horizon, from the pediment of the ancient theatre to the hills of Sérignan, +could already distinguish the promised land. + + +CHAPTER 5. A GREAT TEACHER. + +It was in 1871. Fabre had lived twenty years at Avignon. This date +constitutes an important landmark in his career, since it marks the precise +moment of his final rupture with the University. + +At this time the preoccupations of material life were more pressing than +ever, and it was then that he devoted himself entirely and with +perseverance to the writing of those admirable works of introduction and +initiation, in which he applied himself to rendering science accessible to +the youngest minds, and employed all his profound knowledge to the thorough +teaching of its elements and its eternal laws. + +To this ungrateful task--ungrateful, but in reality pleasurable, so +strongly had he the vocation, the feeling, and the genius of the teacher-- +Fabre applied himself thenceforth with all his heart, and for nine years +never lifted his hand. + +How insipid, how forbidding were the usual classbooks, the second-rate +natural histories above all, stuffed with dry statements, with raw +knowledge, which brought nothing but the memory into play! How many +youthful faces had grown pale above them! + +What a contrast and a deliverance in these little books of Fabre's, so +clear, so luminous, so simple, which for the first time spoke to the heart +and the understanding; for "work which one does not understand disgusts +one." (5/1.) + +To initiate others into science or art, it is not enough to have understood +them oneself; it is not enough even that one should be an artist or a +scientist. Scientists of the highest flight are sometimes very unskilful +teachers, and very indifferent hands at explaining the alphabet. It is not +given to the first comer to educate the young; to understand how to +identify his understanding with theirs, to measure their powers. It is a +matter of instinct and good sense rather than of memory or erudition, and +Fabre, who had never in his life been the pupil of any one, could better +than any remember the phases through which his mind had passed, could +recollect by what detours of the mind, by what secret labours of thought, +by what intuitive methods he had succeeded in conquering, one by one, all +the difficulties in his path, and in gradually attaining to knowledge. + +It is wonderful to watch the mastery with which he conducts his +demonstrations, the simplest as well as the most involved, singling out the +essential, little by little evoking the sense of things, ingeniously +seeking familiar examples, finding comparisons, and employing picturesque +and striking images, which throw a dazzling light upon the obscurest +question or the most difficult problem. How in such matters can one +dispense with figurative speech, when one is reduced, as a rule, to an +inability to show the things themselves, but only their images and their +symbols? + +Follow him, for example, in the "The Sky" (5/2.), which seems to thrill +with the ardent and comprehensive genius of a Humboldt, and admire the ease +with which he surmounts all the difficulties and smooths the way for the +vast voyage on which he conducts you, past the infinity of the suns and the +stars in their millions, scintillating in the cold air of night, to descend +once more to our humble "Earth" (5/3.); first an ocean of fire, rolling its +heavy waves of molten porphyry and granite, then "slowly hardening into +strange floes and bergs, hotter than the red iron in the fire of the +forge," rounding its back, all covered with gaping pustules, eruptive +mountains and craters, and the first folds of its calcined crust, until the +day when the vast mist of densest vapours, heaped up on every hand and of +immeasurable depth, begins gradually to show rifts, giving rise at last to +an infinite storm, a stupendous deluge, and forming the strange universal +sea, "a mineral sludge, veiled by a chaos of smoke," whence at length the +primitive soil emerges, "and at last the green grass." + +And although "a little animal proteid, capable of pleasure and pain, +surpasses in interest the whole immense creation of dead matter," he does +not forget to show us the spectacle of life flowing through matter itself; +and he animates even the simple elementary bodies, celebrating the +marvellous activities of the air, the violence of Chlorine, the +metamorphoses of Carbon, the miraculous bridals of Phosphorus, and "the +splendours which accompany the birth of a drop of water." (5/4.) + +A man must indeed love knowledge deeply before he can make others love it, +or render it easy and attractive, revealing only the smiling highways; and +Fabre, above all things the impassioned professor, was the very man to lead +his disciples "between the hedges of hawthorn and sloe," whether to show +them the sap, "that fruitful current, that flowing flesh, that vegetable +blood," or how the plant, by a mysterious transubstantiation, makes its +wood, "and the delicate bundle of swaddling-bands of its buds," or how +"from a putrid ordure it extracts the flavour and the fragrance of its +fruits"; or whether he seeks to evoke the murderous plants that live as +parasites at the cost of others; the white Clandestinus, "which strangles +the roots of the alders beside the rivers," the Cuscuta, "which knows +nothing of labour," the wicked Orobanche, plump, powerful and brazen, the +skin covered with ugly scales, "with sombre flowers that wear the livery of +death, which leaps at the throat of the clover, stifling it, devouring it, +sucking its blood." (5/5.) + +Botany, by this genial treatment, becomes a most interesting study, and I +know of no more captivating reading than "The Plant" and "The Story of the +Log," the jewels of this incomparable series. + +Employ Fabre's method if you wish to learn by yourself, or to evoke in your +children a love of science, and, according to the phrase of the gentle +Jean-Jacques, to help them "to buy at the best possible of prices." Give +them as sole guides these exquisite manuals, which touch upon everything, +initiating them into everything, and bringing within the reach of all, for +their instruction or amusement, the heavens and the earth, the planets and +their moons, the mechanism of the great natural forces and the laws which +govern them, life and its materials, agriculture and its applications. For +more than a quarter of a century these catechisms of science, models of +lucidity and good sense, effected the education of generations of +Frenchmen. Abridgments of all knowledge, veritable codes of rural wisdom, +these perfect breviaries have never been surpassed. + +It was after reading these little books, it is said, that Duruy conceived +the idea of confiding to this admirable teacher the education of the +Imperial heir; and it is very probable that this was, in reality, the +secret motive which would explain why he had so expressly summoned Fabre to +Paris. What an ideal tutor he had thought of, and how proud might others +have been of such a choice! But the man was too zealous of his +independence, too difficult to tame, to bear with the environment of a +court, and God knows whether he was made for such refulgence! We need not +be surprised that Fabre never heard of it; it must have sufficed the +minister to speak with him for a few minutes to realize that the most +tempting offers and all the powers of seduction would never overcome his +insurmountable dislike of life in a capital, nor prevail against his +inborn, passionate, exclusive love of the open. + +For these volumes Fabre was at first rather wretchedly paid; at all events, +until public education had definitely received a fresh impulse; and for a +long time his life at Orange was literally a hand-to-mouth existence. + +As soon as he was able to realize a few advances, he had nothing so much at +heart as the repayment of Mill, and he hastened to call on the philosopher; +all the more filled with gratitude for his generosity in that the loan, +although of the comparatively large amount of three thousand francs, was +made without security, practically from hand to hand, with no other +warranty than his probity. + +For this reason this episode was always engraven on his memory. Thirty +years later he would relate the affair even to the most insignificant +details. How many times has he not reminded me of the transaction, +insisting that I should make a note of it, so anxious was he that this +incident in his career should not be lost in oblivion! How often has he not +recalled the infinite delicacy of Mill, and his excessive scrupulousness, +which went so far that he wished to give a written acknowledgment of the +repayment of the debt, of which there was no record whatever save in the +conscience of the debtor! + +Scarcely two years later Mill died suddenly at Avignon. Grief finally +killed him; for this unexpected death seemed to have been only the ultimate +climax of the secret malady which had so long been undermining him. + +It was in the outskirts of Orange that Fabre for the last time met him and +accompanied him upon a botanizing expedition. He was struck by his weakness +and his rapid decline. Mill could hardly drag himself along, and when he +stooped to gather a specimen he had the greatest difficulty in rising. They +were never to meet again. + +A few days later--on the 8th May, 1873--Fabre was invited to lunch with the +philosopher. Before going to the little house by the cemetery he halted, as +was his custom, at the Libraire Saint-Just. It was there that he learned, +with amazement, of the tragic and sudden event which set a so unexpected +term to a friendship which was doubtless a little remote, but which was, on +both sides, a singularly lofty and beautiful attachment. + +His class-books were now bringing in scarcely anything; their preparation, +moreover, involved an excessive expenditure of time, and gave him a great +deal of trouble; it is impossible to imagine what scrupulous care, what +zeal and self-respect Fabre brought to the execution of the programme which +he had to fulfil. + +To begin with, he considered that he could not enjoy a more splendid +opportunity to give children a taste for science and to stimulate their +curiosity than by finding a means to interest them, from their earliest +infancy, in their simple playthings, even the crudest and most inexpensive; +so true is it that "in the smallest mechanical device or engine, even in +its simplest form, as conceived by the industry of a child, there is often +the germ of important truths, and, better than books, the school of the +playroom, if gently disciplined, will open for the child the windows of the +universe." + +"The humble teetotum, made of a crust of rye-bread transfixed by a twig, +silently spinning on the cover of a school-book, will give a correct enough +image of the earth, which retains unmoved its original impulse, and travels +along a great circle, at the same time turning on itself. Gummed on its +disc, scraps of paper properly coloured will tell us of white light, +decomposable into various coloured rays... + +"There will be the pop-gun, with its ramrod and its two plugs of tow, the +hinder one expelling the foremost by the elasticity of the compressed air. +Thus we get a glimpse of the ballistics of gunpowder, and the pressure of +steam in engines..." + +The little hydraulic fountain made of an apricot stone, patiently hollowed +and pierced with a hole at either side, into which two straws are fitted, +one dipping into a cup of water and the other duly capped, "expelling a +slender thread of water in which the sunlight flickers," will introduce us +to the true syphon of physics. + +"What amusing and useful lessons" a well-balanced scheme of education might +extract from this "academy of childish ingenuity"! (5/6.) + +At this time he was undertaking the education of his own children. His +chemistry lessons especially had a great success. (5/7.) With apparatus of +his own devising and of the simplest kind, he could perform a host of +elementary experiments, the apparatus as a rule consisting of the most +ordinary materials, such as a common flask or bottle, an old mustard-pot, a +tumbler, a goose-quill or a pipe-stem. + +A series of astonishing phenomena amazed their wondering eyes. He made them +see, touch, taste, handle, and smell, and always "the hand assisted the +word," always "the example accompanied the precept," for no one more fully +valued the profound maxim, so neglected and misunderstood, that "to see is +to know." + +He exerted himself to arouse their curiosity, to provoke their questions, +to discover their mistakes, to set their ideas in order; he accustomed them +to rectify their errors themselves, and from all this he obtained excellent +material for his books. + +For those more especially intended for the education of girls he took +counsel with his daughter Antonia, inviting her collaboration, begging her +to suggest every aspect of the matter that occurred to her; for instance, +in respect of the chemistry of the household, "where exact science should +shed its light upon a host of facts relating to domestic economy" (5/8.), +from the washing of clothes to the making of a stew. + +Even now, to his despair, although freed from the cares of school life, he +was always almost wholly without leisure to devote himself to his chosen +subjects. + +It was at this period above all that he felt so "lonely, abandoned, +struggling against misfortune; and before one can philosophize one has to +live." (5/9.) + +And his incessant labour was aggravated by a bitter disappointment. In the +year of Mill's death Fabre was dismissed from his post as conservator of +the Requien Museum, which he had held in spite of his departure from +Avignon, going thither regularly twice a week to acquit himself of his +duties. The municipality, working in the dark, suddenly dismissed him +without explanation. To Fabre this dismissal was infinitely bitter; "a +sweeper-boy would have been treated with as much ceremony." (5/10.) What +afflicted him most was not the undeserved slight of the dismissal, but his +unspeakable regret at quitting those beloved vegetable collections, +"amassed with such love" by Requien, who was his friend and master, and by +Mill and himself; and the thought that he would henceforth perhaps be +unable to save these precious but perishable things from oblivion, or +terminate the botanical geography of Vaucluse, on which he had been thirty +years at work! + +For this reason, when there was some talk of establishing an agronomic +station at Avignon, and of appointing him director, he was at first warmly +in favour of the idea. (5/11.) Already he foresaw a host of fascinating +experiments, of the highest practical value, conducted in the peace and +leisure and security of a fixed appointment. It is indeed probable that in +so vast a field he would have demonstrated many valuable truths, fruitful +in practical results; he was certainly meant for such a task, and he would +have performed it with genuine personal satisfaction. He had already +exerted his ingenuity by trying to develop, among the children of the +countryside, a taste for agriculture, which he rightly considered the +logical complement of the primary school, and which is based upon all the +sciences which he himself had studied, probed, taught, and popularized. + +It will be remembered how patiently he devoted himself for twelve years to +the study of madder, multiplying his researches, and applying himself not +only to extracting the colouring principle, but also to indicating means +whereby adulteration and fraud might be detected. + +He had published memoirs of great importance dealing with entomology in its +relations to agriculture. Impressed with the importance of this little +world, he suggested valuable remedies, means of preservation; which were +all the more logical in that the destruction of insects, if it is to be +efficacious, must be based not upon a gross empiricism, but on a previous +study of their social life and their habits. + +With what patience he observed the terribly destructive weevils, and those +formidable moths with downy wings, which fly without sound of a night, and +whose depredations have often been valued at millions of francs! How +meticulously he has recorded the conditions which favour or check the +development of those parasitic fungi whose mortal blemishes are seen on +buds and flowers, on the green shoots and clusters that promise a +prosperous vintage! + +But then he became anxious. Was it all worth the sacrifice of his liberty? +"Would he not suffer a thousand annoyances from pretentious nobodies?" for +as things were, all ideas of again "enregimenting" himself "filled him with +horror." (5/12.) + +Slowly, however, the first instalment of the work which he had spent nearly +twenty-five years in planning, creating, and polishing, began to take +shape. At the end of the year 1878 he was able to assemble a sufficient +number of studies to form material for what was to be the first volume of +his "Souvenirs entomologiques." (A selection of which forms "Social Life in +the Insect World" (T. Fisher Unwin, 1912).) + +Let us stop for a moment to consider this first book, whose publication +constitutes a truly historical date, not only in the career of Fabre, but +in the annals of universal science. It was at once the foundation and the +keystone of the marvellous edifice which we shall watch unfolding and +increasing, but to which the future was in reality to add nothing +essential. The cardinal ideas as to instinct and evolution, the necessity +of experimenting in the psychology of animals, and the harmonic laws of the +conservation of the individual, are here already expounded in their final +and definite form. This fruitful and decisive year brought Fabre a great +grief. He lost his son Jules, that one of all his children whom he seems +most ardently to have loved. + +He was a youth of great promise, "all fire, all flame"; of a serious +nature; an exquisite being, of a precocious intelligence, whose rare +aptitudes both for science and literature were truly extraordinary. Such +too was the subtlety of his senses that by handling no matter what plant, +with his eyes closed, he could recognize and define it merely by the sense +of touch. This delightful companion of his father's studies had scarcely +passed his fifteenth year when death removed him. A terrible void was left +in his heart, which was never filled. Thirty years later the least allusion +to this child, however tactful, which recalled this dear memory to his +mind, would still wring his heart, and his whole body would be shaken by +his sobs. As always, work was his refuge and consolation; but this terrible +blow shattered his health, until then so robust. In the midst of this +disastrous winter he fell seriously ill. He was stricken with pneumonia, +which all but carried him off, and every one gave him up for lost. However, +he recovered, and issued from his convalescence as though regenerated, and +with strength renewed he attacked the next stage of his labours. + +But what are the most fruitful resolutions, and what poor playthings are we +in the hands of the unexpected! A vulgar incident of every-day life had +sufficed to make Fabre decide to break openly with the University, and to +leave Avignon. The secret motive of his departure from Orange was scarcely +more solid. His new landlord concluded one day, either from cupidity or +stupidity, to lop most ferociously the two magnificent rows of plane-trees +which formed a shady avenue before his house, in which the birds piped and +warbled in the spring, and the cicadae chorused in the summer. Fabre could +not endure this massacre, this barbarous mutilation, this crime against +nature. Hungry for peace and quiet, the enjoyment of a dwelling-place could +no longer content him; at all costs he must own his own home. + +So, having won the modest ransom of his deliverance, he waited no longer, +but quitted the cities for ever; retiring to Sérignan, to the peaceful +obscurity of a tiny hamlet, and this quiet corner of the earth had +henceforth all his heart and soul in keeping. + + +CHAPTER 6. THE HERMITAGE. + +Goethe has somewhere written: Whosoever would understand the poet and his +work should visit the poet's country. + +Let us, then, the latest of many, make the pilgrimage which all those who +are fascinated by the enigma of nature will accomplish later, with the same +piety that has led so many and so fervent admirers to the dwelling of +Mistral at Maillane. + +Starting from Orange and crossing the Aygues, a torrent whose muddy waters +are lost in the Rhône, but whose bed is dried by the July and August suns, +leaving only a desert of pebbles, where the Mason-bee builds her pretty +turrets of rock-work, we come presently to the Sérignaise country; an arid, +stony tract, planted with vines and olives, coloured a rusty red, or +touched here and there with almost a hue of blood; and here and there a +grove of cypress makes a sombre blot. To the north runs a long black line +of hills, covered with box and ilex and the giant heather of the south. Far +in the distance, to the east, the immense plain is closed in by the wall of +Saint-Amant and the ridge of the Dentelle, behind which the lofty Ventoux +rears its rocky, cloven bosom abruptly to the clouds. At the end of a few +miles of dusty road, swept by the powerful breath of the mistral, we +suddenly reach a little village. It is a curious little community, with its +central street adorned by a double row of plane-trees, its leaping +fountains, and its almost Italian air. The houses are lime-washed, with +flat roofs; and sometimes, at the side of some small or decrepit dwelling, +we see the unexpected curves of a loggia. At a distance the facade of the +church has the harmonious lines of a little antique temple; close at hand +is the graceful campanile, an old octagonal tower surmounted by a narrow +mitre wrought in hammered iron, in the midst of which are seen the black +profiles of the bells. + +I shall never forget my first visit. It was in the month of August; and the +whole countryside was ringing with the song of the cicadae. I had applied +to a job-master of Orange, counting on him to take me thither; but he had +never driven any one to Sérignan, had hardly heard of Fabre, and did not +know where his house was. At length, however, we contrived to find it. At +the entrance of the little market-town, in a solitary corner, in the centre +of an enclosure of lofty walls, which were taller than the crests of the +pines and cypresses, his dwelling was hidden away. No sound proceeded from +it; but for the baying of the faithful Tom I do not think I should have +dared to knock on the great door, which turned slowly on its hinges. A pink +house with green shutters, half-hidden amid the sombre foliage, appears at +the end of an alley of lilacs, "which sway in the spring under the weight +of their balmy thyrsi." Before the house are the shady plane-trees, where +during the burning hours of August the cicada of the flowering ash, the +deafening cacan, concealed beneath the leaves, fills the hot atmosphere +with its eager cries, the only sound that disturbs the profound silence of +this solitude. + +Before us, beyond a little wall of a height to lean upon, on an isolated +lawn, beneath the shade of great trees with interwoven boughs, a circular +basin displays its still surface, across which the skating Hydrometra +traces its wide circles. Then, suddenly, we see an opening into the most +extraordinary and unexpected of gardens; a wild park, full of strenuous +vegetation, which hides the pebbly soil in all directions; a chaos of +plants and bushes, created throughout especially to attract the insects of +the neighbourhood. + +Thickets of wild laurel and dense clumps of lavender encroach upon the +paths, alternating with great bushes of coronilla, which bar the flight of +the butterfly with their yellow-winged flowers, and whose searching +fragrance embalms all the air about them. + +It is as though the neighbouring mountain had one day departed, leaving +here its thistles, its dogberry-trees, its brooms, its rushes, its juniper- +bushes, its laburnums, and its spurges. There too grows the "strawberry +tree," whose red fruits wear so familiar an appearance; and tall pines, the +giants of this "pigmy forest." There the Japanese privet ripens its black +berries, mingled with the Paulownia and the Cratoegus with their tender +green foliage. Coltsfoot mingles with violets; clumps of sage and thyme mix +their fragrance with the scent of rosemary and a host of balsamic plants. +Amid the cacti, their fleshy leaves bristling with prickles, the periwinkle +opens its scattered blossoms, while in a corner the serpent arum raises its +cornucopia, in which those insects that love putrescence fall engulfed, +deceived by the horrible savour of its exhalations. + +It is in the spring above all that one should see this torrent of verdure, +when the whole enclosure awakens in its festival attire, decked with all +the flowers of May, and the warm air, full of the hum of insects, is +perfumed with a thousand intoxicating scents. It is in the spring that one +should see the "Harmas," the open-air observatory, "the laboratory of +living entomology" (6/1.); a name and a spot which Fabre has made famous +throughout the world. + +I enter the dining-room, whose wide, half-closed shutters allow only a +half-light to enter between the printed curtains. Rush-bottomed chairs, a +great table, about which seven persons daily take their places, a few poor +pieces of furniture, and a simple bookcase; such are all the contents. On +the mantel, a clock in black marble, a precious souvenir, the only present +which Fabre received at the time of his exodus from Avignon; it was given +by his old pupils, the young girls who used to attend the free lectures at +Saint-Martial's. + +There, every afternoon, half lying on a little sofa, the naturalist has the +habit of taking a short siesta. This light repose, even without sleep, was +of old enough to restore his energies, exhausted by hours of labour. +Thenceforth he was once more alert, and ready for the remainder of the day. + +But already he is on his feet, bareheaded, in his waistcoat, his silk +necktie carelessly fastened under the soft turned-down collar of his half- +open shirt, his gesture, in the shadowy chamber, full of welcome. + +François Sicard, in his faultless medal and his admirable bust, has +succeeded with rare felicity in reproducing for posterity this rugged, +shaven face, full of laborious years; a peasant face, stamped with +originality, under the wide felt hat of Provence; touched with geniality +and benevolence, yet reflecting a world of energy. Sicard has fixed for +ever this strange mask; the thin cheeks, ploughed into deep furrows, the +strained nose, the pendent wrinkles of the throat, the thin, shrivelled +lips, with an indescribable fold of bitterness at the corners of the mouth. +The hair, tossed back, falls in fine curls over the ears, revealing a high, +rounded forehead, obstinate and full of thought. But what chisel, what +graver could reproduce the surprising shrewdness of that gaze, eclipsed +from time to time by a convulsive tremor of the eyelids! What Holbein, what +Chardin could render the almost extraordinary brilliance of those black +eyes, those dilated pupils: the eyes of a prophet, a seer; singularly wide +and deeply set, as though gazing always upon the mystery of things, as +though made expressly to scrutinize Nature and decipher her enigmas? Above +the orbits, two short, bristling eyebrows seem set there to guide the +vision; one, by dint of knitting itself above the magnifying-glass, has +retained an indelible fold of continual attention; the other, on the +contrary, always updrawn, has the look of defying the interlocutor, of +foreseeing his objections, of waiting with an ever-ready return-thrust. +Such is this striking physiognomy, which one who has seen it cannot forget. + +There, in this "hermit's retreat," as he himself has defined it, the sage +is voluntarily sequestered; a true saint of science, an ascetic living only +on fruits, vegetables, and a little wine; so in love with retirement that +even in the village he was for a long time almost unknown, so careful was +he to go round instead of through it on his way to the neighbouring +mountain, where he would often spend whole days alone with wild nature. + +It is in this silent Thebaïd, so far from the atmosphere of cities, the +vain agitations and storms of the world, that his life has been passed, in +unchanging uniformity; and here he has been able to pursue, with resolute +labour and incredible patience, that prodigious series of marvellous +observations which for nearly fifty years he has never ceased to +accumulate. + +Let us indeed remember how much time has been required and what effort has +been expended to complete the long and patient inquiries which he had +hitherto accomplished; obliged, as he was, to allow himself to be +interrupted at any moment, and to postpone his observations often at the +most interesting moment, in order to undertake some enervating labour, or +the disagreeable and mechanical duties of his profession. Remember that his +first labours already dated from twenty-five years earlier, and at the +moment when we observe him in his solitude at Sérignan he had only just +painfully gathered together the material for his first book. What a +contrast to the thirty fruitful years that were to follow! Now nearly ten +volumes, no less overflowing with the richest material, were to succeed one +another at almost regular intervals--about one in every three years. + +To be sure, he would have gathered his harvest in no matter what corner of +the world, provided he had found within his reach, in whatever sphere of +life he had been placed, any subject of inquiry whatever; such was +Rousseau, botanizing over the bunch of chickweed provided for his canary; +such was Bernardin Saint-Pierre, discovering a world in a strawberry-plant +which had sprouted by chance at the corner of his window. (6/2.) But the +field in which he had hitherto been able to glean was indeed barren. That +he was able, later on, to narrate the wonderful history of the Pelopaeus, +whose habits he had observed at Avignon, was due to the fact that this +curious insect had come to lodge with him, having chosen Fabre's chamber +for its dwelling. None the less he threw himself eagerly upon all such +scraps of information as happened to come under his notice; witness the +observations which he embodied in a memoir touching the phosphorescence of +certain earth-worms which, abounding in a little courtyard near his +dwelling, were so rare elsewhere that he was never again able to find them. +(6/3.) It was therefore fortunate, if not for himself, at least for his +genius, that he did not become, as he had wished, a professor in a faculty; +there, to be sure, he would have found a theatre worthy of his efforts, in +which he might even have demonstrated, in all its magnificence, his +incomparable gift of teaching; but it is probable too that he would have +been stranded in shoal waters; that in the official atmosphere of a city +his still more marvellous gifts of observation would scarcely have found +employment. + +It was only by belonging fully to himself that he could fruitfully exercise +his talents. Necessary to every scholar, to every inquirer, to an open-air +observer like Fabre liberty and leisure were more than usually essential; +failing these he might never have accomplished his mission. How many lives +are wasted, how many minds expended in sheer loss, in default of this +sufficiency of leisure! How many scholars tied to the soil, how many +physicians absorbed by an exigent practice, who perhaps had somewhat to +say, have succeeded only in devising plans, for ever postponing their +realization to some miraculous tomorrow, which always recedes! + +But we must not fall into illusions. How many might be tempted to imitate +him, hoping to see some unknown talent awaken or expand within them, only +to find themselves incapable of producing anything, and to consume +themselves in an insurmountable and barren ennui! One must be rich in one's +own nature, rich in will and in ability, to live apart and seek new paths +in solitude, and it is not without reason that the majority prefer the +turmoil of cities and the murmur of men to the silence of the country. + +The atmosphere of a great capital, for instance, is singularly conducive to +work. Living constantly within the circle of light shed by the masters, +within reach of the laboratories and the great libraries, we are less +likely to go astray; we are stimulated by the contact of others; we profit +by their advice and experience; and it is easy to borrow ideas if we lack +them. Then there is the stimulant of self-respect, the sense of rivalry, +the eager desire to advance, to distinguish oneself, to shine, to attract +attention, to become in one's turn an arbiter, an object of wonder and +envy, without which stimulus many would merely have existed, and would +never have become what they are. + +On the other hand, a man needs an intrinsic radio-activity, and a real +talent; and the aid, moreover, of exceptional circumstances, if fame is to +consent to come to him and take him by the hand in the depths of some +unknown Maillane, some obscure Sérignan; even, as in the case of Fabre, at +the end only of a long life. + +But he, by a kind of fatality inherent in his nature, loved "to +circumscribe himself," according to the happy expression of Rousseau; and +he profited, rather than otherwise, by living entirely to himself; for he +had long been, indeed he always was, the man who, at twenty-five, writing +to his brother, had said, in speaking of his native countryside: + +"For a impassioned botanist, it is a delightful country, in which I could +pass a month, two months, three months, a year even, alone, quite alone, +with no other companion than the crows and the jays which gossip among the +oak-trees; without being weary for a moment; there would be so many +beautiful fungi, orange, rosy, and white, among the mosses, and so many +flowers in the fields." (6/4.) + +His work having brought him at last just enough to enable him to give +himself the pleasure of becoming, in his turn, a proprietor, he had +acquired, for a modest sum, this dilapidated dwelling and this deserted +spot of ground; barren land, given over to couch-grass, thistles, and +brambles; a sort of "accursed spot, to which no one would have confided +even a pinch of turnip-seed." A piece of water in front of the house +attracted all the frogs in the neighbourhood; the screech-owl mewed from +the tops of the plane-trees, and numerous birds, no longer disturbed by the +presence of man, had domiciled themselves in the lilacs and the cypresses. +A host of insects had seized upon the dwelling, which had long been +deserted. + +He restored the house, and to some extent reduced confusion to order. In +the uncultivated and pebbly plain where the plough had been long a stranger +he established plants of a thousand varieties, and, the better to hide +himself, he had walls built to shut himself in. + +Why was he drawn by preference to this village of Sérignan?--for he did not +go thither without making some inquiries as to the possibility of obtaining +shelter elsewhere, and the Carpentras cemetery had tempted him also; but +what had particularly seduced and drawn him thither was the nearness of the +mountain with its Mediterranean flora, so rich that it recalled the +Corsican maquis; full of beautiful fungi and varied insects, where, under +the flat stones exposed to the burning sun, the centipede burrowed and the +scorpion slept; where a special fauna abounded--of curious dung-beetles, +scarabaei, the Copris, the Minotaur, etc.--which only a little farther +north grow rapidly scarcer and then altogether disappear. + +He had thus at last arrived in port; he had found his "Eden." + +He had realized, "after forty years of desperate struggles," the dearest, +the most ardent, the longest cherished of all his desires. He could observe +at leisure "every day, every hour," his beloved insects; "under the blue +sky, to the music of the cigales." He had only to open his eyes and to see; +to lend an ear and hear; to enjoy the great blessing of leisure to his +heart's content. + +Doffing the professor's frock-coat for the peasant's blouse, planting a +root of sweet basil in his "topper," and finally kicking it to pieces, he +snapped his fingers at his past life. + +Liberated at last, far from all that could irritate or disturb him or make +him feel dependent, satisfied with his modest earnings, reassured by the +ever-increasing popularity of his little books, he had obtained entire +possession of his own body and mind, and could give himself without reserve +to his favourite subjects. + +So, with Nature and her inexhaustible book before him, he truly commenced a +new life. + +But would this life have been possible without the support and comfort of +those intimate feelings which are at the root of human nature? Man is +seldom the master of these feelings, and they, with reason or despite +reason, force themselves on his notice as the question of questions. + +This delicate problem Fabre had to resolve after suffering a fresh grief. +Hardly had he commenced to enjoy the benefits of this profound peace, when +he lost his wife. At this moment his children were already grown up; some +were married and some ready to leave him; and he could not hope much longer +to keep his old father, the ex-café-keeper of Pierrelatte, who had come to +rejoin him; and who might be seen, even in his extreme old age, going forth +in all weathers and dragging his aged limbs along all the roads of +Sérignan. (6/5.) The son, moreover, had inherited from his father his +profound inaptitude for the practical business of life, and was equally +incapable of managing his interests and the economics of the house. This is +why, after two years of widowerhood, having already passed his sixtieth +year, although still physically quite youthful, he remarried. Careless of +opinion, obeying only the dictates of his own heart and mind, and following +also the intuitions of unerring instinct, which was superior to the +understanding of those who thought it their duty to oppose him, he married, +as Boaz married Ruth, a young woman, industrious, full of freshness and +life, already completely devoted to his service, and admirably fitted to +satisfy that craving for order, peace, quiet, and moral tranquillity, which +to him were above all things indispensable. + +His new companion, moreover, was in all things faithful to her mission, and +it was thanks to the benefits of this union, as the future was to show, +that Fabre was in a position to pursue his long-delayed inquiries. + +Three children, a son and two daughters, were born in swift succession, and +reconstituted "the family," which was very soon increased by the youngest +of his daughters by his first wife, who had not married; this was that +Aglaë, who so often helped her father with her childlike attentions, and, +"her cheek blooming with animation," collaborated in some of his most +famous observations (6/6.); an unobtrusive figure, a soul full of devotion +and resignation, heroic and tender. Having in vain ventured into the world, +she had returned to the beloved roof at Sérignan, unable to part from the +father she so admired and adored. + +Later, when the shadow of age grew denser and heavier, the young wife and +the younger children of the famous poet-entomologist took part in his +labours also; they gave him their material assistance, their hands, their +eyes, their hearing, their feet; he in the midst of them was the +conceiving, reasoning, interpreting, and directing brain. + +>From this time forward the biography of Fabre becomes simplified, and +remains a statement of his inner life. For thirty years he never emerged +from his horizon of mountains and his garden of shingle; he lived wholly +absorbed in domestic affections and the tasks of a naturalist. None the +less, he still exercised his vocation as teacher, for neither pure science +nor poetry was sufficient to nourish his mind, and he was still Professor +Fabre, untiringly pursuing his programme of education, although no longer +applying himself thereto exclusively. + +This long active period was also the most silent period of his life, +although not an hour, not a minute of his many days was left unoccupied. + +In the first few months at his new home he resumed his hymn to labour. + +"You will learn in your turn," he writes to his son Émile, "you will learn, +I hope, that we are never so happy as when work does not leave us a +moment's repose. To act is to live." (6/7.) + +The better to belong to himself, he eluded all invitations, even those from +his nearest or most intimate friends; he hated to go away even for a few +hours, preferring to enjoy in his own house their presence amidst his +habitual and delightful surroundings. Everything in this still unexplored +country was new to him. What would he do elsewhere, even in his beloved +Carpentras, whither his faithful friend and pupil Devillario, who had +formerly followed him in his walks around Avignon, would endeavour from +time to time to draw him? Devillario was a magistrate, a collector and +palaeontologist; his simple tastes, his wide culture, and his passion for +natural history would surely have decided Fabre to accept his invitations, +but that he forbade himself the pleasure. "I am afraid the hospitable +cutlet that awaits me at your table will have time to grow cold; I am up to +the neck in my work (6/8.)...But you, when you can, escape from your +courts, and we will philosophize at random, as is our custom when we can +manage to pass a few hours together. As for me, it is very doubtful whether +the temptation will seize me to come to Carpentras. A hermit of the Thebaïd +was no more diligent in his cell than I in my village home." (6/9.) + + +CHAPTER 7. THE INTERPRETATION OF NATURE. + +Was there not indeed a sufficiency of captivating matters all about him, +and beneath his very feet? + +In his deep, sunny garden a thousand insects fly, creep, crawl, and hum, +and each relates its history to him. A golden gardener-beetle trots along +the path. Rose-beetles pass, in snoring flight, on every hand, the gold and +emerald of their elytra gleaming; now and again one of them alights for a +moment on the flowering head of a thistle; he seizes it carefully with the +tips of his nervous, pointed fingers, seems to caress it, speaks to it, and +then suddenly restores it to freedom. + +Wasps are pillaging the centauries. On the blossoms of the camomile the +larvae of the Meloë are waiting for the Anthophorae to carry them off to +their cells, while around them roam the Cicindelae, their green bodies +"spotted with points of amaranth." At the bottom of the walls "the chilly +Psyche creeps slowly along under her cloak of tiny twigs." In the dead +bough of a lilac-tree the dark-hued Xylocopa, the wood-boring bee, is busy +tunnelling her gallery. In the shade of the rushes the Praying Mantis, +rustling the floating robe of her long tender green wings, "gazes alertly, +on the watch, her arms folded on her breast, her appearance that of one +praying," and paralyses the great grey locust, nailed to its place by fear. + +Nothing here is insignificant; what the world would smile at or deride will +provide the sage with food for thought and reflection. "Nothing is trivial +in the majestic problem of nature; our laboratory acquaria are of less +value than the imprint which the shoe of a mule has left in the clay, when +the rain has filled the primitive basin, and life has peopled it with +marvels"; and the least fact offered us by chance on the most thoroughly +beaten track may possibly open prospects as vast as all the starry sky. + +Tell yourself that everything in nature is a symbol of something like a +specimen of an abstruse cryptogram, all the characters of which conceal +some meaning. But when we have succeeded in deciphering these living texts, +and have grasped the allusion; when, beside the symbol, we have succeeded +in finding the commentary, then the most desolate corner of the earth +appears to the solitary seeker as a gallery full of the masterpieces of an +unsuspected art. Fabre puts into our hands the golden key which opens the +doors of this marvellous museum. + +Let us consider the terebinth louse; it is just a little yellow mite; but +is it nothing else? Its genealogical history teaches us "by what amazing +essays of passion and variety the universal law which rules the +transmission of life is evolved. Here is neither father nor eggs; all these +mites are mothers; and the young are born living, just like their mothers." +To this end "almost the whole of the maternal substance is disintegrated +and renewed and conglobated to form the ovarium...the whole creature has +become an egg, which has, for its shell, the dry skin of the tiny creature, +and the microscope will show a whole world in formation...a nebulosity as +of white of egg, in which fresh centres of life are forming, as the suns +are condensed in the nebulae of the heavens." (7/1.) + +What is this fleck of foam, like a drop of saliva, which we see in +springtime on the weeds of the meadows; among others on the spurge, when +its stems begin to shoot, and its sombre flowers open in the sunlight? "It +is the work of an insect. It is the shelter in which the Cicadellina +deposits her eggs. What a miraculous chemist! Her stiletto excels the +finest craft of the botanical anatomist" by its sovereign art of separating +the acrid poison which flows with the sap in the veins of the most venomous +plants, and extracting therefrom only an inoffensive fluid. (7/2.) + +At every step the insects set us problems equally varied. The other +creatures are nearer to us; they resemble us in many respects. But insects, +almost the first-born of creation, form a world apart, and contain, in +their tiny bodies, as Réaumur has admirably said, "more parts than the most +gigantic animals." They have senses and faculties of their own, which +enable them to accomplish actions, which are doubtless very simply related +in reality, but which seem, to our minds, as extraordinary as the habits of +the inhabitants of Mars might, if by chance they were to descend in our +midst. We do not know how they hear, nor how they see through their +compound eyes, and our ignorance concerning the majority of their senses +still further increases the difficulty, which so often arrests us, of +interpreting their actions. + +The tubercled Cerceris "finds by the hundred" and almost immediately a +species of weevil, the Cleona ophthalmica, on which it feeds its larvae, +and which the human eye, though it searches for hours, can scarcely find +anywhere. The eyes of the Cerceris are like magnifying glasses, veritable +microscopes, which immediately distinguish, in the vast field of nature, an +object that human vision is powerless to discover. (7/3.) + +How does the Ammophila, hovering over the turf and investigating it far and +wide, in its search for a grey grub, contrive to discern the precise point +in the depth of the subsoil where the larva is slumbering in immobility? +"Neither touch nor sight can come into play, for the grub is sealed up in +its burrow at a depth of several inches; nor the scent, since it is +absolutely inodorous; nor the hearing, since its immobility is absolute +during the daytime." (7/4.) + +The Processional caterpillar of the pine-trees, "endowed with an exquisite +hygrometric sensibility," is a barometer more infallible than that of the +physicists. "It foresees the tempests preparing afar, at enormous +distances, almost in the other hemisphere," and announces them several days +before the least sign of them appears on the horizon. (7/5.) + +A wild bee, the Chalicodoma, and a wasp, the Cerceris, carried in the dark +far from their familiar pastures, to a distance of several miles, and +released in spots which they have never seen, cross vast and unknown spaces +with absolute certainty, and regain their nests; even after long absence, +and in spite of contrary winds and the most unexpected obstacles. It is not +memory that guides them, but a special faculty whose astonishing results we +must admit without attempting to explain them, so far removed are they from +our own psychology. (7/6.) But here is another example: + +The Greater Peacock moths cross hills and valleys in the darkness, with a +heavy flight of wings spotted with inexplicable hieroglyphics. They hasten +from the remotest depths of the horizon to find their "sleeping beauties," +drawn thereto by unknown odours, inappreciable by our senses, yet so +penetrating that the branch of almond on which the female has perched, and +which she has impregnated with her effluvium, exerts the same extraordinary +attraction. (7/7.) + +Considering these creatures, we end by discovering more things than are +contained in all the philosophies...if we know how to look for them. + +Among so many unimaginable phenomena, which bewilder us, "because there is +nothing analogous in us," we succeed in perceiving, here and there, a few +glimpses of day, which suddenly throw a singular light upon this black +labyrinth, in which the least secret we can surprise "enters perhaps more +directly into the profound enigma of our ends and our origins than the +secret of the most urgent and most closely studied of our passions." (7/8.) + +Fabre explains by hypnosis one of those curious facts which have hitherto +been so poorly interpreted. When surprised by abnormal conditions, we see +insects suddenly fall over, drop to the ground, and lie as though struck by +lightning, gathering their limbs under their bodies. A shock, an unexpected +odour, a loud noise, plunges them instantly into a sort of lethargy, more +or less prolonged. The insect "feigns death," not because it simulates +death, but in reality because this MAGNETIC condition resembles that of +death. (7/9.) Now the Odynerus, the Anthidium, the Eucera, the Ammophila, +and all the hymenoptera which Fabre has observed sleeping at the fall of +night, "suspended in space solely by the strength of their mandibles, their +bodies tense, their limbs retracted, without exhaustion or collapse"; and +the larva of the Empusa, "which for some ten months hangs to a twig by its +limbs, head downwards": do not these present a surprising analogy with +those hypnotized persons who possess the faculty of remaining fixed in the +most painful poses, and of supporting the most unusual attitudes, for an +extremely long time; for instance, with one arm extended, or one foot +raised from the ground, without appearing to experience the least fatigue, +and with a persevering and unfaltering energy? (7/10.) + +That the ex-schoolmaster was able to penetrate so far into this new world, +and that he has been able to interest us in so many fascinating problems, +was due to the fact that he had also "taken a wide bird's-eye view through +all the windows of creation." His universal capabilities, his immense +culture and almost encyclopaedic science have enabled him to utilize, +thanks to his studies, all the knowledge allied to his subject. He is not +one of those who understand only their speciality and who, knowing nothing +outside their own province and their particular labours, refuse to grasp at +anything beyond the narrow limits within which they stand installed. + +All plants are to him so familiar that the flowers, for him, assume the +airs of living persons. But without a profound knowledge of botany, who +would hope to grasp the profound, perpetual, and intimate relations of the +plant and the insect? + +He has turned over strata and interrogated the schistous deposits, whose +archives preserve the forms of vanished organizations, but "keep silence as +to the origin of the instincts." Bending over his reagents, he has sought +to discover, according to the phrase of a philosopher, those secret +retreats in which Nature is seated before her furnaces, in the depths of +her laboratory; following up the metamorphoses of matter even to the wings +of the Scarabaei, and observing how life, returning to her crucible the +debris and ashes of the organism, combines the elements anew, and from the +elements of the urine can derive, for example, by a simple displacement of +molecules, "all this dazzling magic of colours of innumerable shades: the +amethystine violet of Geotrupes, the emerald of the rose-beetle, the gilded +green of the Cantharides, the metallic lustre of the gardener-beetles, and +all the pomp of the Buprestes and the dung-beetles." (7/11.) + +His books are steeped in all the ideas of modern physics. The highest +mathematical knowledge has been referred to with profit in his marvellous +description of the hunting-net of the Epeïra. Whose "terribly scientific" +combinations realize "the spiral logarithm of the geometers, so curious in +its properties" (7/12.); a splendid observation, in which Fabre makes us +admire, in the humble web of a spider, a masterpiece as astonishing and +incomprehensible as and even more sublime than the honeycomb. + +This explains why Fabre has always energetically denied that he is properly +speaking an entomologist; and indeed the term appears often wrongly to +describe him. He loves, on the contrary, to call himself a naturalist; that +is, a biologist; biology being, by definition, the study of living +creatures considered as a whole and from every point of view. And as +nothing in life is isolated, as all things hold together, and as each part, +in all its relations, presents itself to the gaze of the observer under +innumerable aspects, one cannot be a true naturalist without being at the +same time a philosopher. + +But it is not enough to know and to observe. + +To be admitted to the spectacle of these tiny creatures, to become familiar +with their habits, to grasp the mysterious threads which connect them one +with another and with the vast universe: for this the cold and deliberate +vision of the specialist would often be insufficient. There is an art of +observation, and the gift of observation is a true function of that +constantly alert intelligence, continually dominated by the need of delving +untiringly down to the ultimate truth accessible, "allowing ourselves to +pass over nothing without seeking its reason, and habitually following up +every response with another question, until we come to the granite wall of +the Unknowable." Above all we need an ardent and interested sympathy, for +"we penetrate farther into the secret of things by the heart than by the +reason," as Toussenel has said; and "it is only by intuition that we can +know what life truly is," adds Bergson profoundly. (7/13.) Now Fabre loves +these little peoples and knows how to make us love them. How tenderly he +speaks of them; with what solicitude he observes them; with what love he +follows the progress of their nurslings; the young grubs wriggling in his +test-tubes, with doddering heads, are happy; and he himself is happy to see +them "well-fed and shining with health." He pities the bee stabbed by the +Philanthus "in the holy joys of labour." He sympathizes with the sufferings +of these little creatures and their hard labours. If, in his search for +ideas, he has to overturn their dwellings, "he repents of subjecting +maternal love to such tribulations," and if he is constrained to put them +to the question, to torment them in order to extract their secrets, he is +grieved to have provoked "such miseries!" (7/14.) Having provided for their +needs, and satisfied with the secrets which they have revealed to him, it +is not without regret and difficulty that he parts from them and restores +them "to the delights of liberty." + +He is thoroughly convinced, moreover, that all the creatures that share the +face of the earth with us are accomplishing an august and appointed task. +He welcomes the swallows to his dwelling, even surrendering his workroom to +them, at the risk of jeopardizing his notes and books. He pleads for the +frog, and applies himself to setting forth his unknown qualities; he +rehabilitates the bat, the hedgehog, and the screech-owl, persecuted, +defamed, crushed, stoned, and crucified! (7/15.) + +So intimate is the life which he leads among them all that he makes himself +truly their companion, and relates his own history in narrating theirs; +pleased to discover in their joys and sorrows his own trials and delights; +mingling in their annals his memories and his impressions; delightful +fragments of a childlike autobiography, encrusted in his learned work; +moving and delightful pages in which all the ingenuity of this noble mind +reveals itself with a touching sincerity, in which all the freshness of +this charming and so profoundly unworldly nature is seen as through a pure +crystal. + +There is no real communion with nature without sentiment, without an +illuminating passion: often the sole and effectual grace which enables its +true meaning to appear. Neither taste, nor intelligence, nor logic, nor all +the science of the schools can suffice alone. To see further there is +needed something like a gift of correspondence, surpassing the limits of +observation and experience, which enables us to foresee and to divine the +profound secrets of life which lie beneath appearances. Those who are so +gifted have often only to open their eyes in order to grasp matters in +their true light. + +A great observer is in reality a poet who imagines and creates. The +microscope, the magnifying glass, the scalpel, are as it were the strings +of a lyre. "The felicitous and fruitful hypothesis which constitutes +scientific invention is a gift of sentiment" in the words of Claude +Bernard; and of this king of physiology, who commenced by proving himself +in works of pure imagination, and whose genius finally took for its theme +the manifold variations of living flesh, of him too may we not say that he +has explored the labyrinths of life with "the torch of poetry in his hand"? + +Similarly, do not the harmonious sequences which run through all the +admirable discoveries of Pasteur give us the sensation of a veritable and +gigantic poem? + +In Fabre also it seems that the passion which he brings to all his patient +observations is in itself truly creative: "his heart beats with emotion, +the sweat drips from his brow to the soil, making mortar of the dust"; he +forgets food and drink, and "thus passes hours of oblivion in the happiness +of learning." I have seen him in his laboratory studying the spawning of +the bluebottle, when I, at his side, could scarcely support the horrible +stench which rose from the putrefying adders and lumps of meat; he, +however, was oblivious of the frightful odour, and his face was inundated +with smiles of delight. + +Intelligence, then, must here be the servant of feeling and intuition; a +kind of primitive faculty, mysterious and instinctive, which alone makes a +great naturalist like Fabre, a great historian like Michelet, a great +physician like Boherhaave or Bretonneau. + +These last are not always the most scholarly nor the most learned nor the +most patient, but they are those who possess in a high degree that special +vision, that gift, properly speaking poetic, which is known as the clinical +eye, which at the first glance perceives and confirms the diagnosis in all +its detail. + +Fabre has a mind propitious to such processes; and if, by chance, +circumstances had directed his attention to medicine, that science which is +based upon an abundant provision of facts, but in which good sense and a +kind of divination play a still wider part, there is no doubt that he would +have been capable of becoming a shining light in this new arena. + +He was full of admiration for that other illustrious Vauclusian, François +Raspail (7/16.), whose medical genius anticipated Pasteur and all the +conceptions of modern medicine. It would seem that he found in him his own +temper, his own fashion of seeing and representing things. He loved +Raspail's books and his prescriptions, full of reason and a most judicious +good sense, distrusting for himself and for his family the complicated +formulae and cunning remedies of an art too considered and still unproved. +At Carpentras, while his first-born, Émile, was hovering between life and +death, and the physician who came to see him, "being at the end of his +resources," did nothing more for him and soon ceased to come, thinking that +the child would not last till the morrow, Fabre flew to the works of +Raspail. + +"I searched to discover what his malady was. I found it, and he was treated +day and night accordingly. To-day he is convalescent; and his appetite has +returned. I believe he is saved, and I shall say, like Ambroise Paré, 'I +have nursed him; God has cured him.'" (7/17.) + +The episode which he relates, when, at the primary school of Avignon, a +retort had just burst, "spurting in all directions its contents of +vitriol," right in the midst of the suddenly interrupted chemistry lesson, +and when, thanks to his prompt action, he saved the sight of one of his +comrades, does honour to his initiative and presence of mind. (7/18.) + +While "all physicians should bow before the facts which he excels in +discovering" (7/19.), he has also been able to make direct application of +the marvels of entomology to some of the problems of hygiene and medicine. +He has shown that the irritant poison secreted by certain caterpillars, +"which sets the fingers which handle them on fire," is nothing but a waste +product of the organism, a derivative of uric acid; he does not hesitate to +perform painful experiments on himself in order to furnish the proof of his +theory; and he explains thus the curious cases of dermatitis which are +often observed among silkworm-breeders. (7/20.) He proves the uselessness +of our meat-safes of metallic gauze, intended to preserve meat against +contamination, and the efficacy of a mere envelope of paper, not only to +preserve meat from flies, but also our garments from the clothes-moth. +(7/21.) He recommends the curious Provençal recipe, which consists in +boiling suspected mushrooms in salt and water before eating them. Finally +he suggests to members of the medical profession that they might perhaps +extract heroic remedies from these treacherous vegetables. (7/22.) + +He had need of that indefinite leisure which had hitherto been so wholly +lacking, for the events of ephemeral lives occur at indeterminate hours, at +unexpected moments, and are of brief duration. + +So, attentive to their least movements, Fabre goes forth to observe them at +the earliest break of day, in the red dawn, when the bee "pops her head out +of her attic window to see what the weather is," and the spiders of the +thickets lie in wait under the whorls of their nets, "which the tears of +night have changed into chaplets of dewdrops, whose magic jewellery, +sparkling in the sun," is already attracting moths and midges. + +Seated for hours before a sprig of terebinth, his eye, armed with the +magnifying glass, follows the slow manoeuvres of the terebinth louse, whose +proboscis "cunningly distils the venom which causes the leaf to swell and +produces those enormous tumours, those misshapen and monstrous galls, in +which the young pass their period of slumber." + +He watches at night, by the dim light of a lantern, to copy the Scolopendra +at her task, seeking to surprise the secret of her eggs (7/23.); to observe +the Cione constructing her capsule of goldbeater's skin, or the +Processional caterpillars travelling head to tail along their satin trail, +extinguishing his candle only when sleep at last sets his eyelids blinking. +He will wake early to witness the fairy-like resurrection of the silkworm +moth (7/24.); "in order not to lose the moment when the nymph bursts her +swaddling-bands," or when the wing of the locust issues from its sheath and +"commences to sprout"; no spectacle in the world is more wonderful than the +sight of "this extraordinary anatomy in process of formation," the +unrolling of these "bundles of tissue, cunningly folded and reduced to the +smallest possible compass" in the insignificant alar stumps, which +gradually unfold "like an immense set of sails," like the "body-linen of +the princess" of the fairy-tale, which was contained in one single hemp- +seed. (7/25.) + +In his Harmas he is like a stranger discovering an unknown world; "like a +kindly giant from Sirius, holding a magnifying glass to his eye, retaining +his breath, lest it should overturn and sweep away the pigmies which he is +observing." + +His passion for interrogating the Sphinx of life, everywhere and at all +moments, sufficed to fill his days from one end of the year to the other. +When some distant subject interested him, even on the most scorching days, +he would put "his lunch in his pocket, an apple and a crust of bread," and +sit out in the hot sunlight, accompanied by his dog, Vasco, Tom, or Rabbit; +fearing only that some importunate third person might come between nature +and himself. + +When he walked in his garden he would let nothing escape him; witness those +precise notes of an eclipse of the sun, and of the effects which that +phenomenon produces upon animal life as a whole. + +While his children followed the progress of the moon across the sun through +a pane of smoked glass, he attentively observed all that occurred in the +countryside. + +"It is four; the day grows pale; the temperature is fresher; the cocks +crow, surprised by this kind of twilight which comes before the hour. A few +dogs are baying...The swallows, numerous before, have all disappeared...a +couple have taken refuge in my study, one window of which is open...when +the normal light returns they will come outdoors once more...The +nightingale, which had so long importuned me by his interminable song, is +silent at last (7/26.); the black-capped skylarks, which were warbling +continually, are suddenly still...only the young house-sparrows under the +tiles of the roof are mournfully chirping...Peace and silence, the daylight +more than half gone...In the Harmas I can no longer see the insects flying; +I find only one bee pillaging the rosemary; all life has disappeared. + +"Only a weevil, the Lixus," which he is observing in a cage, "continues, +step by step, without the slightest emotion, his amorous by-play, as though +nothing unusual were happening...The nightingale and the skylark may be +silent, oppressed by fear; the bee may re-enter her hive; but is a weevil +to be upset because the sun threatens to go out?" (7/27.) + +He was no less curious concerning the resurrection of the sun, and every +time he made an excursion to the Ventoux he was careful not to miss this +spectacle; setting out at an early hour from the foot of the mountain, so +that he might see the dawn grow bright from the summit of its rocky mass; +then the sun, suddenly rising in the morning breeze, and setting fire, +little by little, to the Alps of Dauphiné and the hills of Comtat; and the +Rhône, far below, slender as a silver thread. + +He took infinite pleasure too in drinking his fill of the sublime terrors +of the thunderstorm, which he regarded as one of the most magnificent +spectacles which nature can offer; not content with observing it through +glass, he would open wide the windows at night the better to enjoy the +phosphorescence of the atmosphere, the conflagration of the clouds, the +bursts of thunder, and all the solemn pomp with which the great purifying +phenomenon manifests itself. + +But pure observation, as practised by his predecessors, Réaumur and Huber, +is often insufficient, or "furnishes only a glimpse of matters." + +He had recourse, therefore, to artificial observation of the kind known as +experimentation, and we may say that Fabre was really the first to employ +the experimental method in the study of the minds of animals. + +Near the field of observation, therefore, is the naturalist's workshop, +"the animal laboratory," in which such inductions as may be suggested by +the doings and the movements of the insects "which roam at liberty amidst +the thyme and lavender" are subjected to the test of experiment. It is a +great, silent, isolated room, brilliantly lighted by two windows facing +south, upon the garden, one at least of which is always kept open that the +insects may come and go at liberty. + +In the glass-topped boxes of pine which occupy almost the entire height of +the whitewashed walls are carefully arranged the collections so patiently +amassed; all the entomological fauna of the South of France, and the sea- +shells of the Mediterranean; an abundant wealth also of divers rarities; +numismatical treasures and fragments of pottery and other prehistorical +documents, of which the numerous ossuaries in the neighbourhood of +Sérignan, scattered here and there upon the hills, contain many specimens. + +At the top, crowning the facade of glass-topped cases like an immense +frieze, is the colossal herbarium, the first volumes of which go back to +the early youth of their owner; all the flora, both of the Midi and the +North, those of the plains and those of the mountains, and all the algae of +fresh and salt water. + +But it must not be supposed that Fabre attaches any great value to these +collections, enormous though the sum of labour which they represent. To him +they have been a means of education, a means of organizing and arranging +his knowledge, and not of satisfying an idle curiosity; not the amusement +of one content with the rind of things. In order to identify at first sight +such specimens as one encounters and proposes to examine, one must first of +all learn to observe and to see thoroughly, and to school the eyes in the +colours and forms peculiar to each individual species. + +One may fairly complain of Réaumur, for example, that his knowledge was +uncertain and incomplete. Too often he leaves his readers undecided as to +the nature of the species whose habits he describes. Fabre himself, by dint +of criticizing with so much humour the abuse of classifications, has +sometimes allowed himself to fall into the same fault. (7/28.) He has taken +good care, however, not to neglect the systematic study of species; witness +his "Flora of the Vaucluse" and that careful catalogue of Avignon which he +has not disdained to republish. (7/29.) The truth is that "if we do not +know their names the knowledge of the things escapes us" (7/30.), and he +was profoundly conscious of the truth of this precept of the great +Linnaeus. + +The middle of the room is entirely occupied by a great table of walnut- +wood, on which are arranged bottles, test-tubes, and old sardine-boxes, +which Fabre employs in order to watch the evolution of a thousand nameless +or doubtful eggs, to observe the labours of their larvae, the creation and +the hatching of cocoons, and the little miracles of metamorphosis, "after a +germination more wonderful than that of the acorn which makes the oak." + +Covers of metallic gauze resting on earthenware saucers full of sand, a few +carboys and flower-pots or sweetmeat jars closed with a square of glass; +these serve as observation or experimental cages in which the progress and +the actions of "these tiny living machines" can be examined. + +Fabre has revealed himself as a psychologist without rival, of a consummate +skill in the difficult and delicate art of experimentation; the art of +making the insect speak, of putting questions to it, of forcing it to +betray its secrets; for experiment is "the only method which can throw any +light upon the nature of instincts." + +His resources being slender and his mind inventive, he has ingeniously +supplemented the poverty of his equipment, and has discovered less costly +and less complex means of conducting his experiments; knowing the secret of +extracting the sublimest truth from clumsy combinations of "trivial, +peasant-made articles." + +He has succeeded, in his rustic laboratory, in applying the rigorous rules +of investigation and experimentation established by the great biologists. +He has therefore been able to establish his beautiful observations in a +manner so indisputable that those who come after him and are tempted to +study the same things can but arrive at the same results, and derive +inspiration from his researches. + +To note with care all the details of a phenomenon is the first essential, +so that others may afterwards refer to them and profit by them; the +difficult thing is to interpret them, to discover the circumstances, the +whys and wherefores, the consequences, and the connecting links. + +But a single fact observed by chance at the wayside, and which would not +even attract the attention of another, will be instantly luminous to this +searching understanding, it will suggest questions unforeseen, and will +evoke, by anticipation, preconceived ideas and sudden flashes of intuition, +which will necessitate the test of experiment. + +Why, for example, does the Philanthus, that slender wasp, which captures +the honey-bee upon the blossoms in order to feed her larvae; why, before +she carries her prey to her offspring, does she "outrage the dying insect," +by squeezing its crop in order to empty it of honey, in which she appears +to delight, and does indeed actually delight? + +"The bandit greedily takes in her mouth the extended and sugared tongue of +the dead insect; then once more she presses the neck and the thorax, and +once more applies the pressure of her abdomen to the honey-sac of the bee. +The honey oozes forth and is instantly licked up. Thus the bee is gradually +compelled to disgorge the contents of the crop. This atrocious meal lasts +often half an hour and longer, until the last trace of honey has +disappeared." + +The detailed answer is obtained by experiment, which perfectly explains +this "odious feast," the excuse for which is simply maternity. The +Philanthus knows, instinctively, without having learned it, that honey, +which is her ordinary fare, is, by a very singular "inversion," a mortal +poison to her larvae. (7/31.) + +As an accomplished physiologist, Fabre conducts all kinds of experiments. +Behind the wires of his cages, he provokes the moving spectacle of the +scorpion at grip with the whole entomological fauna, in order to test the +effects of its terrible venom upon various species; and thus he discovers +the strange immunity of larvae; the virus, "the reagent of a transcendent +chemistry, distinguishes the flesh of the larva from that of the adult; it +is harmless to the former, but mortal to the latter"; a fresh proof that +"metamorphosis modifies the substance of the organism to the point of +changing its most intimate properties." (7/32.) + +You may judge from this that he knows through and through the history of +the creatures which form the subjects of his faithful narratives. He is +informed of the smallest events of their lives. He possesses a calendar of +their births; he records their chronology and the succession of +generations; he has noted their methods of work, examined their diet, and +recorded their meals. He discovers the motives which dictate their +peculiarities of choice; why the Cerceris, for instance, among all the +victims at its disposal, never selects anything but the Buprestis and the +weevils. He is familiar too with their tactics of warfare and their methods +of conflict. + +His gaze has penetrated even the most hidden dwellings; those in which the +Halictus "varnishes her cells and makes the round loaf which is to receive +the egg"; in which, under the cover of cocoons, murderous grubs devour +slumbering nymphs; even the depths of the soil are not hidden from him, for +there, thanks to his artifices, he has surprised the astonishing secret of +the Minotaur. + +He sifts all doubtful stories; anecdotes, statements of supposed habits; +all that is incoherent, or ill observed, or misinterpreted; all the cliches +which the makers of books pass from hand to hand. + +In place of repetition he gives us laws, constant facts, fixed rules. + +With incomparable skill, he repeats and tests the ancient experiments of +Réaumur. + +He is not content to show us that Erasmus Darwin is mistaken; he points out +how it is that he has fallen into error. (7/33.) + +He sets himself to decipher the meaning of old tales, skilfully disengaging +the little parcel of truth which usually lies beneath a mass of incorrect +or even false statements. He criticises La Fontaine, and questions the +statements of Horus Apollo and Pliny. From a mass of undigested knowledge +he has created the living science of entomology, which had received from +Réaumur a first breath of vitality, in such wise that each individual +creature is presented in his work with its precise expression and the +absolute truth of its character and attitudes; the inhabitants of the woods +and fields, whether those which feed upon the crops or those which live in +the crevices of the rocks, or the obscure workers that crawl upon the +earth; all those which have a secret to tell or something to teach us; the +Cigale, so different from the insect of the Fable; and above all that +beetle whose name had hitherto been encountered arrayed in the most +fantastic legends, the famous Scarabaeus sacer of the tombs, which Fabre +preferred to place at the head of his epic as an agreeable prologue, +although the inquiry relative to his amazing feats belongs chronologically +to a comparatively recent period of his career. + +How moderate he is in such suppositions as he ventures; how cautious when +his persistent patience has at last struck against "the inaccessible wall +of the Unknowable"! Then, with admirable frankness, tranquil and sincere, +he simply owns that "he does not know," unlike so many others, whose +uncritical minds are contented with a fragmentary vision, and run so far +ahead of the facts that they can only promote indefinite illusion and +error. + +One is surprised indeed to remark how few even of the most learned and +well-informed of men have a real aptitude for observation, and a highly +instructive book might be written concerning the discrepancies and the weak +points in our knowledge. If they were subjected to a sufficiently severe +test, how threadbare would appear many of those problems which nature and +the world present, and which are regarded as resolved! + +How long, for instance, was needed to destroy the legend of the cuckoo, +incessantly repeated down to the days of Xavier Raspail, and to us so +familiar; to elucidate its history, and to set it in its true light! +(7/34.) + +It is by means of such data as these that a science is founded, for +theories decay, and only well-observed facts remain irrefragable. With +stones such as these, which are hewn by the great artisan, the structures +of the future will be built, and our own science, perhaps, will one day be +refashioned. + +For this reason Fabre's books are an education for all those who wish to +devote themselves to observation; a manual of mental discipline, a true +"essay upon method," which should be read by every naturalist, and the most +interesting, instructive, familiar and delightful course of training that +has ever been known. + +On the other hand, it is impossible to conceive what labour this delicate +work demands; what perseverance Fabre has required painfully to extract one +grain of gold; to glean and unite the definite factors, the positive +documents, which served as foundations for each of his essays; lucid, +limpid, and captivating as the most delightful of fairy-tales. We are +charmed, fascinated, and astonished; we see nothing of the groping advance, +the checks, and all the toil and the patience demanded. We do not suspect +the long waiting, the hesitation, the desperate length of the inquiries. +For example, to establish the curious relations which exist between the +wasps and the Volucellae, what long and repeated experiments were needful! +His notebooks, in which he records, from day to day, all that he sees, are +evidence of this. What watches in the alley of lilacs, year after year, to +decipher the mechanism and the mode of construction of the hunting-net of +the Epeïra! Some of these histories, like that of the hyper-metamorphosis +of the Meloë, were only completed as the result of twenty-five years of +assiduous inquiry, while forty years were required to complete that of the +Scarabaeus sacer, for his observation of it was always partial; it is +almost always impossible to divine what one cannot see from the little that +one does see; and as a rule one must return to the same point over and over +again in order to fill up lacunae. + +The majority of the insects which Fabre has studied are solitary, and are +only to be encountered singly, scattered over wide areas of country. Some +live only in determined spots, and not elsewhere, such as the famous +Cerceris, or the yellow-winged Sphex, of which no trace is to be found +beyond the limits of the Carpentras countryside. + +The proper season must be watched for; one must be ready at any moment to +profit by a lucky chance, and resign oneself to interminable watches at the +bottom of a ravine, or keep on the alert for hours under a fiery sun. Often +the chance goes by, or the trail followed proves false; but the season is +over, and one must wait for the return of another spring. The trade of +observer in many cases resembles the exhausting labours of the Sisyphus +beetle, painfully pushing his pellet up a rough and stony path; so that the +team halts and staggers at every moment, the load spills over and rolls +away, and all has to be commenced over again. + +We can now cast back, in order to consider at leisure the immortal study +which marked the beginning of his fame, with the greater interest and +profit in that Fabre has been able, during his retirement, to generalize +and extend his discovery. (7/35.) + +Let us first of all note how the observation which Dufour had made of the +nest of the Cerceris was transformed in his hands, and what developments he +was able to evolve therefrom. + +Since they have been definitely established by Fabre these curious facts +have been well-known. They form perhaps the greatest prodigy presented by +entomology, that science so full of marvels. + +These wasps nourish themselves only on the nectar of flowers; but their +larvae, which they will never behold, must have fresh and succulent flesh +still palpitating with life. + +The insect digs a tunnel in the soil, in which she places her eggs, and +having provisioned the cell with selected game--cricket, spider, +caterpillar, or beetle--she finally closes the entrance, which she does not +again cross. + +Like nearly all insects, the young wasp is born in the larval state, and +from the moment of its hatching to the end of its growth--that is to say, +for a period of many days--the grub enclosed in its cell can look for no +help from without. + +Here then is a fascinating problem: either the victims deposited by the +mother are dead, and desiccation or putrefaction attacks them promptly, or +else they are living, as indeed the larvae require; but then "what will +become of this fragile creature, which a mere nothing will destroy, shut in +the narrow chamber of the burrow among vigorous beetles, for weeks on end +working their long spurred legs; or at grips with a monstrous caterpillar +making play with its flanks and mandibles, rolling and unrolling its +tortuous folds?" + +Such is the thrilling mystery of which Fabre discovered the key. + +With inconceivable ingenuity, the victim is seized and thrown to the +ground, and the wasp plunges her sting, not at random into the body, which +would involve the risk of death, but at determined points, exactly into the +seat of those invisible nervous ganglions whose mechanism commands the +various movements of the creature. + +Immediately after these subtle wounds the prey is paralysed throughout its +body; its members appear to be disarticulated, "as though all the springs +were broken"; the true corpse is not more motionless. + +But the wound is not mortal; not only does the insect continue to live, but +it has acquired the strange prerogative of being able to live for a very +long period without taking any nourishment, thanks precisely to the +condition of immobility, in some sort vegetative, which paralysis confers +upon it. + +When the hour strikes the hungry larva will find its favourite meat served +to its liking; and it will attack this defenceless prey with all the +circumspection of a refined eater; "with an exquisitely delicate art, +nibbling the viscera of its victim little by little, with an infallible +method; the less essential parts first of all, and only in the last +instance those which are necessary to life. Here then is an +incomprehensible spectacle; the spectacle of an animal which, eaten alive, +mouthful by mouthful, during nearly a fortnight, is hollowed out, grows +less and less, and finally collapses," while retaining to the end its +succulence and its freshness. + +The fact is that the mother has taken care to deposit her egg "at a point +always the same" in the region which her sting has rendered insensible, so +that the first mouthfuls are only feebly resented. But as the enemy goes +deeper and deeper "it sometimes happens that the cricket, bitten to the +quick, attempts to retaliate; but it only succeeds in opening and closing +the pincers of its mandibles on the empty air, or in uselessly waving its +antennae." Vain efforts: "for now the voracious beast has bitten deep into +the spot, and can with impunity ransack the entrails." What a slow and +horrible agony for the paralysed victim, should some glimmer of +consciousness still linger in its puny brain! What a terrible nightmare for +the little field-cricket, suddenly plunged into the den of the Sphex, so +far from the sunlit tuft of thyme which sheltered its retreat! + +To paralyse without killing, "to deliver the prey to the larvae inert but +living": that is the end to be attained; only the method varies according +to the species of the hunter and the structure of the prey; thus the +Cerceris, which attacks the coleoptera, and the Scolia, which preys upon +the larvae of the rose-beetle, sting them only once and in a single place, +because there is concentrated the mass of the motor ganglions. + +The Pompilus, which selects a spider for its victim, no less than the +redoubtable Tarantula, knows that its quarry "has two nervous centres which +animate respectively the movements of the limbs and those of the terrible +fangs; hence the two stabs of the sting." (7/36.) + +The Sphex plunges her dagger three times into the breast of the cricket, +because she knows, by an intuition that we cannot comprehend, that the +locomotor innervation of the cricket is actuated by three nervous centres, +which lie wide apart. (7/37.) + +Finally, the Ammophila, "the highest manifestation of the logic of +instinct, whose profound knowledge leaves us confounded, stabs the +caterpillar in nine places, because the body of the victim with which it +feeds its larvae is a series of rings, set end to end, each of which +possesses its little independent nervous centre." (7/38.) + +This is not all; the genius of the Sphex is not yet at the end of its +foresight. You have doubtless heard of the comatose state into which the +wounded fall when, after a fracture of the skull, the brain is compressed +by a violent haemorrhage or a bony splinter. The physiologists imitate this +process of nature when they wish, for example, to obtain, in animals under +experiment, a state of complete immobility. But did the first surgeon who +thought of trepanning the skull in order to exert on the brain, by means of +a sponge, a certain degree of compression, ever imagine that an analogous +procedure had long been employed in the insect world, and that these clumsy +methods were merely child's play beside the astonishing feats of the +Unconscious? + +For the stab in the thoracic ganglions, however efficacious, is often +insufficient. Although the six limbs are paralysed, although the victim +cannot move, its mandibles, "pointed, sharp, serrated, which close like a +pair of scissors, still remain a menace to the tyrant; they might at least, +by gripping the surrounding grasses, oppose a more or less effectual +resistance to the process of carrying off." So the preceding manoeuvres are +consummated by a kind of garrotting; that is, the insect "takes care to +compress the brain of its victim, but so as to avoid wounding it; producing +only a stupor, a simple torpor, a passing lethargy." Is not the ingenious +observer justified in concluding that "this is alarmingly scientific"? + +Between the dry statements of Dufour, which served Fabre as his original +theme, and the unaccustomed wealth of this vast physiological poetry, what +a distance has been covered! + +How far have we outstripped this barren matter, these shapeless sketches! +Dufour, another solitary, who retired to his province, in the depth of the +Landes, was above all a descriptive anatomist, and he limited himself to an +inventory of the nest of a Cerceris. + +For him the Buprestes were dead, and their state of preservation was +explained simply as a kind of embalming, due to some special action of the +venom of the Hymenoptera. + +These facts, therefore, were stated as simple curiosities. + +Fabre proved that these victims possessed all the attributes of life +excepting movement, by provoking contractions in their members under the +influence of various stimulants, and by keeping them alive artificially for +an indefinite period. + +On the other hand, he demonstrated the comparative innocuousness of the +venom of these wasps, some of which, like the great Cerceris or the +beautiful and formidable Scolia, alarm by their enormous size and their +terrifying aspect; so that the conservation of the prey could not be due to +any occult quality, to some more or less active antiseptic virtue of the +venomous fluid, but simply to the precision of the stab and the miraculous +deftness of the "surgeon." + +He also pointed out the fact that the sting of the insect is able +immediately to dissociate the nervous system of the vegetative life from +that of the correlative life, sparing the former, and taking care not to +wound the abdomen, which contains the ganglions of the great sympathetic +nerve, while it annihilates the latter, which is more or less concentrated +along the ventral face of the thoracic region. + +He completed this splendid demonstration, not only by provoking under his +own eyes the "murderous manoeuvres, the intimate and passionate drama," but +also by reproducing experimentally all these astonishing phenomena; +expounding their mechanism and their variations with a logic and lucidity, +an art and sagacity which raise this marvellous observation, one of the +most beautiful known to science, to the height of the most immortal +discoveries of physiology. Claude Bernard, in his celebrated experiments, +certainly exhibited no greater invention, no truer genius. + + +CHAPTER 8. THE MIRACLE OF INSTINCT. + +"The Spirit Bloweth Whither it Listeth." + +What is this instinct, which guides the insect to such marvellous results? +Is it merely a degree of intelligence, or some absolutely different form of +activity? + +Is it possible, by studying the habits of animals, to discover some of +those elementary springs of action whose knowledge would enable us to dive +more deeply into our own natures? + +Fabre has presented us to his Sphex, the "infallible paralyser." Are we to +credit her not only with memory, but also with the faculty of associating +ideas, of judgment, and of pursuing a train of reasoning in respect of her +astonishingly co-ordinated actions? + +Put to the question by the malice of the operator, the "transcendent" +anatomist trips over a mere trifle, and the slightest novelty confounds +her. + +Without the circle of her ordinary habits, what stupidity, "what darkness +wraps her round"! She retreats; she refuses to understand; "she washes her +eyes, first passing her hands across her mouth; she assumes a dreamy, +meditative air." What can she be pondering? Under what form of thought, +illusion, or mirage does the unfamiliar problem which has obtruded itself +into her customary life present itself behind those faceted eyes? (8/1.) + +How can we tell? We can only attain to knowledge of ourselves by direct +intuition. It is only the idea of our ego which enables us to conjecture +what is passing in the brains of our fellows. Between the insect and +ourselves no understanding is possible, so remote are the analogies between +its organization and our own; and we can only form idle hypotheses as to +its states of consciousness and the real motive of its actions. + +Consider only that unknown and mysterious energy which the insects display +in their operations and their labours, as it is in itself, and let us +content ourselves, first of all, with comparing it to our own intelligence, +such as we conceive it to be. + +In seeking to appreciate whereby it differs perhaps we shall gain more than +by vainly seeking points of resemblance. We shall discover, in fact, behind +the insect and its prodigious instincts, a vast and remote horizon, a +region at once more profound, more extensive, and more fruitful than that +of the intelligence; and if Fabre is able to help us to decipher a few +pages of "the most difficult of all volumes, the book of ourselves," it is +precisely, as a philosopher told him, because "man has remained instinctive +in process of becoming intelligent." (8/2.) + +The work of Fabre is from this point of view an invaluable treasury of +observations and experiments, and the richest contribution which has ever +been made to the study of these fascinating problems. + +"The function of the intelligence is to reflect, to be conscious; that is, +to relate the effect to its cause, to add a "because" to a "why"; to remedy +the accidental; to adapt a new course of conduct to new circumstances." + +In relation to the human intelligence thus defined Fabre has considered +these nervous aptitudes, so well adjusted, according to the evolutionists, +by ancient habit, that they have finally become impulsive and unconscious, +and, properly speaking, innate. He has demonstrated, with an abundance of +proof and a power of argument that we must admire, the blind mechanism +which determines all the manifestations, even the most extraordinary, of +that which we call instinct, and which heredity has fixed in a species of +unchangeable automatism, like the rhythm of the heart and the lungs. (8/3.) + +Let us, from this wealth of material, from among the most suggestive +examples, select some of his most striking demonstrations, which are +classics of their kind. + +Fabre has not attempted to define instinct, for it is indefinable; nor to +probe its essential nature, which is impenetrable. But to recognize the +order of nature is in itself a sufficiently fascinating study, without +striving to crack an unbreakable bone or wasting time in pondering +insoluble enigmas. The important matter is to avoid the introduction of +illusions, to beware of exceeding the data of observation and experiment, +of substituting our own inferences for the facts, of outstripping reality +and amplifying the marvellous. + +Let us listen to the scrupulous analysis whose lessons, scattered through +four thousand pages, teach us more concerning instinct and its innumerable +variations than all the most learned treatises and speculations of the +philosophers. + +Nothing in the world perplexes the mind of the observer like the spectacle +of the birth and growth of the instincts. + +At precisely the right moment, just as failure or disaster seems +foreordained by the previously established circumstances, Fabre shows us +his insects as suddenly mastered by an irresistible force. + +"At the right moment" they invincibly obey some sort of mysterious and +inflexible prescription. Without apprenticeship, they perform the very +actions required, and blindly accomplish their destiny. + +Then, the moment having passed, the instincts "disappear and do not +reawaken. A few days more or less modify the talents, and what the young +insect knew the adult has often forgotten." (8/4.) + +Among the Lycosae, at the moment of exodus, a sudden instinct is evolved +which a few hours later disappears never to return. It is the climbing +instinct, unknown to the adult spider, and soon forgotten by the +emancipated young, who are destined to roam upon the face of the earth. But +the young Lycosae, anxious to leave the maternal home and to travel, become +suddenly ardent climbers and aeronauts, each releasing a long, light thread +which serves it as parachute. The voyage accomplished, no trace of this +ingenuity is left. Suddenly acquired, the climbing instinct no less +suddenly disappears. (8/5.) + +The great historiographer of instinct has thrown a wonderful light, by his +beautiful experiments relating to the nidification of the mason-bee, upon +the indissoluble succession of its different phases; the lineal +concatenation, the inevitable and necessary order which presides over each +of these nervous discharges of which the total series constitutes, properly +speaking, a mode of action. + +The mason-bee continues to build upon the ready-completed nest presented to +her. She obstinately insists upon provisioning a cell already duly filled +with the quantity of honey required by the larva, because, in this case as +in the other, the impulse which incites her to build or to provision the +nest has not yet been exhausted. + +On the other hand, if we empty the little cup of its contents when she has +filled it she will not recommence her labours. "The process of provisioning +being complete, the secret impulse which urged her to collect her honey is +no longer active. The insect therefore ceases to store her honey, and, in +spite of this accident, lays her egg in the empty cell, thus leaving the +future nursling without nourishment." (8/6.) + +In the case of the Pelopaeus, Fabre calls our attention to one of the most +instructive physiological spectacles that can be imagined. + +While the mason-bee does not notice that her cell has been emptied, the +Pelopaeus cannot perceive that the tricks of the experimenter have resulted +in the disappearance of her progeny; and she "continues to store away +spiders for a germ that no longer exists; she perseveres untiringly in her +useless hunting, as though the future of her larva depended on it; she +amasses provisions which will feed no one; more, she pushes aberration to +the extent of plastering even the place where her nest was if we remove it, +giving the last strokes of the trowel to an imaginary building, and putting +her seals upon empty nothing." (8/7.) + +>From these facts, and others, no less celebrated, which show "the inability +of insects to escape from the routine of their customs and their habitual +labours," Fabre derives so many proofs of their lack of intelligence. + +The Epeïra fasciata is incapable of replacing a single radial thread in the +geometrical structure of its web, when broken; it recommences the entire +web every evening, and weaves it at one stretch with the most beautiful +mastery, as though merely amusing itself. + +The caterpillar of the Greater Peacock moth teaches us the same lesson; +when occupied in weaving its cocoon it does not know how to repair an +artificial rent; and "in spite of the certainty of its death, or rather +that of the future butterfly, it quietly continues to spin, without +troubling to cover the rent; devoting itself to a superfluous task, and +ignoring the treacherous breach, which leaves the cocoon and its inhabitant +at the mercy of the first thief that finds it." (8/8.) + +Thus "because one action has just been performed, another must inevitably +be performed to complete the first; what is done is done, and is never +repeated. Like the watercourse, which cannot climb the hills and return to +its source, the insect does not retrace its steps or repeat its actions, +which follow one another invariably, and are inevitably connected in a +necessary order, like a series of echoes, one of which awakens +another...The insect knows nothing of its marvellous talents, just as the +stomach knows nothing of its cunning chemistry. It builds like a +bricklayer, weaves, hunts, stabs, and paralyses, as it secretes the venom +of its weapons, the silk of its cocoon, the wax of its comb, or the threads +of its web; always without the slightest knowledge of the means and the +end." (8/9.) + +Thus instinct is one thing and intelligence is another; and for Fabre there +is no transition which can transform the one into the other. + +But how profound and abundant, how infinite is the source from which this +manifold activity derives, distributed as it is throughout the entire +animal kingdom; and which in ourselves commands the profoundest part of our +nature; unconscious, or even in opposition to our wonderful intelligence, +which it often silences or altogether overwhelms. + +Although the insect "has no need of lessons from its elders" in order to +accomplish its beautiful masterpieces, the comprehensive concept of the +genius which rises spontaneously and at a single step to the loftiest +conceptions is not always a product of pure reason. + +Compare the sublime logic of animal maternity, the impeccable dictates of +instinct, with the hesitations, the gropings, the uncertainties, the errors +and tragic failures of human maternity, when it seeks to replace the +unerring commands of instinct by the clumsy efforts of the intelligence! + +If all is darkness to the animal, apart from its habitual paths, how feeble +and hesitating, how faltering and unequal is reason when it seeks to oppose +its laborious inductions to the infallible wisdom of the unconscious! + +It is, in fact, to this concatenation of actions, narrowly connected by a +mutual dependence, that we owe this inexhaustible series of cunning +industries and wonderful arts. To Fabre they are so many feats of a learned +unconsciousness. + +"See the nest, the accustomed masterpiece of mothers; it is more often than +otherwise an animal fruit, a coffer full of germs, containing eggs in place +of seeds." + +The satin bag of the Epeïra fasciata, in which her eggs are enclosed, +"breaks at the caress of the sun, like the skin of an over-ripe +pomegranate." + +The Dorthesia, the louse inhabiting the euphorbia, "trebles the length of +her body, prolonging its hinder part into a pouch, comparable to that of +the opossum, into which the eggs are dropped, and in which the young are +hatched, to leave it afterwards at will." (8/10.) + +The Chermes of the ilex "hardens into a rampart of ebony, whence an +innumerable legion of vermin bursts forth one day without changing their +place." + +The capsule of gold-beater's skin, in which the grubs of the Cione are +enclosed, divides itself, at the moment of liberation, into two hemispheres +"of a regularity so perfect that they recall exactly the bursting of the +pyxidium when the seed is distributed." (8/11.) + +Here and there, however, we catch a glimpse of a rudiment of what we +understand by consciousness, in the shape of a "vague discrimination." + +Each plant has its lover, drawn to it by a kind of elective affinity and +invariable tendency. The Larra makes for the thistle, the Vanessa for the +nettle, the Clytus for the ilex, and the Crioceris for the lily. "The +weevil knows nothing but its peas and beans, the golden Rhynchites only the +sloe, and the Balaninus only the nut or acorn." + +But the Pieris, which haunts the cabbage, frequents the nasturtium also, +and the golden rose-beetle, which "intoxicates itself at the clusters of +the hawthorn," is no less addicted to the nectar of the rose. + +The Xylocopa, which burrows in the trunks of trees and old rafters, forming +little round corridors in which to lodge her offspring, "will utilize +artificial galleries which she has not herself bored." + +The Chalicodoma "also is aware of the economic advantages of an old +abandoned nest"; the Anthophora is careful to establish her family "at the +least expense," and profits on occasion by galleries which have been mined +by previous generations; adapting herself to these new conditions, she +repairs the tunnels which she did not construct "and economizes her +forces." (8/12.) + +It would seem, therefore, that these tiny minds are created and shaped by +means of experience; they recognize "that which is most fitting"; they +learn, they compare; may we not also say that they judge? + +Does not the Mason-bee, "which rakes the roads for a dry powdery dust and +mixes it with saliva to convert it into a hard cement," foresee that this +mud will harden? + +Is the Pelopaeus devoid of judgment when she seeks the interior of +dwelling-houses in order to shelter her nest of dried clay, which the least +drop of rain would reduce to its original state of mud? + +Is it without knowledge of the effects that the sloe-weevil builds a +ventilating chimney to prevent the asphyxiation of her larva? that the +Scarabaeus sacer contrives a filter at the smaller end of its pear-shaped +ball, by means of which the grub is able to breathe? or that Arachne +labyrintha "introduces in her silk-work a rampart of compressed earth to +protect her eggs from the probe of the Ichneumon"? + +May we not also see a masterpiece of the highest logic in the house of the +trap-door spider, Arachne clotho, which is furnished with a door, a true +door "which she throws open with a push of the leg, and carefully bolts +behind her on returning by means of a little silk"? (8/13.) + +What a miracle of invention too is the prodigious nest of the Eumenes, +"with its egg suspended by a thread from the roof, like a pendulum, +oscillating at the lightest breath in order to save it from contact with +the caterpillars, which, incompletely paralysed, are wriggling and writhing +below"! Later, when the egg is hatched, "the filament is transformed into a +tube, a place of refuge, up which the grub clambers backwards. At the least +sign of danger from the mass of caterpillars the larva retreats into its +sheath and ascends to the roof, where the wriggling swarm cannot reach it." +(8/14.) + +Let us refer also to the remarkable history of the Copris. We cannot deny +that the valiant dung-beetle is capable of "evading the accidental" (which +to Fabre constitutes one of the distinctive characteristics of the +intelligence), since it immediately intervenes if with the point of a +penknife we open the roof of its nest and lay bare its egg. "The fragments +raised by the knife are immediately brought together and soldered, so that +no trace is left of the injury, and all is once more in order." We may read +also with what incredible address the mother Copris was able to use and to +profit by the ready-made pellets of cow-dung which it occurred to Fabre to +offer her. (8/15.) + +But their scope is limited, and encroaches very little, in the eyes of the +great observer, on the domain of intelligence. This he demonstrates to +satiety, and his astonishing Necrophori, which adapt themselves so +admirably to circumstances and triumph over the experimental difficulties +to which he subjects them, seem scarcely to exceed the limits of those +actions which at bottom are merely unconscious. (8/16.) + +With the spawning of the Osmia, Fabre throws a fresh and unexpected light +on the intuitive knowledge of instinct. + +We are still groping our way among the causes which rule the determination +of the sexes. Biology has only been able to throw a few scattered lights on +the subject, and we possess only a few approximate data; which nevertheless +are turned to account by the breeders of insects. We are still in the +region of illusion and imperfect prognostics. + +But the Osmia knows what we do not. She is deeply versed in all +physiological and anatomical knowledge, and in the faculty of creating +children of either sex at will. + +These pretty bees, "with coppery skin and fleece of ruddy velvet," which +establish their progeny in the hollow of a bramble stump, the cavity of a +reed, or the winding staircase of an empty snail-shell, know the fixed and +immutable genetic laws which we can only guess at, and are never mistaken. + +This marvellous prerogative the Osmia shares with a host of apiaries, in +which the unequal development of the males and females requires an unequal +provision of space and of nourishment for the future larvae. For the +females, who exceed in point of size, huge cells and abundant provision; +for the more puny males, narrow cells and a smaller ration of pollen and +honey. + +Now the circumstances which are encountered by the Osmia, when, pressed by +the necessities of spawning, she searches for a dwelling, are often +fortuitous and incapable of modification; and in order to give each set of +larvae the necessary space "she lays at will a male or a female egg, +according to the conditions of space." + +In this marvellous study, which constitutes, with the history of the +Cerceris, the finest masterpiece of experimental entomology, Fabre +brilliantly establishes all the details of that curious law which in the +Hymenoptera rules both the distribution and the succession of the sexes. In +his artificial hives, in glass cylinders, he forces the Osmia to commence +her spawning with the males, instead of beginning with the females as +nature requires, since the insect is primarily preoccupied with the more +important sex, that which ensures par excellence the perpetuation of the +species. He even forces the whole swarm which buzzes about his work-tables, +his books, his bottles, and apparatus, completely to change the order of +its spawning. He shows finally that in the heart of the ovaries the egg of +the Osmia has as yet no determined sex, and that it is only at the precise +moment when the egg is on the point of emerging from the oviduct that it +receives, AT THE WILL OF THE MOTHER, the mysterious, final, and inevitable +imprint. + +But whence does the Osmia derive this, "distinct idea of the invisible"? +Here again is one of those riddles of nature which Fabre declares himself +quite incapable of solving. (8/17.) + +Is this all? No; we are far from having made the tour of this miraculous +and incommensurable kingdom through which this admirable master leads us, +and I should never be done were I to attempt to exhaust all the spectacles +which he offers us. Let us descend yet another step, among creatures yet +smaller and humbler. We shall find tendencies, impulses, preferences, +efforts, intentions, "Machiavellic ruses and unheard-of stratagems." + +Certain miserable black mites, living specks, the larvae of a beetle, one +of the Meloidae, the Sitaris, are parasites of the solitary bee, the +Anthophora. They wait patiently all the winter at the entrance of her +tunnel, on the slope of a sunny bank, for the springtime emergence of the +young bees, as yet imprisoned in their cells of clay. A male Anthophora, +hatched a little earlier than the females, appears in the entrance of the +tunnel; these mites, which are armed with robust talons, rouse themselves, +hasten to and fro, hook themselves to his fleece, and accompany him in all +his peregrinations; but they quickly recognize their error; for these +animated specks are well aware that the males, occupied all day long in +scouring the country and pillaging the flowers, live exclusively out of +doors, and would in no wise serve their end. But the moment comes when the +Anthophora pays court to the fair sex, and the imperceptible creature +immediately profits by the amorous encounter to change its winged courser. +"These pigmies therefore have a memory, an experience of facts" (and how +one is tempted to add, a glimmering of intelligence!). Grappled now to the +female bee, the grub of the Sitaris "conceals itself, and allows itself to +be carried by her" to the end of the gallery in which she is now contriving +her cradle, "watches the precise moment when the egg is laid, installs +itself upon it, and allows itself to fall therewith upon the surface of the +honey, in order to substitute itself for the future offspring of the +Anthophora, and possess itself of house and victuals." (8/18.) + +Another "little gelatinous speck," "a shadow of a creature," the larva of a +Chalcidian, the Leucopsis, one of the parasites of the Mason-bee, knows +that in the cell of the mason there is food for one only. Scarcely has it +entered the tiny dwelling but we see this "nameless shape" for several days +"anxiously wandering; it visits the top and bottom, the back, the front, +the sides"; it makes the tour of its domain; "it searches in the darkness, +palpitating, seemingly with an object in view." What does this "animated +globule" want? why is this atom so excited? It is searching to discover if +there is not in some corner hitherto unexplored another larva, a rival, +that it may exterminate it! (8/19.) + +What then intrinsically is instinct? And what intrinsically is +intelligence? + +How can we propose to draw up the inexhaustible inventory of all the +manifestations of life, and why attempt to include all its species and +their unknown varieties in narrow classes? Why say that there are only two +modes of life, instinct on the one hand and intelligence on the other, +"when we know how subtle and illusive is this Proteus, and that there are +not two things only, but a thousand dissimilar things" (8/20.): or rather +is it not always the same thing, everywhere present and acting in living +matter, and susceptible of infinite degrees, under forms and disguises +innumerable? + +This is why it escapes the "scalpel of the masters" and the apparatus of +the chemists. We may dissect, we may scrutinize organs under the magnifying +glass, examine wing-cases, count the nervures of the wings, the number of +articulations in the limbs; we may reckon every point, like Réaumur +forgetting not a line, not a hair; we may compare and measure every portion +of the mouth, and define the class; and we shall not find a single point in +all this physical architecture which will positively inform us of the +habits of the insect. Of what account are a few slight differences? It is +in the physical far more than in the anatomical differences that the +inviolable demarcation between two species exists. Instincts dominate +forms; the tool does not make the artisan; "and none of these various +structures, however well adapted they may appear to us, bears within it its +reason or its finality." + +Thus whatever opinion we may hold as to the nature of instinct, the +accomplishments and habits of insects are not, properly speaking, connected +with the external and visible form of their organs, and their acts do not +necessarily presuppose the instruments which would be appropriate to them. + +We know that with most organisms, and particularly with plants, an almost +imperceptible variation in material circumstances is often enough to modify +their character and to produce fresh aptitudes. Nevertheless, we can but +wonder, with Fabre, that physical modifications, which, when they do exist, +are so slight always as to have escaped the most perfect observation, +should have sufficed to determine the appearance of profoundly dissimilar +faculties. Inexplicable abilities, unexpected habits, unforeseen physical +aptitudes, and unheard-of industries are exercised by means of organs which +are here and there practically identical. "The same tools are equally good +for any purpose. Talent alone is able to adapt them to manifold ends." + +The Anthidia have two particular industries; "those which felt cotton and +card the soft down of hairy plants have the same claws, the same mandibles, +composed of the same portions as those which knead resin and mix it with +fine gravel." (8/21.) + +The sloe-weevil "bores the hard stone of the sloe with the same rostrum as +that which its congeners, so like it in conformation, employ to roll the +leaves of the vine and the poplar into tiny cigars." + +The implement of the Megachile, the rose-fly, is by no means appropriate to +its industry; "yet the perfectly circular fragments of leaves have the +precise perfection of form that a punch would give." + +The Xylocopa, in order to pierce wood and to bore its galleries in an old +rafter, employs "the same utensils which in others are transformed into +picks and mattocks to attack clay and gravel, and it is only a +predisposition of talent that holds each worker to his speciality." + +Moreover, have not the superior animals the same senses and the same +structure, yet what inequality there is among them, in the matter of +aptitudes and degrees of intelligence! + +Habits are no more determined by anatomical peculiarities than are +aptitudes or industries. + +The two Goat-moth caterpillars, of similar structure, have entirely +different stomachic aptitudes; "the exclusive portion of the one is the oak +and of the other the hawthorn or the cherry-laurel." + +"Whence does the Mantis derive its excessive hunger, its pugnacity, its +cannibalism, and the Empusa its sobriety, its peaceableness, when their +almost identical organization would seem to indicate an identity of needs, +instincts, and habits?" + +In the same way the black scorpion appears to present none of the +interesting peculiarities which we observe in the habits of its congener, +the white scorpion of Languedoc. (8/22.) + +Structure, therefore, tells us nothing of aptitude; the organ does not +explain its function. Let the specialists hypnotize themselves over their +lenses and microscopes; they may accumulate at leisure masses of details +relating to this or that family or genus or individual; they may undertake +the most subtle inquiries, may write thousands and thousands of pages in +order to detail a few slight variations, without even succeeding in +exhausting the matter: they will not even have seen what is most wonderful. + +When the little insect has for the last time cleaned its claws, the secret +of the little mind has fled for ever, with all the feelings that animated +it and gave it life. That which is crystallized in death cannot explain +what was life. This is the thought which the Provençal singer, with that +intuition which is the privilege of genius, has expressed in these +melodious lines: + +"Oh! pau de sèn qu'emé l'escaupre +Furnant la mort, creson de saupre, +La vertu de l'abiho e lou secrèt doù méu." + +(O men of little sense, who seek, +Scalpel in hand, to make Death tell +The virtue of the bee, the secret of her cell!) (8/23.) + + +CHAPTER 9. EVOLUTION OR "TRANSFORMISM." + +"How did a miserable grub acquire its marvellous knowledge? Are its habits, +its aptitudes, and its industries the integration of the infinitely little, +acquired by successive experiences on the limitless path of time?" + +It is in these words that Fabre presents the problem of evolution. + +Difficult though it may be to follow the sequence of forms which have +endlessly succeeded and replaced one another on the face of the earth, +since the beginning of the world, it is certain that all living creatures +are closely related; and the magnificent and fertile hypothesis of +evolution, which seeks to explain how extant forms are derived from +extinct, has the immense advantage of giving a plausible reason for the +majority of the facts which at least cease to be completely unintelligible. + +Otherwise we can certainly never imagine how so many instincts, and these +so complex and perfect, could have issued suddenly "from the urn of +hazard." + +But Fabre will suppose nothing; he will only record the facts. Instead of +wandering in the region of probabilities, he prefers to confine himself to +the reality, and for the rest to reply simply that "we do not know." + +This stern, positive, rigorous, independent, and observant mind, nourished +upon geometry and the exact sciences, which has never been able to content +itself with approximations and probabilities, could but distrust the +seductions of hypotheses. + +His robust common sense, which was always his protection against +precipitate conclusions, too clearly comprehends the limits of science and +the necessity of accumulating facts "upon the thorny path of observation +and experiment" to indulge in generalization. He feels that life has +secrets which our minds are powerless to probe, and that "human knowledge +will be erased from the archives of the world before we know the last word +concerning the smallest fly." + +This is why he was regarded as "suspect" by the company of official +scientists, to whom he was a dissenter, almost a traitor, especially at a +moment when the theories of evolution, then in the first flush of their +novelty, were everywhere the cause of a general elation. + +No one as yet was capable of divining the man of the future in this modest +thinker who would not accept the word of the masters interested, but in +opposing the theory of transformation, far from being reactionary, Fabre +revealed himself, at least in the domain of animal psychology, as an +innovator, a true precursor. + +Moreover, his observations, always so direct and personal, often revealed +the contrary of what was asserted or foreseen by the magic formulae +suggested by the mind. + +To the ingenious mechanism invented by the transformists he preferred to +oppose, not contrary argument, but the naked undeniable fact, the obvious +testimony, the certain and irrefragable example. "Is it," he would ask +them, "to repulse their enemies that certain caterpillars smear themselves +with a corrosive product? But the larva of the Calosoma sycophanta, which +feeds on the Processional caterpillar of the oak-tree, pays no heed to it, +neither does the Dermestes, which feeds on the entrails of the Processional +caterpillar of the pine-tree." + +And consider mimicry. According to the theory of evolution, certain insects +would utilize their resemblance to certain others in order to conceal +themselves, and to introduce themselves into the dwellings of the latter as +parasites living at their expense. Such would be the case with the +Volucella, a large fly whose costume, striped with brown and yellow bands, +gives it a rude resemblance to the wasp. Obliged, if not for its own sake +at least for that of its family, to force itself into the wasp's dwelling +as a parasite, it deceitfully dresses itself, we are told, in the livery of +its victim, thus affording the most curious and striking example of +mimicry; and naturalists insufficiently informed would regard it as one of +the greatest triumphs of evolution. + +Now what does the Volucella do? It is true that it lays its eggs without +being disturbed in the nest of the wasp. But, as the rigorous observer will +tell you, it is a precious auxiliary and not an enemy of the community. Its +grubs, far from disguising or concealing themselves, "come and go openly +upon the combs, although every stranger is immediately massacred and thrown +out." Moreover, "they watch the hygiene of the city by clearing the nest of +its dead and ridding the larvae of the wasps of their excretory products." +Plunging successively into each chamber of the dormitory the forepart of +their bodies, "they provoke the emission of that fluid excrement of which +the larvae, owing to their cloistration, contain an extreme reserve." In a +word, the grubs of the Volucella "are the nurses of the larvae," performing +the most intimate duties." (9/1.) + +What an astonishing conclusion! What a disconcerting and unexpected reply +to the "theories in vogue"! + +Fabre, however, with his poetic temperament and ardent imagination, seemed +admirably prepared to grasp all that vast network of relations by which all +creatures are connected; but what proves the solidity of his imperishable +work is that all theories, all doctrines, and all systems may resort to it +in turn and profit by his proofs and arguments. + +And he himself, although he boasts with so much reason of putting forward +no pretensions, no theories, no systems, has he not even so yielded +somewhat to the suggestions of the prevailing school of thought, and have +not his verdicts against evolution often been the more excessive in that he +has paid so notable a tribute to the evolutionary progress of creation? + +In the first place, he is far from excluding the undeniable influence of +environing causes; the immense role of those myriad external circumstances +on which Lamarck so strongly insisted; but the work of these factors is, in +his eyes, only accessory and wholly secondary in the economy of nature; and +in any case it is far from explaining the definite direction and the +transcendent harmony which characterize evolution, both in its totality and +in its most infinitesimal details. + +In one of his admirable little textbooks, intended to teach and to +popularize science, he complacently enumerates the happy modifications +effected by that "sublime magician," selection as understood by Darwin. He +evokes the metamorphoses of the potato, which, on the mountains of Chili, +is merely a wretched venomous tubercle, and those of the cabbage, which on +the rocky face of oceanic precipices is nothing but a weed, "with a tall +stem and scanty disordered leaves of a crude green, an acrid savour, and a +rank smell"; he speaks of wheat, formerly a poor unknown grass; the +primitive pear-tree "an ugly intractable thorny bush, with detestable +bitter fruit"; the wild celery, which grows beside ponds, "green all over, +hard, with a repulsive flavour, and which gradually becomes tenderer, +sweeter, whiter," and "ceases to distil its poison." (9/2.) + +With profound exactitude this great biologist has also perceived the degree +to which size may be modified; may dwindle to dwarfness when a niggardly +soil refuses to furnish beast and plant alike with a sufficient +nourishment. + +Without any communication with the other scientists who were occupied by +the same questions, knowing nothing of the results which these +experimenters had attained in the case of small mammiferous animals, and +which prove that dwarfness has often no other cause than physiological +poverty, he confirmed and expanded their ideas from an entomological point +of view. (9/3.) + +Scarcely ever, indeed, was he first inspired by the doings of others in +this or that direction; he read scarcely anything, and nature was his sole +teacher. He considered that the knowledge to be obtained from books is but +so much vapour compared with the realities; he borrowed only from himself, +and resorted directly to the facts as nature presented them. One has only +to see his scanty library of odd volumes to be convinced how little he owes +to others, whether writers or workers. + +A true naturalist philosopher, this profound observer has also thrown a +light upon certain singular anomalies which, in the insect world, seem to +constitute an exception, at all events in our Europe, to the general rules. +It is not only to the curiosity and for the amusement of entomologists that +he proposes these curious anatomical problems, but also, and chiefly, to +the Darwinian wisdom of the evolutionists. + +Why, for example, is the Scarabaeus sacer born and why does it remain +maimed all its life; that is to say, deprived of all the digits on the +anterior limbs? + +"If it is true that every change in the form of an appendage is only the +sign of a habit, a special instinct, or a modification in the conditions of +life, the theory of evolution should endeavour to account for this +mutilation, for these creatures are, like all others, constructed on the +same plan and provided with absolutely the same appendages." + +The posterior limbs of the Geotrupes stercorarius, "perfectly developed in +the adult, are atrophied in the larvae, reduced to mere specks." + +The general history of the species, of its migrations and its changes, will +doubtless one day throw light upon these strange infirmities, here +temporary and there permanent, which may perhaps be explained by unforeseen +encounters with undiscovered specimens, strayed perhaps into distant +countries. (9/4.) + +What invaluable documents for the entomologist and the historian of the +evolution of the species are those multiple and fabulous metamorphoses of +the Sitares and the Meloïdae which this indefatigable inquirer has revealed +in all their astonishing phases! + +One of the finest examples of scientific investigation is the pursuit, +through a period of twenty-five years, with a sagacity which seems to +border on divination, of this problem of HYPER-METAMORPHOSIS. The larvae of +those coleoptera which we have seen introduced, with infernal cunning, into +the cells of the Anthophora (See Chapter 8 above.), suffer no less than +four moults before they become nymphs. + +These merely external transformations, which involve only the envelope, and +respect the internal structure, correspond each with a change of +environment and of diet. Each time the organism adapts itself to its new +mode of existence, "as perfectly as when it becomes adult"; and we see the +insect, which was clear-sighted, become blind; it loses its feet, to +recover them later; its slender body becomes ventripotent; hard, it grows +soft; its mandibles, at first steely, become hollowed out spoonwise, each +modification of conformation having its motive in a fresh modification of +the conditions of the creature's life. + +How explain this strange evolution of a fourfold larval existence, these +successive appearances of organs, which become entirely unlike what they +were, to serve functions each time different? + +What is the reason, the intention, the high law which presides over these +visible changes, these successive envelopments of creatures one within the +other, these multiple transfigurations? + +By what bygone adaptations has the Sitaris successively acquired these +diverse extraordinary phases of life, indicating possibly for each +corresponding age some ancient and remote heredity? (9/5.) + +How many other arguments might evolution derive from his books, and what +illustrations of the Darwinian philosophy has he unconsciously furnished! +Does he not even allow the admission to escape him that "the spirit of +cunning and deception is transmitted"? He sees in the persecutions of the +Dytiscus, the "pirate of the ponds," the origin of the faculty which the +Phryganea has of refashioning its shield when demanded of it. "To evade the +assault of the brigand, the Phryganea must hastily abandon its mantle; it +allows itself to sink to the bottom, and promptly removes itself; necessity +is the mother of invention." (9/6.) + +Returning to the lacunae which it so amazes Fabre to discover in our +organization, even in the most perfect of us, are they fundamentally very +real? These mysterious and unknown senses which he has so greatly +contributed to elucidate in the case of the inferior species: why, he asks, +have we not inherited them, if we are truly the final term and the supreme +goal of creation? + +But in cultivating our intuition, as Bergson invites us to do, would it be +impossible to re-awaken, deep within us, these strange faculties, which +perhaps are only slumbering? What of that species of indefinable memory +which permits the red ant, the Bembex, the Cerceris, the Pompilus, the +Chalicodoma and so many others to "find themselves," to orientate +themselves with infallible certainty and incredible accuracy? Is it not to +be found, according to travellers, in those men who have remained close to +nature and accustomed from their remotest origins to listen to the silence +of the great deserts? + +Finally, the evolutionists, who "reconstruct the world in imagination," and +who see in the relationship of neighbouring species a proof of descent or +derivation, and a whole ideal series, will not fail to perceive throughout +his work, in the elementary operations of the Eumenes and the Odynerus, +cousins of the Cerceris, which sting their prey in places as yet ill +determined, not indeed so many isolated attempts, but an incomplete process +of invention, an attempt at procedures still in the fact of formation: in a +word, the birth of that marvellous instinct which ends in the transcendent +art of the Sphex and the Ammophila. + +Although they have acquired such prodigious deftness, these master +paralysers are not, in fact, always infallible. Occasionally the Sphex +blunders and gropes, "operates clumsily"; the cricket revives, gets upon +its feet, turns round and round, and tries to walk. But, inquires Fabre, do +you say that having profited by a fortuitous act, which has turned out to +be favourable to them, they have perfected themselves by contact with their +elders, "thanks to the imitation of example," and that they have thus +crystallized their experiences, which have been transmitted by heredity-- +thereby fixed in the race? (9/7.) + +How much we should prefer that it were so! How much more comprehensible and +interesting their life would become! + +But "when the hymenopteron breaks its cocoon, where are its masters! Its +predecessors have long ago disappeared. How then can it receive education +by example?" + +You who "shape the world to your whim," you will reply: "Doubtless there +are no longer masters to-day; but go back to the first ages of the globe, +when the world in its newness, as Lucretius has so superbly said, as yet +knew neither bitter cold nor excessive heat (9/8.); an eternal springtide +bathed the earth, and the insects, not dying, as to-day, at the first touch +of frost, two successive generations lived side by side, and the younger +generation could profit at leisure by the lessons of example." (9/9.) + +Let us return to Fabre's laboratory, to the covers of wire-gauze, and note +what becomes, at the approach of winter, of the survivors of the vespine +city. + +In the mild and comfortable retreat where the wasps are kept under +observation they die no less, despite their well-being and all the care +expended on them, when once "the inexorable hour" has struck, and once the +exact capital of life which seems to have been imparted to them ages ago is +exhausted. With no apparent cause, we see death busy among them. "Suddenly +the wasps begin to fall as though struck by lightning; for a few moments +the abdomen quivers and the legs gesticulate, then finally remain inert, +like a clockwork machine whose spring has run down to the last coil." +(9/10.) This law is general; "the insect is born orphaned both of mother +and father, excepting the social insect, and again excepting the dung- +beetle, which dies full of days." (9/11.) + +Moreover, Fabre is never weary of demonstrating that the insect, perfectly +unconscious of the motive which makes it act, this thereby incapable of +profiting by the lessons of experience and of innovation in its habits, +beyond a very narrow circle. "No apprentices, no masters." In this world +each obeys "the inner voice" on its own account; each sets itself to +accomplish its task, not only without troubling as to what its neighbour is +doing, but without thinking any further as to what it is doing itself; +instance the Epeïra, turning its back on its work, yet "the latter proceeds +of itself, so well is the mechanism devised"; and if by ill chance the +spider acted otherwise it would probably fail. + +Darwin knew barely the tenth part of the colossal work of Fabre. He had +read firstly in the "Annals of Natural Science" of the habits of the +Cerceris and the fabulous history of the Meloidae. Finally he saw the first +volume of the "Souvenirs" appear, and was interested in the highest degree +by the beautiful study on the sense of location and direction in the Mason- +bees. + +This was already more than enough to excite his curiosity and to make him +wonder whether all his philosophy would not stumble over this obstacle. + +After having succeeded in explaining so luminously--and with what a lofty +purview--the origin of species and the whole concatenation of animal forms, +would it not be as though he halted midway in his task were the sanctuary +of the origin of instinct to remain for ever inscrutable? + +Fabre had not yet left Orange when Darwin engaged in a curious +correspondence which lasted until the former had been nearly two years at +Sérignan, and which showed how passionately interested the great theorist +of evolution was in all the Frenchman's surprising observations. + +It seems that on his side Fabre took a singular interest in the discussion +on account of the absolute sincerity, the obvious desire to arrive at the +truth, and also the ardent interest in his own studies, of which Darwin's +letters were full. He conceived a veritable affection for Darwin, and +commenced to learn English, the better to understand him and to reply more +precisely; and a discussion on such a subject between these two great +minds, who were, apparently, adversaries, but who had conceived an infinite +respect for one another, promised to be prodigiously interesting. + +Unhappily death was soon to put an end to it, and when the solitary of Down +expired in 1882 the hermit of Sérignan saluted his great shade with real +emotion. How many times have I heard him render homage to this illustrious +memory! + +But the furrow was traced; thenceforth Fabre never ceased to multiply his +pin-pricks in "the vast and luminous balloon of transformism (evolution), +in order to empty it and expose it in all its inanity." (9/12.) By no means +the least original feature of his work is this passionate and incisive +argument, in which, with a remarkable power of dialectic, and at times in a +tone of lively banter, he endeavoured to remove "this comfortable pillow +from those who have not the courage to inquire into its fundamental +nature." He attacked these "adventurous syntheses, these superb and +supposedly philosophic deductions," all the more eagerly because he himself +had an unshakable faith in the absolute certainty of his own discoveries, +and because he asserted the reality of things only after he had observed +and re-observed them to satiety. + +This is why he cared so little to engage in argument relating to his own +works; he did not care for discussion; he was indifferent to the daily +press; he avoided criticism and controversy, and never replied to the +attacks which were made upon him; he rather took pains to surround himself +with silence until the day when he felt that his researches were ripe and +ready for publicity. + +He wrote to his dear friend Devillario, shortly after Darwin's death: + +"I have made a rule of never replying to the remarks, whether favourable or +the reverse, which my writings may evoke. I go my own gait, indifferent +whether the gallery applauds or hisses. To seek the truth is my only +preoccupation. If some are dissatisfied with the result of my observations- +-if their pet theories are damaged thereby--let them do the work +themselves, to see whether the facts tell another story. My problem cannot +be solved by polemics; patient study alone can throw a little light on the +subject. (9/13.) + +"I am profoundly indifferent to what the newspapers may say about me," he +wrote to his brother seventeen years later; "it is enough for me if I am +pretty well satisfied with my own work." (9/14.) + +He read all the letters he received only in a superficial manner, +neglecting to thank those who praised or congratulated him, and above all +shrinking from all that idle correspondence in which life is wasted without +aim or profit. + +"I fume and swear when I have to cut into my morning in order to reply to +so-and-so who sends me, in print or manuscript, his meed of praise; if I +were not careful I should have no time left for far more important work." + +His beloved Frédéric, "the best of his friends," was himself often treated +no better, and to excuse his silence and the infrequency of his letters, +Henri, even in the years spent at Carpentras and Ajaccio, could plead only +the same reasons; his stupendous labours, his exhausting task, "which +overwhelmed him, and was often too great, not for his courage, but for his +time and his strength." (9/15.) + +Nevertheless, while evading the question of origins, his far-sighted +intellect was bound to "read from the facts" concerning the genesis of new +species in process of evolution; and his observations throw a singular +light on the quite recent theory of sudden mutations. + +The nymph of the Onthophagus presents "a strange paraphernalia of horns and +spurs which the organism has produced in a moment of ardour--a luxurious +panoply which vanishes in the adult." + +The nymph of the Oniticella also decks itself in "a temporary horn, which +departs when it emerges." + +And "as the dung-beetle is recent in the general chronology of creatures, +as it takes rank among the last comers, as the geological strata are mute +concerning it, it is possible that these horn-like processes, which always +degenerate before they reach completion, may be not a reminiscence but a +promise, a gradual elaboration of new organs, timid attempts which the +centuries will harden to a complete armour, AND IF THIS WERE SO THE PRESENT +WOULD TEACH US WHAT THE FUTURE IS TO BE." (9/16.) + +Here is a specific transformation, a veritable creation; fortuitous, blind, +and silent; one of those innumerable attempts which nature is always +making, for the moment a mere matter of hazard, until some propitious +circumstance fixes it in future incarnations. + +Thus millions of indeterminate creatures are incessantly roughed out in the +substance of that microcosm which is the initial cell; and it is here that +Fabre sees the real secret of the law of evolution. + +He refutes the great principle of Leibnitz, which was so brilliantly +adopted by Darwin, that changes occur by degrees, by "fine shades," by slow +variations, as the result of successive adaptations, and that there is no +jumping-off place in nature. On the contrary, life often passes suddenly +from one form to another, by abrupt and capricious leaps, by irregular and +disorderly steps, and it is in the egg that Fabre sees the first lineaments +of these mysterious and spontaneous variations. + +Species are therefore born as a whole, each at the same time, AT THE SAME +MOMENT, "bringing into being its new organism, with its individual +properties and peculiarities, its indelible and innate faculties and +tendencies, like "so many medals, each struck with a different die, which +the gnawing tooth of time attacks only sooner or later to annihilate it." + +However, Fabre affirms the continuity of progress; he believes in a better +and more merciful future, a more complete humanity, ruled by more +harmonious or less brutal laws. + +With what profound intelligence and what generous enthusiasm he seeks to +conjecture what this future might be, in his beautiful observations on the +young of the Lycosa (9/17.), which can live for weeks and months in +absolute abstinence, although we can perceive no reserve of nutriment! + +We know no other sources of animal activity save the energy derived from +food. Vegetables draw the materials of their nourishment from the soil and +the air, and the sunlight is only an intermediary which enables the plant +to fix its carbon. The animal species in turn borrow the elements +indispensable to their existence from the vegetable world, or restore their +flesh and blood with the flesh and blood of other animals. + +Now the young Lycosae "are not inert on their mother's back; if they fall +from the maternal chine they quickly pick themselves up and climb up one of +her legs, and once back in place they have to preserve the equilibrium of +the mass. In reality they know no such thing as complete repose. What then +is the energetic aliment which enables the little Lycosae to struggle? +Whence is the heat expended in action derived?" + +Fabre sees no other source than "the sun." + +"Every day, if the sky is clear, the Lycosa, loaded with her little ones, +crawls to the edge of her well, and for long hours lies in the sun. There, +on the maternal back, the young ones stretch themselves out, saturate +themselves in the sunshine, charging themselves with motor reserves, +steeping themselves in energy, directly converting into movement the +calorific radiations coming from the sun, the centre of all life." + +The Scorpion also is able to live for months without nourishment, restoring +directly, in the form of movement, "the effluvia emanating from the sun or +from other ambient energies--heat, electricity, light--which are the soul +of the world." + +Perhaps, among the innumerable worlds of space, there is somewhere, +gravitating round a fixed star, a planet invisible to us where "the +sunlight sates the hunger of the blind." + +The gentle philosophy of the ingenious dreamer soothes itself with the +vision, entertained by great and noble minds, of a humanity "whose teeth +will no longer attack sensible life, nor even the pulp of fruits"; "when +creatures will devour one another no longer, will no longer feed upon the +dead; when they will be nourished by the sunlight, without conflict, +without war, without labour; freed from all care, and assured against all +needs!" + +Thus, in the humblest creatures, he sees the most marvellous perspectives; +the body of the lowest insect becomes suddenly a transcendent secret, +lighting up the abyss of the human soul, or giving it a glimpse of the +stars. + +And although his work is in contradiction to the theories of the +evolutionists, it ends with the same moral conclusion, namely, that all +creation moves slowly and without intermission on its gradual ascent +towards progress. + + +CHAPTER 10. THE ANIMAL MIND. + +The cunning anatomist has now successively laid bare all the springs of the +animal intellect; he has shown how the various movements are mutually +combined and engaged. But so far we have seen only one of the faces of the +little mind of the animal; let us now consider the other aspect, the moral +side, the region of feeling, the problem of which is confounded with the +problem of instinct, and is doubtless fundamentally only another aspect of +the same elemental power. + +After the conflict the insect manifests its delight; it seems sometimes to +exult in its triumph; "beside the caterpillar which it has just stabbed +with its sting, and which lies writhing on the ground," the Ammophila +"stamps, gesticulates, beats her wings," capers about, sounding victory in +an intoxication of delight. + +The sense of property exists in a high degree among the Mason-bees; with +them right comes before might, and "the intruder is always finally +dislodged." (10/1.) + +But can we find in the insect anything analogous to what we term devotion, +attachment, affectionate feeling? There are facts which lead us to believe +we may. + +Let us go once more into Fabre's garden and admire the Thomisus: absorbed +in her maternal function, the little spider lying flat on her nest can +strive no longer and is wasting away, but persists in living, mere ruin +that she is, in order to open the door to her family with one last bite. +Feeling under the silken roof her offspring stamping with impatience, but +knowing that they have not strength to liberate themselves, she perforates +the capsule, making a sort of practicable skylight. This duty accomplished, +she quietly surrenders to death, still grappled to her nest. + +The Psyche, dominated by a kind of unconscious necessity, protects her +nursery by means of her body, anchors herself upon the threshold, and +perishes there, devoted to her family even in death. + +However, Fabre will show us with infallible logic that all these instances +of foresight and maternal tenderness have, as a rule, no other motive than +pleasure and the blind impulse which urges the insect to follow only the +fatal path of its instincts. + +In many species the material fact of maternity is reduced to its simplest +expression. + +The Pieris limits herself to depositing her eggs on the leaves of the +cabbage, "on which the young must themselves find food and shelter." + +"From the height of the topmost clusters of the centaury the Clythris +negligently lets her eggs fall to the ground, one by one, here or there at +hazard; without the least care as to their installation. + +"The eggs of the Locustidae are implanted in the earth like seeds and +germinate like grain." + +But stop before the Lycosa, that magnificent type of maternal love which +Fabre has already depicted. "She broods over her eggs with anxious +affection. With the hinder claws resting on the margin of the well she +holds herself supported above the opening of the white sac, which is +swollen with eggs. For several long weeks she exposes it to the sun during +half the day. Gently she turns it about in order to present every side to +the vivifying light. The bird, in order to hatch her eggs, covers them with +the down of her breast, and presses them against that living calorifer, her +heart. The Lycosa turns hers about beneath the fires of heaven; she gives +them the sun for incubator." (10.2.) Could abnegation be more perfect? What +greater proof could there be of renunciation and self-oblivion? + +But appearances are vain. Substitute for the beloved sac some other object, +and the spider "will turn about, with the same love, as though it were her +sac of eggs, a piece of cork, a pincushion, or a ball of paper," just as +the hen, another victim of this sublime deception, will give all her heart +to hatching the china nest-eggs which have been placed beneath her, and for +weeks will forget to feed. + +The young brood hatches, and the spider goes a-hunting, carrying her little +ones on her back; she protects them in case of danger, but is incapable of +recognizing them or of distinguishing them from the young of others. The +Copris and the Scorpion are no less blind, "and their maternal tenderness +barely exceeds that of the plant, which, a stranger to any sense of +affection or morality, none the less exercises the most exquisite care in +respect of its seeds." + +Moreover, the impulse to work is only a kind of unconscious pleasure. When +the Pelopaeus "has stored her lair with game," when the Cerceris has sealed +the crypt to which she has confided the future of her race, neither one nor +the other can foresee "the future offspring which their faceted eyes will +never behold, and the very object of their labours is to them occult." + +With them, as with all, life can only be a perpetual illusion. + +Yet the marvellous edifice of the "Souvenirs entomologiques" is consummated +by the astonishing history of the Minotaur, whose habits surpass in ideal +beauty all that could be imagined. + +At the bottom of a burrow, in a deeply sunken vault, two dung-beetles are +at work, the Minotaurs, who, once united, recognize one another, and can +find one another again if separated, but do not voluntarily separate, +realizing "the moral beauty of the double life" and "the touching concept +of the family, the sacred group par excellence." The male buries himself +with his companion, remains faithful to her, comes to her assistance, and +"stores up treasure for the future. Never discouraged by the heavy labour +of climbing, leaving to the mother only the more moderate labour, keeping +the severest for himself, the heavy task of transport in a narrow tunnel, +very deep and almost vertical, he goes foraging, forgetful of himself, +heedless of the intoxicating delights of spring, though it would be so good +to see something of the country, to feast with his brothers, and to pester +the neighbours; but no! he collects the food which is to nourish his +children, and then, when all is ready for the new-comers, when their living +is assured, having spent himself without counting the cost, exhausted by +his efforts, and feeling himself failing, he leaves his home and goes away +to die, that he may not pollute the dwelling with a corpse." + +The mother, on her side, allows nothing to divert her from her household, +and only returns to the surface when accompanied by her young, who disperse +at will. Then, having nothing more to do, the devoted creature perishes in +turn. (10/3.) + +Compared with the Scarabaeus, which contents itself with idle wandering, or +even with the meritorious Sisyphus, does it not seem that the Minotaur +moves on an infinitely higher plane? + +What nobler could be found among ourselves? What father ever better +comprehended his duties and obligations toward his family? What morality +could be more irreproachable; what fairer example could be meditated? + +"Is not life everywhere the same, in the body of the dung-beetle as in that +of man? If we examine it in the insect, do we not examine it in ourselves?" + +Whence does the Minotaur derive these particular graces? How has it risen +to so high a level on the wings of pure instinct? How could we explain the +rarity of so sublime an example, did we not know, to satiety, that "nature +everywhere is but an enigmatic poem, as who should say a veiled and misty +picture, shining with an infinite variety of deceptive lights in order to +evoke our conjectures"? (10/4.) + +Nevertheless, it is a fact that the majority have no other rule of conduct +than to follow the trend of their instincts, and to obey "their unbridled +desires." No one better than Fabre has expounded the blind operation of +these little natural forces, the brutality of their manners, their +cannibalism, and what we might call their amorality, were it possible to +employ our human formulae outside our own human world. + +With the gardener-beetles, if one is crippled, none of the same race halts +or lingers; none attempts to come to his aid. Sometimes the passers-by +hasten to the invalid to devour him." + +In the republic of the wasps "the grubs recognized as incurable are +pitilessly torn from their place and dragged out of the nest. Woe to the +sick! they are helpless and at once expelled." + +When the winter comes all the larvae are massacred, and the whole vespine +city ends in a horrible tragedy. + +But life is a whole, and all conduct is good whose actions realize an +object and are adapted to an end. If there is a "spirit" of the hive, the +insect also has its morality and the wasp's nest its "law," and the conduct +of its inmates, horrible though it may seem to Fabre, is doubtless only a +submission to certain exigencies of that universal law which makes nature a +"savage foster-mother who knows nothing of pity." + +These cruelties particularly show us that one of the functions of the +insect in nature is to preside over the disappearance and also the ultimate +metamorphoses of the least "remnants of life." + +Each has its providential hygienic function. + +The Necrophori, "the first of the tiny scavengers of the fields," bury +corpses in order to establish their progeny in them; in the space of a few +hours an enormous body, a mole, a water-rat, or an adder, will completely +disappear, buried under the earth. + +The Onthophagi purify the soil, "dividing all filth into tiny crumbs, +ridding the earth of its defilements." + +A very small beetle, the Trox, has the imprescriptible mission of purging +the earth of the rabbits' fur rejected by the fox. (10/5.) + +Here structure explains the function. + +The intestine of the grub of the rose-beetle "is a veritable triturating +mill, which transforms vegetable matter into mould; in a month it will +digest a volume of matter equal to several thousand times the initial +volume of the grub." + +The intestine of the Scarabaei is prolonged to a prodigious length in order +to "drain the excrement to the last atom in its manifold circuits. The +sheep has finely divided the vegetable matter; the grub, that incomparable +triturator, reduces it to the finest possible consistency; not a morsel is +left in which the magnifying glass can reveal a fibre." + +To fulfil its hygienic mission the insect arrives in due season, and +multiplies its legions; "there are twenty thousand eggs in the flanks of +the house fly; immediately they are hatched these twenty thousand maggots +set to work, so that Linnaeus has said that three flies would suffice to +devour the body of a horse or a lion." + +Feeding only upon wheat, a single weevil, the Calendar beetle, produces ten +thousand eggs, whence issue as many larvae, each of them devouring its +grain. + +In all species the number of births is at first exaggerated, for all, the +obscure, the nameless, the most destructive, our pests as well as our most +precious helpers, have their utility and their part to play in the general +scheme of life, a raison d'être in the eternal renewal of things, which is +without reference to the vexatious or beneficent quality of their behaviour +to us. + +Each has its rank assigned, each has its task, to one the flower, to +another the roots, to a third the leaves; the vine has its caterpillars, +its beetles, its butterflies; the clover, its moths and mites. (10/6.) + +Man sees himself forced to submit to them, and spends himself in vain +efforts to carry on an often useless campaign. Nothing seems to affect +them, neither drought, nor rain, nor even the severest cold; and the eggs +and larvae, organizations apparently delicate in the extreme, are often +more tenacious of life than the adults. Fabre has proved this: let the +temperature suddenly fall twenty degrees: the eggs of Geotrupes and the +larvae of the cockchafer or the rose-beetle endure such vicissitudes of +temperature with impunity; contracted and stiffened into little masses of +ice, but not destroyed, they revive in spring no less than the eel fry, the +rotifers, or the tardigrades. One can scarcely believe that life still +persists in a state of suspense only in these little frozen creatures, +whose organization is already so complicated. + +Then, of a sudden, the ravagers disappear; more often than not none knows +how or why; deliverance is at hand. What indeed would become of the world +were nothing to moderate such fecundity? + +Again, each species has its trials which appear in time to moderate its +surplusage, and Fabre expounds for us, with a stern philosophy, the +terrible devices by which this repression is effected. + +Each has its appointed enemy, which lives upon it or its offspring, and +which in turn becomes the prey of some smaller creature. The gentle itself, +"the king of the dead," has its parasites. While it swims in the +deliquescence of putrefying flesh a minute Chalcidian perforates its skin +with an imperceptible wound, and introduces its terrible eggs, whence in +the future will issue larvae which to-morrow will devour the devourers of +to-day. + +None exists save to the detriment of others. Everywhere, even in the +smallest, we find "an atrocious activity, a cunning brigandage," a savage +extermination, which dominates a vast unconscious world of which the final +result is the restoration of equilibrium. (10/7.) It is only on these +antagonisms, on the enemies of our enemies, that we can found any hope of +seeing this or that pest disappear. A small Hymenopteron, almost invisible, +the Microgaster glomeratus, is entrusted with the destruction of the +cabbage caterpillar; the cochineal wages war to the death upon the green- +fly; the Ammophila is the predestined murderer of the harvest Noctuela, +whose misdeeds in a beetroot country often amount to a disaster. The +Odynerus has for its instinctive mission to arrest the excessive +multiplication of a lucerne weevil, no less than twenty-four of whose grubs +are necessary to rear the offspring of the brigand, and nearly sixty +gadflies are sacrificed to the growth of a single Bembex. + +Everywhere craft is organized to triumph over force. Around each nest the +parasites lie in wait, "atrocious assassins of the child in the cradle, +watching at the doors for the favourable occasion to establish their family +at the expense of others. The enemy penetrates the most inaccessible +fortress; each has its tactics of war, devised with a terrible art. Of the +nest and the cocoon of the victim the intruder makes its own nest, its own +cocoon, and in the following year, instead of the master of the house, he +will emerge from underground as the usurping bandit, the devourer of the +inhabitant." + +While the cicada is absorbed in laying her eggs an insignificant fly +labours to destroy them. How express the calm audacity of this pigmy, +following closely after the colossus, step by step; several at once almost +under the talons of the giant, which could crush them merely by treading on +them? But the cicada respects them, or they would long ago have +disappeared." (10/8.) + +Fabre thus agrees with Pasteur, who in the world of the infinitely little +shows us the same antagonisms, the same vital competition, the same eternal +movement of flux and reflux, the same whirlpool of life, which is +extinguished only to reappear: tending always towards an equilibrium which +is incessantly destroyed. And it is thanks to this balancing that the +integral of life remains everywhere and always almost identical with +itself. + + +CHAPTER 11. HARMONIES AND DISCORDS. + +Such indeed is the economy of nature that secret relations and astonishing +concordances exist throughout the whole vast weft of things. There are no +loose ends; everything is consequent and ordered. Hidden harmonies meet and +mingle. + +Among the terebinth lice, "when the population is mature, the gall is ripe +also, so fully do the calendars of the shrub and the animal coincide"; and +the mortal enemy of the Halictus, the sinister midge of the springtime, is +hatched at the very moment when the bee begins to wander in search of a +location for its burrows. + +The fantastic history of the larvae of the Anthrax furnishes us with one of +the most suggestive examples of these strange coincidences. (10/9.) + +The Anthrax is a black fly, which sows its eggs on the surface of the nests +of the Mason-bee, whose larvae are at the moment reposing in their silken +cocoons. + +"The grub of the Anthrax emerges and comes to life under the touch of the +sunlight. Its cradle is the rugged surface of the cell; it is welcomed into +the world by a literally stony harshness...Obstinately it probes the chinks +and pores of the nest; glides over it, crawls forward, returns, and +recommences. The radicle of the germinating seed is not more persevering, +not more determined to descend into the cool damp earth. What inspiration +impels it? What compass guides it? What does the root know of the fertility +of the soil?...The nurseling, the seed of the Anthrax, is barely visible, +almost escaping the gaze of the magnifying glass; a mere atom compared to +the monstrous foster-mother which it will drain to the very skin. Its mouth +is a sucker, with neither fangs nor jaws, incapable of producing the +smallest wound; it sucks in place of eating, and its attack is a kiss." It +practises, in short, a most astonishing art, "another variation of the +marvellous art of feeding on the victim without killing it until the end of +the meal, in order always to have a store of fresh meat. During the +fourteen days through which the nourishment of the Anthrax continues, the +aspect of the larva remains that of living flesh; until all its substance +has been literally transferred, by a kind of transpiration, to the body of +the nurseling, and the victim, slowly exhausted, drained to the last drop, +while retaining to the end just enough life to prove refractory to +decomposition, is reduced to the mere skin, which, being insufflated, puffs +itself out and resumes the precise form of the larva, there being nowhere a +point of escape for the compressed air." + +Now the grub of the Anthrax "appears precisely at the exact moment when the +larva of the Chalicodoma is attacked by that lethargy which precedes +metamorphosis, and which renders it insensible, and during which the +substance of the grub about to be transfigured into a bee commences to +break down and resolve itself into a liquid pulp, for the processes of life +always liquefy the grub before achieving the perfect insect." (11/2.) + +Here again the time-tables coincide. + +But it is perhaps in the celebrated Odyssey of the grub of the Sitaris that +Fabre most urgently claims our admiration for the marvellous and +incomprehensible wisdom of the Unconscious! + +Let us recapitulate the unheard-of series of events, the inextricable +complication of circumstances, which are required to condition the lowly +life of a Sitaris. + +In the first place, this microscopic creature must be provided with talons, +or how could it adhere to the fleece of the Anthophora, on which it must +live as parasite for a certain length of time? + +Then again, it must transfer itself from the male to the female bee in the +course of its travels abroad, or its destiny would be cut short. + +Again, it must not miss the opportunity of embarking itself upon the egg +just at the propitious moment. + +Then the volume of this egg must be so calculated as to represent an +allowance of food exactly proportioned to the duration of the first phase +of its metamorphosis. Moreover, the quantity of honey accumulated by the +bee must suffice for the whole of the remaining cycle of its larval +existence. + +Let a single link of the chain be broken, and the entire species of the +Sitaris is no longer possible. + +If every species has its law; if the Geotrupes remain faithful to filth, +although experience shows that they can accommodate themselves equally well +to the putrefaction of decayed leaves; if the predatory species--the +Cerceris, the Sphex, the Ammophila--resort only to one species of quarry to +nourish their larvae, although these same larvae accept all indifferently, +it is on account of those superior economic laws and secret alliances the +profound reasons for which as a rule escape us or are beyond the scope of +our theories. + +For all things are produced and interlocked by the eternal necessity; link +engages in link, and life is only a plexus of solitary forces allied among +themselves by their very nature, the condition of which is harmony. And the +whole system of living creatures appears to us, through the work of the +great naturalist, as an immense organism, a sort of vast physiological +apparatus, of which all the parts are mutually interdependent, and as +narrowly controlled as all the cells of the human body. + +Fabre goes on to present us with other facts, which at a first glance +appear highly immoral; I am referring to certain phases of sexual love +among the lower animals, and his ghoulish revelations concerning the +horrible bridals of the Arachnoids, the Millepoda, and the Locustidae. + +The Decticus surrenders only to a single exploit of love; a victim of its +"strange genesics"; utterly exhausted by the first embrace, empty, drained, +extenuated, motionless in all its members, utterly worn out, it quickly +succumbs, a mere broken simulacrum, like the miserable lover of a monstrous +succubus who "loves him enough to devour him." (11/3.) + +The female scorpion devours the male; "all is gone but the tail!" + +The female Spider delights in the flesh of her lover. + +The cricket also devours a small portion of her "debonair" admirer. + +The Ephippigera "excavates the stomach of her companion and eats him." + +But the horror of these nuptial tragedies is surpassed by the insatiable +lust, the monstrous conjunction, the bestial delights of the Mantis, that +"ferocious spectre, never wearied of embraces, munching the brains of its +spouse at the very moment of surrendering her flanks to him." (11/4.) + +Whence these strange discords, these frightful appetites? + +Fabre refers us to the remotest ages, to the depths of the geological +night, and does not hesitate to regard these cruelties as "remnants of +atavism," the lingering furies of an ancient strain, and he ventures a +profound and plausible explanation. + +The Locusts, the Crickets, and the Scolopendrae are the last +representatives of a very ancient world, of an extinct fauna, of an early +creation, whose perverse and unbridled instincts were given free vent, when +creation was as yet but dimly outlined, "still making the earliest essays +of its organizing forces"; when the primitive Orthoptera, "the obscure +forebears of those of to-day, were "sowing the wild oats of a frantic rut, +"in the colossal forests of the secondary period; by the borders of the +vast lakes, full of crocodiles, and antediluvian marshes, which in Provence +were shaded by palms, and strange ferns, and giant Lycopodia, never as yet +enlivened by the song of a bird. + +These monstrosities, in which life was making its essays, were subject to +singular physical necessities. The female reigned alone; the male did not +as yet exist, or was tolerated only for the sake of his indispensable +assistance. But he served also another and less obvious end; his substance, +or at least some portion of his substance, was an almost necessary +ingredient in the act of generation, something in the nature of a necessary +excitant of the ovaries, "a horrible titbit," which completed and +consummated the great task of fecundation. Such, in Fabre's eyes, was the +imperious physiological reason of these rude laws. This is why the love of +the males is almost equivalent to their suicide; the Gardener-beetle, +attacked by the female, attempts to flee, but does not defend himself; "it +is as though an invincible repugnance prevents him from repulsing or from +eating the eater." In the same way the male scorpion "allows himself to be +devoured by his companion without ever attempting to employ his sting," and +the lover of the Mantis "allows himself to be nibbled to pieces without any +revolt on his part." + +A strange morality, but not more strange than the organic peculiarities +which are its foundation; a strange world, but perhaps some distant sun may +light others like it. + +These terrible creatures are a source of dismay to Fabre. If all things +proceed from an underlying Reason, if the divine harmony of things +testifies everywhere to a sovereign Logic, how shall the proofs of its +excellence and its sovereign wisdom be found in such things as these? + +Far from attributing to the order of the universe a supposed perfection, +far from considering nature as the most immediate expression of the Good +and the Beautiful, in the words of Tolstoy (11/5.), he sees in it only a +rough sketch which a hidden God, hidden, but close at hand, and living +eternally present in the heart of His creatures, is seeking to test and to +shape. + +Living always with his eyes upon some secret of the marvels of God, whom he +sees in every bush, in every tree, "although He is veiled from our +imperfect senses" (11/6.), the vilest insect reveals to him, in the least +of its actions, a fragment of this universal Intelligence. + +What marvels indeed when seen from above! But consider the Reverse--what +antinomies, what flagrant contradictions! What poor and sordid means! And +Fabre is astonished, in spite of all his candid faith, that the fatality of +the belly should have entered into the Divine plan, and the necessity of +all those atrocious acts in which the Unconscious delights. Could not God +ensure the preservation of life by less violent means? Why these +subterranean dramas, these slow assassinations? Why has Evil, THE POISON OF +THE GOOD (11/7.), crept in everywhere, even to the origin of life, like an +eternal Parasite? + +Within this fatal circle, in which the devourer and the devoured, the +exploiter and the exploited, lead an eternal dance, can we not perceive a +ray of light? + +For what is it that we see? + +The victims are not merely the predestined victims of their persecutors. +They seek neither to struggle nor to escape nor to evade the inevitable; +one might say that by a kind of renunciation they offer themselves up whole +as a sacrifice! + +What irresistible destiny impels the bee to meet half-way the Philanthus, +its terrible enemy! The Tarantula, which could so easily withstand the +Pompilus, when the latter rashly carries war into its lair, does not +disturb itself, and never dreams of using its poisoned fangs. Not less +absolute is the submission of the grasshopper before the Mantis, which +itself has its tyrant, the Tachytes. + +Similarly those which have reason to fear for their offspring, if not for +themselves, do nothing to evade the enemy which watches for them; the +Megachile, although it could easily destroy it, is indifferent to the +presence of a miserable midge, "the bandit who is always there, meditating +its crime"; the Bembex, confronted with the Tachinarius, cannot control its +terror, but nevertheless resigns itself, while squeaking with fright. + +If each creature is what it is only because it is a necessary part of the +plan of the supreme Artisan who has constructed the universe, why have some +the right of life and death and others the terrible duty of immolation? + +Do not both obey, not the gloomy law of carnage, but a kind of sovereign +and exquisite sacrifice, some sort of unconscious idea of submission to a +superior and collective interest? + +This hypothesis, which was one day suggested to Fabre by a friend of great +intellectual culture (11/8.), charmed and interested him keenly. I noticed +that he was more than usually attentive, and he seemed to me to be suddenly +reassured and appeased. For him it was as though a faint ray of light had +suddenly fallen among these impenetrable and distressing problems. + +It seemed to him that by setting before our eyes the spectacle of so many +woes, universally distributed, and doubtless necessary, woes which do not +spare even the humblest of creatures, the Sovereign Intelligence intends to +exhort us to examine ourselves truly and to dispose us to greater love and +pity and resignation. + +All his work is highly and essentially religious; and while he has given us +a taste for nature, he has not also endeavoured to give us, according to +the expression of Bossuet "the taste for God," or at least a sense of the +divine? In opposing the doctrine of evolution, which reduces the animal +world to the mere virtualities of the cell; in revealing to us all these +marvels which seem destined always to escape human comprehension; finally, +by referring us more necessarily than ever to the unfathomable problem of +our origins, Fabre has reopened the door of mystery, the door of the divine +Unknown, in which the religion of men must always renew itself. We should +belittle his thought, we should dwarf the man himself, were we to seek to +confine to any particular thesis his spiritualistic conception of the +universe. + +Fabre recognizes and adores in nature only the great eternal Power, whose +imprint is everywhere revealed by the phenomena of matter. + +For this reason he has all his life remained free from all superstition and +has been completely indifferent to dogmas and miracles, which to his mind +imply not only a profound ignorance of science, but also a gross and +complete miscomprehension of the divine Intelligence. He kneels upon the +ground or among the grasses only the more closely to adore that force, the +source of all order, the intuitive knowledge of which, innate in all +creatures, even in the tiny immovable minds of animals, is merely a +magnificent and gratuitous gift. The office in which he eagerly +communicates is that glorious and formidable Mass in which the ragged +sower, "noble in his tatters, a pontiff in shabby small-clothes, solemn as +a God, blesses the soil, more majestic than the bishop in his glory at +Easter-tide." (11/9.) It is there that he finds his "Ideal," in the incense +of the perfumes "which are softly exhaled from the shapely flowers, from +their censers of gold," in the heart of all creatures, "chaffinch and +siskin, skylark and goldfinch, tiny choristers" piping and trilling, +"elaborating their motets" to the glory of Him who gave them voice and +wings on the fifth day of Genesis. He fraternizes with all, with his dogs +and his cats, his tame tortoise, and even the "slimy and swollen frog"; the +"Philosopher" of the Harmas, whose murky eyes he loves to interrogate as he +paces his garden "by the light of the stars"; persuaded that all are +accomplishing a useful work, and that all creatures, from the humblest +insect which has only nibbled a leaf, or displaced a few grains of sand, to +man himself, are anointed with the same chrism of immortality. + +And as he has always set the pleasures of study before all others, he can +imagine no greater recompense after death than to obtain from heaven +permission still to continue in their midst, during eternity, his life of +labour and effort. + + +CHAPTER 12. THE INTERPRETATION OF NATURE. + +We have noted the essential features of his precise and unfailing vision +and the value of the documents which record the work of Fabre, but the +writer merits no less attention than the observer and the philosopher. + +In the domain of things positive, it is not always sufficient to gather the +facts, to record them, and to codify in bare formulae the results of +inquiry. Doubtless every essential discovery is able to stand by itself; in +what would an inventor profit, for example, by raising himself to the level +of the artist? "For the theorem lucidity suffices; truth issues naked from +the bottom of a well." + +But the manner of speaking, describing, and depicting is none the less an +integral part of the truth when it is a matter of expounding and +transmitting the latter. To express it feebly is often to compromise it, to +diminish it; and even to betray it. There are terms which say better than +others what has to be said. "Words have their physiognomy; if there are +lifeless words, there are also picturesque and richly-coloured words, +comparable to the brush strokes which scatter flecks of light on the grey +background of the picture." There are particular terms of expression, +felicities which present things in a better light, and the writer must +search in his memory, his imagination, and his heart, for the fitting +accent; for the flexibility of language and the wealth of words which are +needful if he would fully succeed in the portrayal of living creatures; if +he would tender the living truth, reproduce in all its light and shade the +spectacle of the world, arouse the imagination, and faithfully interpret +the mysterious spirit which impregnates matter and is reflected in thought. + +The artist then comes forward to co-ordinate all these scattered fragments, +to assemble them, to breathe vitality into them, to restore these inert +truths to life. + +But what a strange manner of working was Fabre's; what a curious method of +composition! However full of ideas his mind might be, he was incapable of +expressing them if he remained in one place and assumed the ordinary +preliminary attitude of a man preparing to write. Seated and motionless, +his limbs at rest, pen in hand, with a blank page before him, it seemed to +him that all his faculties became of a sudden paralysed. He must first move +about; activity helped him to pursue his ideas; it was in action that he +recovered his ardour and uncovered the sources of inspiration. Just as he +never observed without enthusiasm, so he found it impossible to write +without exaltation, and it was precisely because he so ardently loved the +truth that he felt himself compelled to show it in all its beauty. + +Moving like a circus-horse about the great table of his laboratory, he +would begin to tramp indefatigably round and round, so that his steps have +worn in the tiles of the floor an ineffaceable record of the concentric +track in which they moved incessantly for thirty years. + +His mind would grow clear and active as he walked, smoking his pipe and +"using his marrow-bones." (12/1.) He was already at work; he was +"hammering" his future chapters in his brain; for the idea would be all the +more precise as the form was more finished and more irreproachable, more +closely identified with the thought; he would wait until the word quivered, +palpitated, and lived; until the transcription was no longer an illusion, a +phantom, a vision devoid of reality, but a faithful echo, a sincere +translation, a finished interpretation, reflecting entire the fundamental +essence of the thing; in a word, a work of art, a parallel to nature. + +Then only would he sit before the little walnut-wood table "spotted with +ink and scarred with knife-cuts, just big enough to hold the inkstand, a +halfpenny bottle, and his open notebook": that same little table at which, +in other days, by force of meditation, he achieved his first degrees. + +Then he would begin to write, "his pen dipped not in ink only" but in his +heart's blood (12/2.); first of all in ordinary ruled notebooks bound in +black cloth, in which he noted, day by day, hour by hour, the observations +of every moment, the results of his experiments, together with his thoughts +and reflections. Little by little those documents would come together which +elucidated and completed one another, and at last the book was written. +These notebooks, these copious records, are remarkable for the regularity +of the writing and the often impeccable finish of the first draught. +Although here and there the same data are transcribed several times in +succession, and each time struck through with a vigorous stroke of the pen, +there are whole pages, and many pages together, without a single erasure. +The handwriting, excessively small--one might think it had been traced by +the feet of a fly--becomes in later years so minute that one almost needs a +magnifying glass to decipher it. + +These notebooks are not the final manuscript. The entomologist would write +a new and more perfect copy on loose sheets of paper, making one draught +after another, patiently fashioning his style and polishing his work, +although many passages were included without revision as they were written +in the first instance. + +The greatest magician of modern letters, versed in all the artifices of the +French language, speaking one day of Fabre and his writings, made in my +hearing the assertion that he was not, properly speaking, an artist. He +might well be a great naturalist, a veteran of science, an observer of +genius, but he was by no means and would never be a writer according to the +canons of the craft. + +But how many others, like him, in their time regarded as "pitiable in +respect of their language," charm us to-day, simply because they were +gifted with imagination and the power of giving life to their work! (12/3.) + +To tell the truth, Fabre is absolutely careless of all literary procedure, +and solely preoccupied with bringing his style into harmony with his +thoughts; he is not in the least a manufacturer of literary phrases. There +is no trace of artistic writing in his books, and it is only his manner of +feeling and of expressing himself that makes him so dear to us. + +What touches us in him is the accent, the simplicity, the measure, the good +sense, and the perfect equilibrium of each of these pages: simple, often +commonplace, even incorrect or trivial, but so alive, so human, that the +blood seems to flow in them. It is the lover in Fabre that draws us to him; +nothing quite like his work has been seen since the days of Jean de La +Fontaine. + +He has liberated science; he laughs at the specialists who take refuge +behind their "barbarian terminologies," at the "jargon" of those "who see +the world only through the wrong end of the glass"; at the exaggerated +importance which they attribute to insignificant details, the narrowness of +classifications, and the chaos of systems; all that incoherent, remote, and +inaccessible science, which he, on the contrary, strives to render pleasant +and attractive. + +This is why the great scientist has endeavoured to speak like other people, +preferring, to the harsh consonants of technical phrases which sound "like +insults" or have the air of "a magical invocation, which make certain +scientific works read like so much gibberish," the "naive and picturesque +appellation, the familiar, trivial name, the popular, living term which +directly interprets the exact signification of the habits of an insect, or +informs us fully of its dominant characteristic, or which, at least, leaves +nothing to conjecture." + +He considers it useless and even inconvenient to abandon many charming +expressions, appropriate and significant as they are, which may be borrowed +from the good old French tongue; and in this he resembles the immortal de +Jussieu, who in his botanical classifications was careful not to discard +the old popular denominations which Theophrastus, Virgil, and Linnaeus had +thought fit to bestow upon plant and tree. + +It is for the same reasons that he loves the Provençal tongue; that +beautiful idiom, that superb language, rich in music, in sonorous words, so +suggestive and so full of colour, many of whose terms, saying precisely +what they intend to say, have no equivalent in French. He has learned the +language, and reads it: in particular Roumanille, whose easy, familiar +style pleases him better than the grandiloquence of Mistral, although he +delights also in Calendal, whose lyrical powers fill him with enthusiasm. +>From this ancient tongue, which was early as familiar to him as the French, +he borrowed certain mannerisms, certain tricks of style, certain +neologisms, and also, to some extent, his simplicity of manner and the +cadence of his prose. + +It was not without difficulty that he attained this mastery. Measure the +gulf between his first volumes and his last; in the first the style is +slightly nerveless and indefinite: it was only as he gradually advanced in +his career that he acquired what may be called his final manner, or +achieved, in his narratives, a perfect literary style. The most +substantially constructed, the most happily expressed of his pages were +written principally in his extreme old age. Not only is there no sign of +failing in these, but in his latest "Souvenirs" the perfection of form is +perhaps even more remarkable than the wealth of matter. + +How vitally his scrupulous records impress the mind's eye; how firmly they +establish themselves in the memory! + +Even if one has never seen the Pelopaeus, one readily conceives an +impression of "her wasp-like costume, and curving abdomen, suspended at the +end of a long thread." What exactitude in this snapshot, taken at the +moment when the insect is occupied in scooping out of the mire the lump of +mud intended for the construction of her nest: "like a skilled housekeeper, +with her clothing carefully tucked up that it may not be soiled, the wings +vibrating, the limbs rigidly straightened, the black abdomen well raised on +the end of its yellow stalk, she rakes the mud with the points of her +mandibles, skimming the shining surface." (12/4.) + +He draws, in passing, this charming sketch of the gadfly, the pest of +horses, which nourishes itself with their blood: + +"Gadflies of several species used to take refuge under the silken dome of +my umbrella, and there they would quietly rest, one here, one there, on the +tightly stretched fabric; I rarely lacked their company when the heat was +overpowering. To while away the hours of waiting, I used to love to watch +their great golden eyes, which would shine like carbuncles on the vaulted +ceiling of my shelter; I used to love to watch them slowly change their +stations, when the excessive heat of some point of the ceiling would force +them to move a little." (12/5.) + +We follow all the manoeuvres of the Balaninus, the acorn-weevil, "burying +her drill" which "operates by means of little bites." The narrator calls +our attention to the slightest episodes, even to those accidents which +sometimes surprise the worker in the course of her labours; when, with the +rostrum buried deep in the acorn, her feet suddenly lose their hold. Then +the unhappy creature, unable to free herself, finds herself suspended in +the air, at right angles to her proboscis, far from any foothold or point +of vantage, at the extremity of her disproportionately long pike, that +"fatal stake." (12/6.) + +As for the poplar-weevil, we can almost see it moving "in the subtlest +equilibrium, clinging with its hooked talons to the slippery surface of the +leaf"; we watch all the details of its methods and the progress of its +labours. We see the flexed leaf assume the vertical under the awl-stroke +which the insect applies to the pedicle, "when, partially deprived of sap, +the leaf becomes more flexible, more malleable; it is in a sense partly +paralysed, only half alive." Then we follow the rolling process; "the +imperturbable deliberation of the worker as it rolls its cigar, which +finally hangs perpendicularly at the end of the bent and wounded stem." +(12/7.) + +Fabre, like a true artist, finds all sorts of expressions to describe the +tiny, fragile eggs of his insects; little shining pearls, delicious coffers +of nickel or amber, miniature pots of translucid alabaster, "which we might +think were stolen from the cupboard of a fairy." + +He opens the enchanted alcoves wherein the puny grubs lie slumbering, "fat, +rounded puppets"; the tender larvae which "gape and swing their heads to +and fro" when the mother returns to the nest with her toothsome mouthful or +her crop swollen with honey. + +What compassion, what tenderness, what sensitiveness in the affecting +picture of the mother Halictus, abandoned, deprived of her offspring, +bewildered and lost, when the terrible spring fly has destroyed her house: +bald, emaciated, shabby, careworn, already dogged by the small grey lizard! +(12/8.) + +The tragedy of the wasps' nest at the approach of the first chills of +winter is the final fragment of an epic. At first there is a sort of +uneasiness, "a species of indifference and anxiety which broods over the +city"; already it has a presentiment of coming misfortune, of an +approaching catastrophe. Presently a wild excitement ensues; the foster- +mothers, "frightened, fierce, and restless," as though suddenly attacked by +an incomprehensible insanity, conceive an aversion for the young; "the +neuters extirpate the larvae and drag them out of the nest," and the drama +of destruction draws to a close with "the final catastrophe; the infirm and +the dying are dismembered, eviscerated, dissected in a heap in the +catacombs by maggots, woodlice, and centipedes." Finally the moth comes +upon the scene, its larvae "attacking the dwelling itself; gnawing and +destroying the joists and rafters, until all is reduced to a few pinches of +dust and shreds of grey paper." (12/9.) + +What picturesque expressions he employs to depict, by means of some +significant feature, the striking peculiarities of the insect physiognomy! + +"The gipsy who night and day for seven months goes to and fro with her +brats upon her back" is the Lycosa, the Tarantula with the black stomach, +the great spider of the wastes. + +The larva of the great Capricornis, which gnaws the interior of old oak- +trees, "leaving behind it, in the form of dry-rot, the refuse of its +digestive processes," is "a scrap of intestine which eats its way as it +goes." + +In "that hideous lout" the Scorpion he shows us a rough epitome of the +shapeless head, the truncated face of the spider. + +The Tachinae, those "brazen diptera" which swarm on the sunny sand on the +watch for Bembex or Philanthus, in order to establish their offspring at +its expense, "are bandits clad in fustian, the head wrapped in a red +handkerchief, awaiting the hour of attack!" + +The Languedocian Sphex, sprawling flat upon the vine leaves, grows dizzy +with the heat and frisks for very pleasure; "with its feet it taps rapidly +on its resting-place, and thus produces a drumming like that of a shower of +rain falling thickly on the leaves." Fabre takes a keen delight in the +production of these pictures, at once so exact and lifelike; but we must +not therefore suppose that his mind is incapable of the detailed +descriptions necessitated by the laborious processes of minute anatomy. + +Like all sciences, entomology has its uninteresting aspects when we seek to +study it deeply. Yet with what interest and lucidity has Fabre succeeded in +expounding the complex morphoses of the obscure and miserable larva of the +Sitaris, the curious intestine of the Scarabaeus, the secret of the +spawning of the weevil, and the ingenious mechanisms of the musical +instruments of the Decticus and the Cicada. With what subtle art he +explains the song of the cricket, how the five hundred prisms of the +serrated bow set the four tympana in vibration; and how the song is +sometimes muffled by a process of muting. (12/10.) + +Some of the images suggested to him by the forms of animals are so +beautiful that certain of his descriptions might well serve to inspire an +artist, or suggest new motives of decoration in the arts of enamelling, +gem-engraving, jewellery, etc. + +Instead of eternally copying ancient things, or seeking inspiration in +lifeless texts, why not turn our attention to the numerous and interesting +motives which are scattered all around us, whose originality consists +precisely in the fact that they have never yet been employed? Why torture +the mind to produce more painful elaborations of awkward, frozen, poverty- +stricken combinations, when Nature herself is at hand, offering the +inexhaustible casket of her living marvels, full of the profoundest logic +and as yet unexamined? + +If the bee by means of the hexagonal prism has anticipated all the +geometers in the problem of the economy of space and matter; if the Epeïra +and the mollusc have invented the logarithmic spiral and its transcendent +properties; if all creatures "inspired by an aesthetic which nothing +escapes, achieve the beautiful" (12/11.), surely human art, which can but +imitate and remember, has only to employ to its profit and transfigure into +ideal images the natural beauties so profusely furnished by the +Unconscious. + +Modern art, influenced more especially by the subtle Japanese, is already +treading this path. + +What artist could ever engrave on rare metals or model in precious +substances a more beautiful subject than the wonderful picture of the +Tarantula offering, at the length of her extended limbs, her white sac of +eggs to the sun; or the transparent nymph of the Onthophagus taurus, "as +though carved from a block of crystal, with its wide snout and its enormous +horns like those of the Aurochs"? (12/12.) What an undiscovered subject he +might find in the nymph of the Ergatus (12/13.), with its almost +incorporeal grace, as though made of "translucent ivory, like a communicant +in her white veils, the arms crossed upon the breast; a living symbol of +mystic resignation before the accomplishment of destiny"; or in the still +more mysterious nymph of the Scarabaeus sacer, first of all "a mummy of +translucent amber, maintained by its linen cerements in a hieratic pose; +but soon upon this background of topaz, the head, the legs, and the thorax +change to a sombre red, while the rest of the body remains white, and the +nymph is slowly transfigured, assuming that majestic costume which combines +the red of the cardinal's mantle with the whiteness of the sacerdotal alb." + +On the other hand, what Sims or Bateman ever imagined weirder caricature +than the grotesque larva of the Oniticella, with its extravagant dorsal +hump; or the fantastic and alarming silhouette of the Empusa, with its +scaly belly raised crozierwise and mounted on four long stilts, its pointed +face, turned-up moustaches, great prominent eyes, and a "stupendous mitre": +the most grotesque, the most fantastic freaks that creation can ever have +evolved? (12/14.) + + +CHAPTER 13. THE EPIC OF ANIMAL LIFE. + +Although in his portraits and descriptions Fabre is simple and exact, and +so full of natural geniality; although he can so handle his words as to +render them "adequate" to reproduce the moving pictures of the tiny +creatures he observes, his style touches a higher level, flashes with +colour, and grows rich with imagery when he seeks to interpret the feelings +which animate them: their loves, their battles, their cunning schemes, and +the pursuit of their prey; all that vast drama which everywhere accompanies +the travail of creation. + +It is here in particular that Fabre shows us what horizons, as yet almost +unexplored, what profound and inexhaustible resources science is able to +offer poetry. + +The breaking of egg or chrysalid is in itself a moving event; for to attain +to the light is for all these creatures "a prodigious travail." + +The hour of spring has sounded. At the call of the field-cricket, the +herald of the spring, the germs that slumber in nymph or chrysalis have +broken through their spell. + +What haste and ingenuity are required to emerge from the natal darkness, to +unwrap the swaddling-bands, to break the subterranean shells, to demolish +the waxen bulkheads, to perforate the soil or to escape from prisons of +silk! + +The woodland bug, whose egg is a masterpiece, invents I know not what +magical centre-bit, what curious piece of locksmith's work, in order to +unlock its natal casket and achieve its liberty. + +For days the grasshopper "butts its head against the roughness of the soil, +and wars upon the pebbles; by dint of frantic wriggling it escapes from the +womb of the earth, bursts its old coat, and is transfigured, opening its +eyes to the light, and leaping for the first time." + +The Bombyx of the pine-tree "decks its brow with points of diamond, spreads +its wings, and erects its plumes, and shakes out its fleece to fly only in +the darkness, to wed the same night, and to die on the morrow." + +What marvellous inventions, what machinery, what incredible contrivances, +"in order that a tiny fly can emerge from under ground"! + +The Anthrax assumes a panoply of trepans, an assortment of gimlets and +knives, harpoons and grapnels, in order to perforate its ceiling of cement; +then the lugubrious black fly appears, all moist as yet with the humours of +the laboratory of life, steadies itself upon its trembling legs, dries its +wings, quits its suit of armour, and takes flight." + +The blue-fly, buried in the depth of the sand, "cracks its barrel-shaped +coffin," and splits its mask, in order to disinter itself; the head divides +into two halves, between which we see emerging and disappearing by turns a +monstrous tumour, which comes and goes, swells and shrivels, palpitates, +labours, lunges, and retires, thus compressing and gradually undermining +the sand, until at last the newborn fly emerges from the depth of the +catacombs. (13/1.) + +Certain young spiders, in order to emancipate themselves, to conquer space, +and disperse themselves about the world, resort to an ingenious system of +aviation. They gain the highest point of the thicket, and release a thread, +which, seized by the wind, carries them away suspended. Each shines like a +point of light against the foliage of the cypresses. There is a continuous +stream of tiny passengers, leaping and descending in scattered sheaves +under the caresses of the sun, like atomic projectiles, like the fountain +of fire at a pyrotechnic display. What a glorious departure, what an entry +into the world! Gripping its aeronautic thread, the insect ascends in +apotheosis! (13/2.) + +But if all are called all are not chosen. "How many can move only at the +greatest peril under the rugged earth, proceeding from shock to shock, in +the harsh womb of universal life, and, arrested by a grain of sand, succumb +half-way"! + +There are others whom slower metamorphoses condemn to vegetate still longer +in the subterranean night, before they are permitted to assume their +festival attire, and share in their turn in the gladness of creation. + +Thus the Cicada is forced to labour for long gloomy years in the darkness +before it can emerge from the soil. At the moment when it issues from the +earth the larva, soiled with mire, "resembles a sewer-man; its eyes are +whitish, nebulous, squinting, blind." Then "it clings to some twig, it +splits down the back, rejects its discarded skin, drier than horny +parchment, and becomes the Cigale, which is at first of a pale grass-green +hue." Then, + +"Half drunken with her joy, she feasts +In a hail of fire"; + +And all day long drinks of the sugared sap of tender bark, and is silent +only at night, sated with light and heat. The song, which forms part of the +majestic symphony of the harvest-tide, announces merely its delight in +existence. Having passed years underground, the cigale has only a month to +reign, to be happy in a world of light, under the caressing sun. Judge +whether the wild little cymbals can ever be loud enough "to celebrate such +felicity, so well earned and so ephemeral"! (13/3.) + +All sing for happiness, each after its kind, through the calm of the summer +days. Their minds are intoxicated; it is their fashion of praying, of +adoring, of expressing "the joys of life: a full crop and the sun on the +back." Even the humble grasshopper rubs its flanks to express its joy, +raises and lowers its shanks till its wing-cases squeak, and is enchanted +with its own music, which it commences or terminates suddenly "according to +the alternations of sun and shade." Each insect has its rhythm, strident or +barely perceptible; the music of the thickets and fallows caressed by the +sun, rising and falling in waves of joyful life. + +The insects make merry; they hold uproarious festival; and they mate +insatiably; even before forming a mutual acquaintance; in a furious rush of +living, for "love is the sole joy of the animal," and "to love is to die." + +Hardly unwrapped, still dusty from the strenuous labour of deliverance, +"the female of the Scolia is seized by the male, who does not even give her +time to wash her eyes." Having slept over a year underground, the Sitares, +barely rid of their mummy-cases, taste, in the sunlight, a few minutes of +love, on the very site of their re-birth; then they die. Life surges, +burns, flares, sparkles, rushes "in a perpetual tide," a brief radiance +between two nights. + +A world of a myriad fairies fills the rustling forest: day and night it +unfolds a thousand marvellous pictures; about the root of a bramble, in the +shadow of an old wall, on a slope of loose soil, or in the dense thickets. + +"The insect is transfigured for the nuptial ceremony; and each hopes, in +its ritual, to declare its passion." Fabre had some thought of writing the +Golden Book of their bridals and their wedding festivals (13/4.); the +Kamasutra of their feasts and rules of love; and with what art, at once +frank and reserved, has he here and there handled this wonderful theme! In +the radiant garden of delight, where no detail of truth is omitted, but +where nothing shocks us, Fabre reveals himself as he is in his +conversation; evading the subject where it takes a licentious turn; +fundamentally chaste and extremely reserved. + +At the foot of the rocks the Psyche "appears in the balcony of her boudoir, +in the rays of the caressing sun; lying on the cloudy softness of an +incomparable eider-down." She awaits the visit of the spouse, "the gentle +Bombyx," who, for the ceremony, "has donned his feathery plumes and his +mantle of black velvet." "If he is late in coming, the female grows +impatient; then she herself makes the advances, and sets forth in search of +her mate." + +Drawn by the same voluptuous and overwhelming force, the cricket ventures +to leave his burrow. Adorned "in his fairest attire, black jacket, more +beauteous than satin, with a stripe of carmine on the thigh," he wanders +through the wild herbage, "by the discreet glimmer of twilight," until he +reaches the distant lodging of the beloved. There at last he arrives "upon +the sanded walk, the court of honour that precedes the entry." But already +the place is occupied by another aspirant. Then the two rivals fall upon +one another, biting one another's heads, "until it ends by the retreat of +the weaker, whom the victor insults by a bravura cry." The happy champion +bridles, assuming a proud air, as of one who knows himself a handsome +fellow, before the fair one, who feigns to hide herself behind her tuft of +aphyllantus, all covered with azure flowers. "With a gesture of a fore-limb +he passes one of his antennae through his mandibles as though to curl it; +with his long-spurred, red-striped legs he shuffles with impatience; he +kicks the empty air; but emotion renders him mute." (13/5.) + +In the foliage of the ash-tree the lover of the female Cantharis thrashes +his companion, who makes herself as small as she can, hiding her head in +her bosom; he bangs her with his fists, buffets her with his abdomen, +"subjects her to an erotic storm, a rain of blows"; then, with his arms +crossed, he remains a moment motionless and trembling; finally, seizing +both antennae of the desired one, he forces her to raise her head "like a +cavalier proudly seated on horse and holding the reins in his hands." + +The Osmiae "reply by a click of the jaws to the advances of their lovers, +who recoil, and then, doubtless to make themselves more valiant, they also +execute a ferocious mandibular grimace. With this byplay of the jaws and +their menacing gestures of the head in the empty air the lovers have the +air of intending to eat one another." Thus they preface their bridals by +displays of gallantry, recalling the ancient betrothal customs of which +Rabelais speaks; the pretenders were cuffed and derided and threatened with +a hearty pummelling. (13/6.) + +On the arid hillsides, where the doubtful rays of the moon pierce the +storm-clouds and illumine the sultry atmosphere, the pale scorpions, with +short-sighted eyes, hideous monsters with misshapen heads, "display their +strange faces, and two by two, hand in hand, stalk in measured paces amid +the tufts of lavender. How tell their joys, their ecstasies, that no human +language can express...!" (13/7.) + +However, the glow-worm, to guide the lover, lights its beacon "like a spark +fallen from the full moon"; but "presently the light grows feebler, and +fades to a discreet nightlight, while all around the host of nocturnal +creatures, delayed in their affairs, murmur the general epithalamium." +(13/8.) + +But their happy time is soon over; tragedy is about to follow idyll. + +One must live, and "the intestine rules the world." + +All creatures that fill the world are incessantly conflicting, and one +lives only at the cost of another. + +On the other hand, in order that the coming generations may see the light, +the present generations must think of the preservation of the young. +"Perish all the rest provided the brood flourish!" And in the depth of +burrows the future larvae who live only for their stomachs, "little ogres, +greedy of living flesh," must have their prey. + +To hunger and maternity let us also add love, which "rules the world by +conflict." + +Such are the components of the "struggle for existence," such as Fabre has +described it, but with no other motive than to describe what he has +observed and seen. Such are the ordinary themes of the grandiose battles +which he has scattered through his narratives, and never did circus or +arena offer more thrilling spectacles; no jungle ever hid more moving +combats in its thickets." + +"Each has its ruses of war, its methods of attack, its methods of killing." + +What tactics--"studied, scientific, worthy of the athletes of the ancient +palaestra"--are those which the Sphex employs to paralyse the Cricket and +the Cerceris to capture the Cleona, to secure them in a suitable place, so +as to operate on them more surely and at leisure! + +Beside these master paralysers, so expert in the art of dealing slow death, +there are those which, with a precision no less scholarly, kill and wither +their victims at a single stroke, and without leaving a trace: "true +practitioners in crime." + +On the rock-rose bushes, with their great pink flowers, "the pretty +Thomisus, the little crab-spider, clad in satin," watches for the domestic +bee, and suddenly kills it, seizing the back of the head, while the +Philanthus, also seizing it by the head, plunges its sting under the chin, +neither too high nor too low, but "exactly in the narrow joint of the +neck," for both insects know that in this limited spot, in which is +concentrated a small nervous mass, something like a brain, is "the weak +point, most vulnerable of all," the fault in the cuirass, the vital centre. +Others, like the Araneidae, intoxicate their prey, and their subtle bite, +"which resembles a kiss," in whatever part of the body it is applied, +"produces almost immediately a gradual swoon." + +Thus the great hairy Bourdon, in the course of its peregrinations across +the wastes of thyme, sometimes foolishly strays into the lair of the +Tarantula, whose eyes glimmer like jewels at the back of his den. Hardly +has the insect disappeared underground than a sort of shrill rattling is +heard, a "true death-song," immediately followed by the completest silence. +"Only a moment, and the unfortunate creature is absolutely dead, proboscis +outstretched and limbs relaxed. The bite of the rattlesnake would not +produce a more sudden paralysis." + +The terrible spider "crouching on the battlements of his castle, his heavy +belly in the sun, attentive to the slightest rustling, leaps upon whatever +passes, fly or Libellula, and with a single stroke strangles his victim, +and drains its body, drinking the warm blood." + +"To dislodge him from his keep needs all the cunning strategy of the +Pompilus; a terrible duel, a hand-to-hand combat, stupendous, truly epic, +in which the subtle address and the ingenious audacity of the winged insect +eventually triumph over the dreadful spider and his poisoned fangs." +(13/9.) + +On the pink heather "the timid spider of the thickets suspends by ethereal +cables the branching whorl of his snare, which the tears of the night have +turned into chaplets of jewels...The magical jewellery sparkles in the sun, +attracting mosquitoes and butterflies; but whosoever approaches too closely +perishes, a victim of curiosity." Above the funnel is the trap, "a chaos of +springs, a forest of cordage; like the rigging of a ship dismembered by the +tempest. The desperate creature struggles in the shrouds of the rigging, +then falls into the gloomy slaughter-house where the spider lurks ready to +bleed his prey." + +Death is everywhere. + +Each crevice of bark, each shadow of a leaf, conceals a hunter armed with a +deadly weapon, all his senses on the alert. Everywhere are teeth, fangs, +talons, stings, pincers, and scythes. + +Leaping in the long grasses, the Decticus with the ivory face "crunches the +heads of grasshoppers in his mandibles." + +A ferocious creature, the grub of the Hemerobius, disembowels plant-lice, +making of their skins a battle-dress, covering its back with the +eviscerated victims, "as the Red Indian ties about his loins the tresses of +his scalped enemies." + +Caterpillars are surrounded by the implacable voracity of the Carabidae: + +"The furry skins are gaping with wounds; their contents escape in knots of +entrails, bright green with their aliment, the needles of the pine-tree; +the caterpillars writhe, struggling with loop-like movements, gripping the +sand with their feet, dribbling and gnashing their mandibles. Those as yet +unwounded are digging desperately in the attempt to escape underground. Not +one succeeds. They are scarcely half buried before some beetle runs to them +and destroys them by an eviscerating wound." + +At the centre of its net, which seems "woven of moonbeams," in the midst of +its snare, a glutinous trap of infernal ingenuity, or hidden at a distance +in its cabin of green leaves, the Epeïra fasciata waits and watches for its +prey. Let the terrible hornet, or the Libellula auripennis, flying from +stem to stem, fall into the limed snare; the insect struggles, endeavours +to unwind itself; the net trembles violently as though it would be torn +from its cables. Immediately the spider darts forward, running boldly to +the intruder. With rapid gestures the two hinder limbs weave a winding- +sheet of silk as they rotate the victim in order to enshroud it...The +ancient Retiarius, condemned to meet a powerful beast of prey, appeared in +the arena with a net of cordage lying upon his left shoulder; the animal +sprang upon him; the man, with a sudden throw, caught it in the meshes; a +stroke of the trident despatched it. Similarly the Epeïra throws its web, +and when there is no longer any movement under the white shroud the spider +draws closer; its venomous fangs perform the office of the trident. +(13/10.) + +The Praying Mantis, that demoniac creature which alone among the insects +turns its head to gaze, "whose pious airs conceal the most atrocious +habits," remains on the watch, motionless, for hours at a time. Let a great +grasshopper chance to come by: the Mantis follows it with its glance, +glides between the leaves, and suddenly rises up before it; "and then +assumes its spectral pose, which terrifies and fascinates the prey; the +wing-covers open, the wings spring to their full width, forming a vast +pyramid which dominates the back; a sort of swishing sound is heard, like +the hiss of a startled adder; the murderous fore-limbs open to their full +extent, forming a cross with the body, and exhibiting the axillae +ornamented with eyes vaguely resembling those of the peacock's tail, part +of the panoply of war, concealed upon ordinary occasions. These are only +exhibited when the creature makes itself terrible and superb for battle. +Then the two grappling-hooks are thrown; the fangs strike, the double +scythes close together and hold the victim as in a vice." (13/11.) + +There is no peace; night falls and the horrible conflict continues in the +darkness. Atrocious struggles, merciless duels, fill the summer nights. On +the stems of the long grasses, beside the furrows, the glow-worm +"anaethetizes the snail," instilling into it its venom, which stupefies and +produces sleep, in order to immobilize its prey before devouring it. + +Having chorused their joy all the day long in the sunshine, in the evening +the Cicadae fall asleep among the olives and the lofty plane-trees. But +suddenly there is a sound as of a cry of anguish, short and strident; it is +the despairing lamentation of the cicada, surprised in repose by the green +grasshopper, that ardent hunter of the night, which leaps upon the cicada, +seizes it by the flank, and devours the contents of the stomach. After the +orgy of music comes night and assassination. + +Such is the gloomy epic which goes forward among the flowers, amidst the +foliage, under the shadowy boughs, and on the dusty fallows. Such are the +sights that nature offers amid the profound peace of the fields, behind the +flowering of the sudden spring-tide and the splendours of the summer. These +murders, these assassinations are committed in a mute and silent world, but +"the ear of the mind" seems to hear + +"A tiger's rage and cries as of a lion +Roaring remotely through this pigmy world." + +Was it to these thrilling revelations that Victor Hugo intended to apply +these so wonderfully appropriate lines? Was it he who bestowed upon Fabre, +according to a poetic tradition, the name of "the Homer of the insects," +which fits him so marvellously well? + +It is possible, although Fabre himself can cite no evidence to support +these suggestions; but let us respect the legend, simply because it is +charming, and because it adds an exact and picturesque touch to the +portrait of Fabre. + +In this drama of a myriad scenes, in which the little actors in their +rustic stage play each in his turn their parts at the mercy of occasion and +the hazard of encounter, the humblest creatures are personages of +importance. + +Like the human comedy, this also has its characters privileged by birth, +clothed in purple, dazzling with embroidery, "adorned with lofty plumes," +who strut pretentiously; "its idle rich," covered with robes of gold of +rustling splendour, who display their diamonds, their topazes and their +sapphires; who gleam with fire and shine like mirrors, magnificent of mien; +but their brains are "dense, heavy, inept, without imagination, without +ingenuity, deprived of all common sense, knowing no other anxiety than to +drink in the sunlight at the heart of a rose or to sleep off their draughts +in the shadow of a leaf. + +Those who labour, on the contrary, do not attract the eye, and the most +obscure are often the most interesting. Necessitous poverty has educated +and formed them, has excited in them "feats of invention," unsuspected +talents, original industries; a thousand curious and unexpected callings, +and no subject of poetry equals in interest the detailed history of one of +these tiny creatures, by which we pass without observing them, amid the +stones, the brambles, and the dead leaves. It is these above all that add +an original and epic note to the vast symphony of the world. + +But death also has its poetry. Its shadowy domains hold lessons no less +magnificent, and the most putrid carrion is to Fabre a "tabernacle" in +which a divine comedy is enacted. + +The ant, that "ardent filibuster, comes first, and commences to dissect it +piecemeal." + +The Necrophori "exhaling the odour of musk, and bearing red pompons at the +end of their antennae," are "transcendent alchemists." + +The Sarcophagi, or grey flesh flies, "with red bloodshot eyes, and the +stony gaze of a knacker"; the Saprinidae, "with bodies of polished ebony +like pearls of jet"; the Silpha aplata, with large and sombre wing-cases in +mourning; the shiny slow-trotting Horn-beetle; the Dermestes, "powdered +with snow beneath the stomach"; the slender Staphylinus; the whole fauna of +the corpse, the whole horde of artisans of death, "intoxicating themselves +with purulence, probing, excavating, mangling, dissecting, transmuting, and +stamping out infection." + +Fabre gives a curious exposition of "that strange art" by which the grub of +the grey bot-fly, the vulgar maggot, by means of a subtle pepsine, +disintegrates and liquefies solid matter; and it is because this singular +solvent has no effect upon the epidermis that the fly, in its wisdom, +chooses by preference the mucous membranes, the corner of the eye, the +entrance of the nostrils, the borders of the lips, the live flesh of +wounds, there to deposit its eggs. + +With what penetration this original mind has analysed "the operation of the +crucible in which all things are fused that they may recommence" and has +expounded the marvellous lesson which is revealed by decomposition and +putridity! + + +CHAPTER 14. PARALLEL LIVES. + +We have now seen what entomology becomes in the hands of the admirable +Fabre. The vast poem of creation has never had a more familiar and luminous +interpreter, and you will nowhere find other work like his. + +How far he outstrips Buffon and his descriptions of animals--so general, so +vague, so impersonal--his records unreliable and his entire erudition of a +second-hand quality! + +It is with Réaumur that we are first of all tempted to compare him; and +some have chosen to see in him only one who has continued Réaumur's work. +In reality he has eagerly read Réaumur, although at heart he does not +really enjoy his writings; he has drunk from this fruitful source, but he +owes him no part of his own rich harvest. + +But there are many affinities between them; they have many traits in +common, despite the points of difference between them. + +The illustrious son of Rochelle was born, like Fabre, with a love of all +natural things, and before attacking the myriad problems of physics and +natural history, wherein he was to shine by so many curious discoveries, he +also had prepared himself by a profound study of mathematics. + +Luckier than Fabre, however, Réaumur enjoyed not only the advantages of +birth, but all the material conditions necessary to his ardent intellectual +activity. Fortune overwhelmed her favourite with gifts, and played no small +part in his glory by enabling him, from an early age, to profit by his +leisure and to give a free rein to his ruling passions. He was no less +modest than the sage of Sérignan; self-effacing before others, says one of +his biographers, so that they were never made to feel his superiority. +(14/1.) + +In the midst of the beautiful and spacious gardens at the end of the +Faubourg Saint-Antoine, where he finally made his home, he also contrived +to create for himself a Harmas after his own heart. + +It was there that in the as yet virgin domain of entomology he unravelled +the riddle of the marvellous republic of the bees, and was able to expound +and interpret a large number of those tiny lives which every one had +hitherto despised, and which indeed they continued to despise until the +days of Fabre, or at least regarded as absolutely unimportant. He was the +first to venture to suspect their connection with much "that most nearly +concerns us," or to point out "all the singular conclusions" which may be +drawn therefrom. (14/2.) + +How many details he has enshrined in his interesting "Memoirs," and how +many facts we may glean from this great master! He, like Fabre, had the +gift of charming a great number of his contemporaries. Tremblay, Bonnet, +and de Geer owed their vocations to Réaumur, not to speak of Huber, whose +genius he inspired. + +A physicist before all, and accustomed to delicate and meticulous though +comparatively simple tasks, he had admirably foreseen the extraordinary +complication of these inquiries; so much so that, with the modesty of the +true scientist that he was, he regarded his own studies, even the most +substantial, as mere indications, intended to point the way to those that +followed him. + +As methodical, in short, as the author of the "Souvenirs," the scrupulous +Réaumur wrote nothing that he himself had not proved or verified with the +greatest care; and we may be sure that all that he records of his personal +and immediate observations he has really seen with his own eyes. + +In the wilderness of error he had, like Fabre, an infallible compass in his +extraordinary common sense; and, equally skilled in extracting from the +false the little particle of truth which it often contains, he was no less +fond of listening at the gate of legends, of tracing the source of +traditions; rightly considering that before deriding them as old-wives' +tales we should first probe in all directions into their origin and +foundation. (14/3.) + +He was also tempted to experiment, and he well knew that in such problems +as those he attacked observation alone is often powerless to reveal +anything. It is enough to recall here one of the most promising and +unexpected of the discoveries which resulted from his experiments. Réaumur +was the first to conceive the ingenious idea of retarding the hatching of +insects' eggs by exposing them to cold, thus anticipating the application +of cold to animal life and the discoveries of Charles Tellier, whose more +illustrious forerunner he was; at the same time he discovered the secret of +prolonging, in a similar fashion, the larval existence of chrysalids during +a space of time infinitely superior to that of their normal cycle; and what +is more, he succeeded in making them live a lethargic life for years and +even for a long term of years, thus repeating at will the miracle of the +Seven Sleepers. (14/4.) + +Too much occupied, however, with the smaller aspect of things, he had not +the art of forcing Nature to speak, and in the province of psychical +aptitudes he was barely able to rise above the facts. + +As he was powerless to enter into real communion with the tiny creatures +which he observed, although his observations were conducted with religious +admiration; as he saw always only the outside of things, like a physicist +rather than a poet or psychologist, he contented himself with noting the +functioning of their organs, their methods of work, their properties, and +the changes which they undergo; he did not interpret their actions. The +mystery of the life which quivers within and around them eludes him. This +is why his books are such dry reading. He is like a bright garden full of +rare plants; but it is a monotonous garden, without life or art, without +distant vistas or wide perspectives. His works are somewhat diffuse and +full of repetitions; entire monographs, almost whole volumes, are devoted +to describing the emerging of a butterfly; but they form part of the +library of the curious lover of nature; they are consulted with interest, +and will always be referred to, but it cannot be said that they are read. + +After Réaumur, according to the dictum of the great Latreille, entomology +was confined to a wearisome and interminable nomenclature, and if we except +the Hubers, two unparalleled observers, although limited and circumscribed, +the only writer who filled the interregnum between Réaumur and Fabre was +Léon Dufour. + +In the quiet little town whither he went to succeed his father, this +military surgeon, turned country doctor, lived a busy and useful life. + +While occupied with his humble patients, whom he preferred to regard merely +as an interesting clinic, and while keeping the daily record of his medical +observations, he felt irresistibly drawn "to ferret in all the holes and +corners of the soil, to turn over every stone, large or small; to shrink +from no fatigue, no difficulty; to scale the highest peaks, the steepest +cliffs, to brave a thousand dangers, in order to discover an insect or a +plant. (14/5.) + +A disciple of Latreille, he shone above all as an impassioned descriptive +writer. + +No one was more skilled in determining a species, in dissecting the head of +a fly or the entrails of a grub, and no spectacle in the world was for him +so fascinating as the triple life of the insect; those magical +metamorphoses, which he justly considered as one of the most astonishing +phenomena in creation. (14/6.) + +He saw further than Réaumur, and burned with the same fire as Fabre, for he +also had the makings of a great poet. His curiosity had assembled enormous +collections, but he considered, as Fabre considered, that collecting is +"only the barren contemplation of a vast ossuary which speaks only to the +eyes, and not to the mind or imagination," and that the true history of +insects should be that of their habits, their industries, their battles, +their loves, and their private and social life; that one must "search +everywhere, on the ground, under the soil, in the waters, in the air, under +the bark of trees, in the depth of the woods, in the sands of the desert, +and even on and in the bodies of animals." + +Was not this in reality the ambitious programme which Fabre was later to +propose to himself when he entered into his Harmas and founded his living +laboratory of entomology; he also having set himself as his exclusive +object the study of "the insects, the habits of life, the labours, the +struggles and the propagation of this little world, which agriculture and +philosophy should closely consider"? (14/7.) + +Dufour also had admirably grasped the place of the insect in the general +harmony of the universe, and he clearly perceived that parasitism, that +imbrication of mutually usurping lives, is "a law of equilibration, whose +object is to set a limit to the excessive multiplication of individuals of +the same type," that the parasites are predestined to an imprescriptible +mission, and that this mysterious law "defies all explanation." + +On the other hand, he did not become very intimate with these tiny peoples; +his attention was dispersed over too many points; perhaps he was +fundamentally incapable of concentrating himself for a long period upon a +circumscribed object; perhaps he lacked that first condition of genius, +patience, so essential to such researches: although he enriched science by +an infinite multitude of precious facts and has recorded a quantity of +details concerning the habits of insects, he did not succeed in +representing any one of these innumerable little minds. He had an intense +feeling for nature, but he was not able to interpret it, and his immense +volume of work, scattered through nearly three hundred monographs, remains +ineffective. + +Let us compare with his work the vast epic of the "Souvenirs." We become +familiar with the whole life of the least insect, and all its unending +related circumstances; we obtain sudden glimpses of insight into our own +organization, with its abysses and its lacunae, and also into those rich +provinces or faculties which we are only beginning to suspect in the depths +of our unconscious activity. + +In the evening twilight, after the vast andante of the cicadae is hushed, +at the hour when the shining glow-worms "light their blue fires," and the +"pale Italian cricket, delirious with its nocturnal madness, chirrups among +the rosemary thickets," while in the distance sounds the melodious tinkle +of the bell-ringer frogs, replying from one hiding-place to another, the +old master shows us that profound and mysterious magic with which matter is +endowed by the faintest glimmer of life. + +He shows us the intimate connection of things, the universal harmony which +so intimately allies all creatures; and he shows us also that everywhere +and all around us, in the smallest object, poetry exists like a hidden +flame, if only we know how to seek it. + +And in revealing so many marvellous energies in even the lowest creatures, +he helps us to divine the infinity of phenomena still unguessed-at, which +the subtlety of the unknowable force which thrills through the whole +universe hides from us under the most trivial appearances. + +For he has not told everything; this incommensurable region, which had +hitherto remained unworked, is far from being exhausted. + +How many unknown and hidden things are still left to be gleaned! There will +be a harvest for all. Remember that "even the humblest species either has +no history, or the little that has been written concerning it calls for +serious revision" (14/8.); that a single bush, such as the bramble, +suffices to rear more than fifty species of insects, and that each species, +according to the just observation of Réaumur, "has its habits, its tricks +of cunning, its customs, its industries, its art, its architecture, its +different instincts, and its individual genius." + +What a stupendous alphabet to decipher, of which we have as yet only +commenced to read the first few letters! When we are able to read it almost +entirely, when observers are more numerous and have concerted their +efforts, mutually illuminating, completing and correcting one another, +then, and then only, we shall succeed, if not in resolving some of those +high problems which have never ceased to interest mankind, at least in +seizing some reflected knowledge of ourselves, and in seeing a little +farther into the kingdom of the mind. + + +CHAPTER 15. THE EVENINGS AT SÉRIGNAN. + +But it will doubtless be long before a new Fabre will resume, with the same +heroic ardour, the life of solitary labour, varied only by a few austere +recreations. + +Rising at six o'clock, he would first of all pace the tiles of his kitchen, +breakfast in hand; so imperious in him was the need of action, if his mind +was to work successfully, that even at this moment of morning meditation +his body must already be in movement. Then, after many turns among the +bushes of the enclosure, all irised with drops of dew which were already +evaporating, he went straight to his cell: that is, to the silence of his +laboratory. + +There, in unsociable silence, invisible to all, he worked hard and steadily +until noon; pursuing an observation or carrying out some experiment, or +recording what he saw or what he had seen the day before, or re-drafting +his records in their final form. + +How many who have come hither to knock upon the door in these morning +hours, or to ring at the little gate, silent as the tomb, which gives upon +the private path frequented only by foot-passengers on their way to the +fields, have undertaken a fruitless journey! But without such discipline +would it have been possible to accomplish such a task as his? + +At last he would leave his workroom; jaded, exhausted by the excessive +intensity of his work, "face pale and features drawn." (15/1.) + +Now he is "at leisure: the half-day is over" (15/2.); and he can satisfy +his immense need not of repose, but of relaxation and distraction in less +severe occupations; for he is never at any time nor anywhere inactive; +incessantly making notes, with little stumps of pencil which he carries +about in his pockets, and on the first scrap of paper that comes to hand, +of all that passes through his mind. Those eternal afternoons, which +usually, in the depth of the French provinces, prove so dull and wearisome, +seem short enough to him. Now he will halt before his plants, now stoop to +the ground, the better to observe a passing insect; always in search of +some fresh subject of study; or now bending over his microscope. (15/3.) +Then he undertakes, for his later-born children at Sérignan, the duties +which he formerly performed for the elder family at Orange: he teaches them +himself; he has much to do with them, for their sake and for his own as +well, for he is jealous of possessing them, and he regrets parting with +them. They too have their tasks arranged in advance. + +They are his assistants, his appointed collaborators, who keep and relieve +guard, undertaking, in his absence, some observation already in hand, so +that no detail may be lost, no incident of the story that unrolls itself +sometimes with exasperating slowness beneath the bell-covers of the +laboratory or on some bush in the garden. He inspires the whole household +with the fire of his own genius, and all those about him are almost as +interested as he. + +At home, in the house, always wearing his eternal felt hat, and absorbed in +meditation, he speaks little, holding that every word should have its +object, and only employing a term when he has tested its weight and +meaning. Silence at mealtimes again is a rule that no one of his household +would infringe. But he unbends his brow when he receives a friend at his +hospitable table, where but lately his smiling wife would sit, full of +little attentions for him. (15/4.) + +Frugal in all respects, he barely touches the dishes before him; avoiding +all meats, and saving himself wholly for the fruits; for is not man +naturally frugivorous, by his teeth, his stomach, and his bowels? Certain +dishes repel him, for reasons of sentiment rather than through any real +disgust; such as paté de foie gras, which reminds him too forcibly of the +so cruelly tortured goose; such cruelty is too high a price to pay for a +mere greasy mouthful. (15/5.) On the other hand, he drinks wine with +pleasure, the harsh, rough "wine of the country" of the plains of Sérignan. +He is also well able to appreciate good things and appetizing cookery; no +one ever had a finer palate; but he is happiest in seeing others appreciate +the pleasures of the table. Witness that breakfast worthy of Gargantua, +which he himself organized in honour of his guests, whom he had invited to +an excursion over the Ventoux Alp; where he seems expressly to have +commanded "that all should come in shoals." What a tinkling of bottles, +what piles of bread! There are green olives "flowing with brine," black +olives "seasoned with oil," sausages of Arles "with rosy flesh, marbled +with cubes of fat and whole peppercorns," legs of mutton stuffed with +garlic "to dull the keen edge of hunger"; chickens "to amuse the molars"; +melons of Cavaillon too, with white pulp, not forgetting those with orange +pulp, and to crown the feast those little cheeses, so delightfully +flavoured, peculiar to Mont Ventoux, "spiced with mountain herbs," which +melt in the mouth. (15/6.) + +But his greatest pleasure is his pipe; a briar, which in absence of mind he +is always allowing to go out, and always relighting. + +Respectful of all traditions, he has kept up the observance of old customs; +no Christmas Eve has ever been passed under the roof of his Harmas without +the consecrated meats upon the table; the heart of celery, the nougat of +almonds, the dish of snails, and the savoury-smelling turkey. Then, stuck +into the Christmas bread (15/7.), the sprigs of holly, the verbouisset, the +sacred bush whose little starry flowers and coral berries, growing amid +evergreen leaves, affirm the eternal rebirth of indestructible nature. + +At Sérignan Fabre is little known and little appreciated. To tell the +truth, folk regard him as eccentric; they have often surprised him in the +country lying on his stomach in the middle of a field, or kneeling on the +ground, a magnifying glass in hand, observing a fly or some one of those +insignificant creatures in which no sane person would deign to be +interested. + +How should they know him, since he never goes into the village? When he did +once venture thither to visit his friend Charrasse, the schoolmaster, his +appearance was an event of which every one had something to say, so greatly +did it astonish the inhabitants. (15/8.) + +Yet he never hesitates to place his knowledge at the service of all, and +welcomes with courtesy the rare pilgrims in whom a genuine regard is +visible, although he is always careful never to make them feel his own +superiority; but he very quickly dismisses, sometimes a trifle hastily, +those who are merely indiscreet or importunate; pedantic and ignorant +persons he judges instantaneously with his piercing eyes; with such people +he cannot emerge from his slightly gloomy reserve; he shuts himself up like +the snail, which, annoyed by some displeasing object, retires into its +shell, and remains silent in their presence. + +Professors come to consult him: asking his advice as to their programmes of +instruction, or begging him to resolve some difficult problem or decide +some especially vexed question; and his explanations are so simple, so +clear, so logical that they are astonished at their own lack of +comprehension and their embarrassment. (15/9.) + +But there are few who venture within the walls of that enclosure, which +seems to shut out all the temptations of the outer world; the only intimate +visitors to the Harmas are the village schoolmaster--first Laurent, then +Louis Charrasse (15/10.), and later Jullian--and a blind man, Marius. + +This latter lost his sight at the age of twenty. Then, to earn a living, he +began to make and repair chairs, and in his misfortune, although blind and +extremely poor, he kept a calm and contented mind. + +Fabre had discovered the sage and the blind man on his arrival at Sérignan, +and also Favier (15/11.), "that other native, whose jovial spirit was so +prompt to respond, and who helped to dig up the Harmas; to set up the +planks and tiles of the little kitchen-garden; a rude task, since this +scrap of uncultivated ground was then but a terrible desert of pebbles." To +Favier fell the care of the flowers, for the new owner was a great lover of +flowers. Potted plants, sometimes of rare species, were already, as to-day, +crowded in rows upon the terrace before the house, where all the summer +they formed a sort of vestibule in the open air, on either side of the +entrance; and these Fabre never ceased to watch over with constant and +meticulous care. Both spoke the same language, and the words they exchanged +were born of a like philosophy; for Favier also loved nature in his own +way, and at heart was an artist; and when, after the day's work, sitting +"on the high stone of the kitchen hearth, where round logs of green oak +were blazing," he would evoke, in his picturesque and figurative language, +the memories of an old campaigner, he charmed all the household and the +evening seemed to pass with strange rapidity. + +When this precious servant and boon companion had disappeared, after two +years of digging, sowing, weeding, and hoeing, all was ready; the frame was +completed and the work could be commenced. It was then that Marius became +the master's appointed collaborator, and it is he who now constructs his +apparatus, his experimental cages; stuffs his birds, helps to ransack the +soil, and shades him with an umbrella while he watches under the burning +sun. Marius cannot see, but so intimate is his communion with his master, +so keen his enthusiasm for all that Fabre does, that he follows in his +mind's eye, and as though he could actually see them, all the doings at +which he assists, and whose inward reflection lights up his wondering +countenance. + +Marius was not only rich in feeling and the gift of inner vision; he had +also a marvellously correct ear. He was a member of the "Fanfare" of +Sérignan, in which he played the big drum, and there was no one like him +for keeping perfect time and for bringing out the clash of the cymbals. + +Charrasse was no less fervent a disciple; he worshipped science and all +beautiful things; and he could even conceive a noble passion for his +exhausting trade of school-teaching. + +Like Marius, he ate "a bitter bread"; and Fabre would get on with them all +the better in that they, like himself, had lived a difficult life. "Man is +like the medlar," he liked to tell them; "he is worth nothing until he has +ripened a long time in the attic, on the straw." + +"L'homme est comme la nèfle, il n'est rien qui vaille +S'il n'a mûri longtemps, au grenier, sur la paille." + +These humble companions afforded him the simple conversation which he likes +so well; so natural, and so full of sympathy and common sense. They +customarily spent Thursday and Sunday afternoons at the Harmas; but these +beloved disciples might call at any hour; the master always welcomed them, +even in the morning, even when he was entirely absorbed in his work and +could not bear any one about him. They were his circle, his academy; he +would read them the last chapter written in the morning; he shared his +latest discoveries with them; he did not fear to ask advice of their +"fertile ignorance." (15/12.) + +Charrasse was a "Félibre," versed in all the secrets of the Provençal +idiom, of which he knew all the popular terms, the typical expressions and +turns of speech; and Fabre loved to consult him, to read some charming +verses which he had just discovered, or to recite some delightful rustic +poem with which he had just been inspired; for in such occupations he found +one of his favourite relaxations, giving free vent to his fancy, a loose +rein to the poet that dwells within him. These poems the piety of his +brother has preserved in the collection entitled "Oubreto." It is at such a +moment that one should see his black eyes, full of fire; his power of +mimicry and expression, his impassioned features, lit up by inspiration, +truly idealized, almost transfigured, are at such times a thing to be +remembered. + +Sometimes, again, in the shadow of the planes, on summer afternoons, when +the cigales were falling silent; or in the winter, before the blazing +fireplace, in that dining-room on the ground floor in which he welcomed his +visitors; when out of doors the mistral was roaring and raging, or the rain +clattering on the panes, the little circle was enlarged by certain new- +comers, his nephews, nieces, a few intimates, of whom, a little later, I +myself was often one. At such times his humour and imagination were given +full play, and it was truly a rare pleasure to sit there, sipping a glass +of mulled wine, during those delightful and earnest hours; to taste the +charm of his smiling philosophy, his picturesque conversation, full of +exact ideas, all the more profound in that they were founded on experience +and pointed or adorned by proverbs, adages, and anecdotes. Thanks to the +daily reading of the "Temps," which one of his friends regularly sends him, +Fabre is in touch with all the ideas of the day, and expresses his judgment +of them; for example, he does not conceal his scepticism with regard to +certain modern inventions, such as the aeroplane, whose novelty rather +disturbs his mind, and whose practical bearing seems to him to be on the +whole somewhat limited. + +Thus even the most recent incidents find their way into the solitude of the +Harmas and help to sustain the conversation. + +"The first time we resume our Sérignan evenings," he wrote to his nephew on +the morrow of one of these intimate gatherings, "we will have a little chat +about your Justinian, whom the recent drama of "Théodora" has just made the +fashion. Do you know the history of that terrible hussy and her stupid +husband? Perhaps not entirely; it is a treat I am keeping for you." +(15/13.) + +The only subject which is hardly ever mentioned during these evenings at +Sérignan is politics, although Fabre, strange as it may seem, was one year +appointed to sit on the municipal council. + +The son of peasants, who has emerged from the people yet has always +remained a peasant, has too keen a sense of injustice not to be a democrat; +and how many young men has he not taught to emancipate themselves by +knowledge? But above all he is proud of being a Frenchman; his mind, so +lucid, so logical, which has never gone abroad in search of its own +inspirations, and has never been influenced by any but those old French +masters, François Dufour and Réaumur, and the old French classics, has +always felt an instinctive repugnance, which it has never been able to +overcome, for all those ideas which some are surreptitiously seeking to put +forward in our midst in favour of some foreign trade-mark. + +Although his visit to the court of Napoleon III left him with a rather +sympathetic idea of the Emperor, whose gentle, dreamy appearance he still +likes to recall, he detested the Empire and the "brigand's trick" which +established it. + +On the day of the proclamation of the Republic he was seen in the streets +of Avignon in company with some of his pupils. He was agreeably surprised +at the turn events had taken, and delighted by the unforeseen result of the +war. + +A spirit as proud and independent as his was naturally the enemy of any +species of servitude. State socialism of the equalitarian and communistic +kind was to him no less horrifying. Was not Nature at hand, always to +remind him of her eternal lessons? + +"Equality, a magnificent political label, but scarcely more! Where is it, +this equality? In our societies shall we find even two persons exactly +equal in vigour, health, intelligence, capacity for work, foresight, and so +many other gifts which are the great factors of prosperity?...A single note +does not make a harmony: we must have dissimilar notes; discords even, +which, by their harshness, give value to the concords; human societies are +harmonious only thus, by the concourse of dissimilarities." (15/14.) + +And what a puerile Utopia, what a disappointing illusion is that of +communism! Let us see under what conditions, at the price of what +sacrifices, nature here and there realizes it. + +Among the bees "twenty thousand renounce maternity and devote themselves to +celibacy to raise the prodigious family of a single mother." + +Among the ants, the wasps, the termites "thousands and thousands remain +incomplete and become humble auxiliaries of a few who are sexually gifted." + +Would you by chance reduce man to the life of the Processional +caterpillars, content to nibble the pine-needles among which they live, and +which, satisfied to march continually along the same tracks, find within +reach an abundant, easy, and idle subsistence? All have the same size, the +same strength, the same aptitudes. No initiative. "What one does the others +do, with equal zeal, neither better nor worse." On the other hand, there is +"no sex, no love." And what would be a society in which there was no work +done for pleasure and from which love and the family were banished? What +would be the effect upon its progress, its welfare, its happiness? Would +not all that make the charm of life disappear for good? However imperfect +our present society may be, however mysterious its destinies, it is not in +socialism that Fabre foresees the perfection of future humanity, for to him +the true humanity does not as yet exist; it is making its way, it is slowly +progressing, and in this evolution he wishes with all his heart to believe. +Modern humanity is as yet only a shapeless grimacing caricature, and its +life is like a play written by madmen and played by drunken actors; +according to those profound words of the great poet, with which his mind is +in some sort imbued; which he often repeats, and which he has transcribed +at the head of one of his last records as an epigraph and a constant +reminder. + +And you who groan over the distressing problem of depopulation, lend an ear +to the lesson of the Copris, "which trebles its customary batch of +offspring in times of abundance, and in times of dearth imitates the +artisan of the city who has only just enough to live on, or the bourgeois, +whose numerous wants are more and more costly to satisfy, limiting the +number of its offspring lest they should go in want, often reducing the +number of its children to a single one." (15/15.) + +Instead of running after so many false appearances and false pleasures, +learn to return to simpler tastes, to more rustic manners; free yourselves +from a mass of factitious needs; steep yourself anew in the antique +sobriety, whose desires were sager; return to the fields, the source of +abundance, and the earth, the eternal foster-mother! + +And in this appeal to return to nature, which perhaps since the time of +Rousseau has never been worded so eloquently, Fabre has in view if not the +strong, the predestined, who are called elsewhere, and who are actuated by +the sense of great tasks to be performed, at least all those of rural +origin, all those for whom the love of the family, the daily task, and a +peaceful heart are really the great things of life, the things that count, +the things that suffice. + +He himself, although he was one of the strong, did not care to break any of +the ties that bound him to his origins. Like the Osmia, "which retains a +tenacious memory of its home," the beloved village of his childhood has +never been effaced from his memory, and for a long time the desire to leave +his bones there haunted him. His mind often returned to it; he thought that +there, better than anywhere else, he would find peace; that it would please +him to wander among the rocks, the trees, the stones which he had so loved, +in the old days, and that all these things would recognize him too. + +One day, however, when I was begging him to make up his mind on this point- +-it was one of those peaceful evenings which are troubled under the plane- +trees only by the tinkling of the fountain--he confided to me that his +beloved Sérignan had at last, in his secret preferences, obliterated the +old longing. As he advanced in life, in fact, although he never forgot his +rude natal countryside, he felt that new links were daily binding him more +closely to those heaths and mountains on which his heart had been so often +thrilled with the intense joy of discovery, and that it was indeed in this +soil, to him so full of delight, amid its beautiful hymenoptera and +scarabaei, that he would wish to be buried. + +Fabre is by no means the misanthrope that some have chosen to think him. He +delights in the society of women, and knows how to welcome them gracefully; +and more than any one he is sensitive to the pleasant and stimulating +impressions produced by the conversation of cultivated people. + +He is no less fond of the arts, provided he finds in them a sincere +interpretation of life. This is why the theatre, with its false values, its +tinsel and affectation, has to him seemed a gross deformation of the +reality, ever since the day when at Ajaccio he attended a performance of +"Norma," in which the moon was represented by a round transparent disc, lit +from behind by a lantern hanging at the end of a string, whose oscillation +revealed by turns first the luminary and then the transparency. This was +enough to disgust him for ever with the theatre and the opera, whose +motionless choruses, contrasting with the sometimes frantic movement of the +music, left him with a memory of an insane and illogical performance. + +Nevertheless, he adored music, of which he knew something, having learned +it, as he learned his drawing, without a master; but he preferred the naive +songs of the country, or the melody of a flute; to the most scholarly +concert-music. (15/16.) In the intimacy of the modest chamber which serves +as the family salon, with its few shabby and old-fashioned pieces of +furniture, he plays on an indifferent harmonium little airs of his own +composition, the subjects of which were at first suggested by his own +poetry. Like Rollinat, Fabre rightly considers that music should complete, +accentuate, and release that which poetry has perforce left incomplete or +indefinite. This is why he makes the bise laugh and sing and roar; why he +imitates the organ-tones of the wind in the pines, and seeks to reproduce +some of the innumerable rhythms of nature; the frenzy of the lizard, the +wriggling of the stickle-back, the jumping gait of the frog, the shrill hum +of the mosquito, the complaint of the cricket, the moving of the Scarabaei, +and the flight of the Libellulae. + +Too busy by day to find time for much reading, it was at night that he +would shut himself up. Retiring early to his little chamber, with bare +walls and bare tile floor, and a window opening to the garden, he would lie +on his low bed, with curtains of green serge, and would often read far into +the night. + +This philosopher, to whose books the philosophers of the future will resort +for new theories and original ideas, refuses to have any commerce with +other philosophers, disdaining their systems and preferring to go straight +to the facts. Even when he took up Darwin's "Origin of Species" he did +little more than open the book; so wearisome and uninteresting, he told me, +did he find the reading of it. On the other hand, he is full of the ancient +philosophers, and as he did not read them very extensively in his youth and +middle age, he has returned to them finally with love and predilection for +"these good old books." Unlike many thinkers of the day, he is persuaded +that we cannot with impunity dispense with classic studies; and he rightly +considers that science and the humanities are not rivals, but allies. Above +all he has a particular affection for Virgil; one may say that he is +steeped in his poetry; and he knows La Fontaine by heart. The style of the +latter is curiously like his own, and Fabre owns himself as his disciple; +certainly La Fontaine's is the most active influence which his work +reveals. He has a profound acquaintance with Rabelais, who was always his +"friend" and who constantly crops up in his conversation and his chance +remarks. + +After these his intellectual foster-parents have been Courrier, Toussenel, +of whom he is passionately fond, and Rousseau, of whom he cares for little +but his "Lettres sur la botanique," full of such fresh impressions, in +which we feel not the literary man but the "craftsman"; he also cherishes +Michelet; so full of intuition, although he never handled actual things and +knew nothing of the practice of the sciences; not learned, but overflowing +with love; his magic pen, his powers of evocation, and his deft brushwork +delight Fabre, despite the poverty and insufficiency of his fundamental +facts (15/17.); sometimes Michelet had been his inspiration. The two do +really resemble one another; Michelet was no less fitted than Fabre to play +the confidant to Nature, and his heart was of the same mettle. + +Since I have spoken of his favourites, let me also speak of his dislikes; +Racine, whom he cannot bear; Molière, whom he does not really like; Buffon, +whom he frankly detests for his too fluent prose, his ostentatious style, +and his vain rhetoric. The only naturalist whom he might really have +delighted in, had he possessed his works and been able to read them at +leisure, is Audubon, the enthusiastic painter of the birds of America. In +him he felt the presence of a mind and a temper almost identical with his +own. + + +CHAPTER 16. TWILIGHT. + +How he has laboured in this solitude! For he considers that he is still far +from having completed his task. He feels more and more that he has scarcely +done more than sketch the history of this singular and almost unknown +world. "The more I go forward," he wrote to his brother in 1903, "the more +clearly I see that I have struck my pick into an inexhaustible vein, well +worthy of being exploited." (16/1.) + +What studies he has undertaken, what observations he has carried out, +"almost at the same time, the same moment!" His laboratory is crowded with +these subjects of experiments. "As though I had a long future before me"-- +he was then just eighty years old--"I continue indefatigably my researches +into the lives of these little creatures." (16/2.) + +Work in solitude seems to him, more and more, the only life possible, and +he cannot even imagine any other. + +"The outer world scarcely tempts me at all; surrounded by my little family, +it is enough for me to go into the woods from time to time, to listen to +the fluting of the blackbirds. The very idea of the town disgusts me. +Henceforth it would be impossible for me to live in the little cage of a +citizen. Here I am, run wild, and I shall be so till the end." (16/3.) + +For him work has become more than ever an organic function, the true +corollary of life. "Away with repose! For him who would spend his life +properly there is nothing like work--so long as the machine will operate." + +Is this not the great law for all creatures so long as life lasts? + +Why should the man who has made a fortune, who has neither children nor +relations, and who may die tomorrow, continue to work for himself alone, to +employ his days and his energies in useless labours which will profit +neither himself nor his kind? + +Ask of the Halictus, which, no longer capable of becoming a mother, makes +herself guardian of a city, in order still to labour within the measure of +her means. + +Ask of the Osmia, the Megachile, the Anthidium, which "with no maternal +aim, for the sole joy of labour, strive to expend their forces in the +accomplishment of their vain tasks, until the forces of life fail." + +Ask of the bee, which inaction leaves passive and melancholy so that she +presently dies of weariness; of the Chalicodoma, so eager a worker that she +will "let herself be crushed under the feet of the passer-by rather than +abandon her task." + +Ask it of all nature, which knows neither halt nor repose, and who, +according to the profound saying of Goethe "has pronounced her malediction +upon all that retards or suspends her progress." + +Let us then labour, men and beasts, "so that we may sleep in peace; grubs +and caterpillars in that torpor which prepares them for the transformation +into moths and butterflies, and ourselves in the supreme slumber which +dissolves life in order to renew it." + +Let us work, in order to nourish within ourselves that divine intuition +thanks to which we leave our original impress upon nature; let us work, in +order to bring our humble contribution to the general harmony of things, by +our painful and meritorious labour; in order that we may associate +ourselves with God, share in His creation, and embellish and adorn the +earth and fill it with wonders. (16/4.) + +Forward then! always erect, even amid the tombs, to forget our griefs. +Fabre finds no better consolation to offer his brother, who has lost almost +in succession his wife and his eldest daughter: + +"Do not take it ill if I have not condoled with you on the subject of your +recent losses. Tried so often by the bitterness of domestic grief, I know +too well the inanity of such consolations to offer the like to my friends. +Time alone does a little cicatrize such wounds; and, let us add, work. Let +us keep on our feet and at work as long as we are able. I know no better +tonic." (16/5.) + +And this exhortation to work, which recurs so often in the first letters of +his youth, was to be the last word of the last volume which so splendidly +terminates the incomparable series of his "Souvenirs": "Laboremus." + +... + +Age has killed neither his courage nor his energies, and he continues to +work with the same zeal at nearly ninety years of age, and with as much +eagerness as though he were destined to live for ever. + +Although his physical forces are failing him, although his limbs falter, +his brain remains intact, and is giving us its last fruit in his studies on +the Cabbage caterpillar and the Glow-worm, which mark a sudden +rejuvenescence of thought on his part, and the commencement of a new cycle +of studies, which promise to be of the greatest originality. + +To him the animal world has always been full of dizzy surprises, and the +insects led him "into a new and barely suspected region, which is ALMOST +ABSURD." (16/6.) + +The glow-worms, motionless on their twigs of thyme, light their lamps of an +evening, in the cool of the beautiful summer nights. What do these fires +signify? How explain the mystery of this phosphorescence? Why this slow +combustion, "this species of respiration, more active than in the ordinary +state"? and what is the oxidizable substance "which gives this white and +gentle luminosity"? Is it a flame of love like that which lights the Agaric +of the olive-tree "to celebrate its nuptials and the emission of its +spores"? But what reason can the larva have for illuminating itself? Why is +the egg, already enclosed in the secrecy of the ovaries, already luminous? + +"The soft light of the Agaric has confounded our ideas of optics; it does +not refract, it does not form an image when passed through a lens, it does +not affect ordinary photographic plates." (16/7.) + +But here are other miracles: + +"Another fungus, the Clathrix, with no trace of phosphorescence, affects +photographic plates almost as quickly as would a ray of sunlight. The +Clathrix tenebrosa does what the Agaricus olearius has no power to do." +(16/8.) + +And if the beacon of the Glow-worm recalls the light of the Agaric, the +Clathrix reminds us of another insect, the Greater Peacock moth. + +In the obscurity of a dark chamber this splendid moth emits phantasmal +radiations, perhaps intermittent and reserved for the season of nuptials, +signals invisible to us, and perceptible only to those children of the +night, who may have found this means to communicate one with another, to +call one another in the darkness, and to speak with one another. (16/9.) + +Such are the interesting subjects which only yesterday were occupying this +great worker; the occult properties, the radiant energies of organic +matter; of phosphorescence, of light, the living symbols of the great +universal Eros. + +But embarrassment long ago succeeded the ephemeral prosperity which marked +the first years of his installation at Sérignan, and that period of plenty +was followed by a period of difficulty, almost of indigence. His class- +books, which had succeeded marvellously, and from which the royalties had +quickly attained to nearly 640 pounds sterling, which was the average +figure for nearly ten years, were then no longer in vogue. Already the +times had changed. France was in the crisis of the anti-clerical fever. +Fabre made frequent allusions in his books of a spiritual nature, and many +primary inspectors could not forgive what they regarded as a blemish. + +We must also mention the keen competition caused by the appearance of +similar books, usually counterfeit, and the more harmful for that; and as +their adoption depended entirely on the caprice of commissions or the +choice of interested persons, those of Fabre were gradually ceasing to +sell. + +It was from 1894 especially that their popularity declined so rapidly: + +"Despite all my efforts here I am more anxious than ever about the future," +he wrote to his publisher on the 27th of January, 1899; "two more of my +books are about to disappear, a prelude to total shipwreck...I begin to +despair." (16/10.) + +He was not the man to have saved much money; numerous charges were always +imposing themselves on him, and his first wife, careless of expenditure, +had been somewhat extravagant. + +While his position as teacher deteriorated his "Souvenirs" brought him +little more than a nominal profit; for to most people he was still +completely unknown among the potentates who monopolize the attention of the +crowd. + +"Work such as a Réaumur might be proud of will leave me a beggar, that goes +without saying, but at least I shall have left my grain of sand. I would +long ago have given up in despair, had I not, to give me courage, the +continual research after truth in the little world whose historian I have +become. I am hoarding ideas, and I make shift to live as I can." (16/11.) + +Yet his reputation had long ago crossed the frontiers of his country. He +had been a corresponding member of the Institute of France since 1887, and +a Petit d'Ormoy prizeman. (16/12.) He was a member of the most celebrated +foreign academies, and the entomological societies of the chief capitals of +Europe; but his fame had not passed the walls of these academies and the +narrow boundaries of the little world of professional biologists and +philosophers. + +Even in these circles, where he was almost exclusively read and +appreciated, he was little known, and although he was much admired, +although he was readily given credit for his admirable talent and +exceptional knowledge, his readers were far from realizing the real powers +of this world of life which he has called into being. His books are of +those whose fertilizing virtues remain long hidden, to shine only at a +distance, when much frothy writing, that has made a sudden noise in its +time, has fallen into oblivion. + +Every two or three years, after much fond polishing, he would open the door +to yet another volume which was ready to go forth; adding astonishing +chapters of the history of insects, wonderful fragments of animal +psychology, but always obtaining only the same circumscribed success; that +is, exciting no public curiosity, and remaining unperceived in the midst of +general indifference. + +His books interested only a select class, who, it is true, welcomed them +eagerly, and read them with wonder and delight. If they excited the +curiosity of a few philosophers, of scientists and inquirers, and here and +there determined a vocation, still more, perhaps, did they charm writers +and poets; they consoled Rostand at the end of a serious illness, their +virtue, in some sort healing, procuring him both moral repose and a +delightful relaxation. (16/13.) For all these, we may say, he has been one +of those ten or twelve authors whom one would wish to take with one into a +long exile, were they reduced to choosing no more before leaving +civilization for ever. + +Yet we must admit that this work has certain undeniable faults. The title, +in the first place, has nothing alluring about it, and is calculated to +deter rather than to attract purchasers, by evoking vague ideas of +repulsive studies, too arduous or too special. + +People have no idea of the wonderful fairyland concealed by this unpopular +title; no conception that these records are intended, not merely for the +scientist pure and simple, but in reality for every one. + +Moreover, the first few volumes were in no way seductive. They boasted not +the most elementary drawings to help the reader; not the slightest woodcut +to give a direct idea of the insects described; of their shape, aspect, or +physiognomy; and a simple sketch, however poor, is often worth more than +long and laborious descriptions. The first volumes especially, printed +economically, at the least possible expense, were not outwardly attractive. + +It is also true that he had never founded any great hopes on the sale of +such works. + +Very few people are really interested in the lower animals, and Fabre has +been reproached with wasting his time over "childish histories, unworthy of +serious attention and unlikely to make money," of wasting in frivolous +occupations the time which is passing so quickly and can never return. And +why should he have still further wasted so many precious hours in executing +minute drawings whose reproduction would have involved an expenditure which +his publisher would not dare to venture upon, and which he himself could +not afford? + +For this universal inquirer was well fitted for such a task, and all these +creatures which he had depicted he is capable of representing with brush +and pencil as faithfully as with his pen. He had it in him to be not only a +writer, but an excellent draughtsman, and even a great painter. He has +reproduced in water-colour, with loving care, the decorations of the +specimens of prehistoric pottery which his excavations have revealed, and +which he has endeavoured to reconstruct, with all the science of an +archaeologist. He has displayed the same skill in water-colour in that +astonishing iconography, in which he has detailed, with marvellous +accuracy, all the peculiarities of the mycological flora of the olive- +growing districts. (16/14.) + +As for those "paltry figures" insufficient or flagrantly incorrect in +drawing, with which many people are satisfied, he regards them as +"intolerable" in his own books, and as absolutely contradicting the +rigorous accuracy of his text. (16/15.) + +Of late years photography and the skill of his son Paul have supplied this +deficiency. He taught his son to fix the insects on the sensitive plate in +their true attitudes, in the reality of their most instantaneous gestures. +However valuable such documents may be, how much we should prefer fine +drawings, giving relief not only to forms and colours, but also to the most +characteristic features and the whole living physiognomy of the creature! +This is the function of art; but the great artist that was in Fabre was +capable in this domain of rivalling the magical talent of an Audubon. + +Such work was relinquished, although so many romances of nature, so much +dishonest patch-work, won the applause due to success. + +Fabre fell more and more into a state bordering on indigence, and finally +he was quite forgotten. An opponent of evolution, he was out of the +fashion. The encyclopaedias barely mentioned him. Lamarckians and +Darwinians, who still made so much noise in the world, ignored him; and no +one came now to open the gate behind which was ageing, in obscurity and +deserted, "one of the loftiest and purest geniuses which the civilized +world at that moment possessed; one of the most learned naturalists and one +of the most marvellous of poets in the modern and truly legitimate sense of +the word." (16/16.) + +In the department of Vaucluse, where he lived for more than sixty years, in +Avignon itself, where he had taught for twenty years, the prefect Belleudy, +who had succeeded in approaching him, was astonished and distressed to find +"so great a mind so little known"; for even those about him scarcely knew +his name. (16/17.) + +But what matter! The hermit of Sérignan was not discouraged; he was +disturbed only by the failure of his strength, and the fear that he could +not much longer exercise that divine faculty which had always consoled him +for all his sorrows and his disappointments. He could scarcely drag his +weary limbs across the pebbles of his Harmas; but he bore his eighty-seven +years with a fine disdain for age and its failings, and although the fire +of his glance and that whole, eager countenance still expressed his passion +for the truth, his abrupt gestures, touched with irony, his simple bearing, +and the extreme modesty of his whole person, spoke sufficiently of his +profound indifference toward outside contingencies, for the baubles of fame +and all the stupidities of life. + +At a few miles' distance, in another village, that other great peasant, +Mistral, the singer of Provence, the poet of love and joy, the minstrel of +rustic labour and antique faiths, was pursuing, amid the homage of his +apotheosis, the incredible cycle of his splendid existence. + +This glory had come to him suddenly; this fame "whose first glances are +sweeter than the fires of dawn," and which was never to desert him for +fifty long years. + +The wind of favour which had sweetened his youth continued to propel him in +full sail. He had only to show himself to be at once surrounded, +felicitated, worshipped; and his mere presence would sway a crowd as the +black peaks of the high cypresses are swayed by the great wind that bears +his name. Like Fabre, he had remained faithful to his native soil; that +soil which the great naturalist had never been able to leave without at +once longing impatiently to return to its dusty olives where the cigale +sings, its ilex trees and its thickets; and so he lived far from the +cities, in a quiet village, with the same horizon of plains and hills that +were balmy with thyme, leading in his little home an equal life full of +wisdom and simplicity. + +The hermit of Sérignan was the Lucretius of this Provence, which had +already found its Virgil. With a very different vision, each had the same +rustic tastes, the same love of the free spaces of wild nature and the +scenes of rural life. But Mistral, wherever he looked, saw human life as +happy and simple, through the prism of his creative imagination and the +optimism of his happy life. Fabre, on the contrary, behind the sombre +realities which he studied, saw only the ferocious engagement of confused +living forces, and a frightful tragedy. + +Thus their two lives, which were like parallel lines, never meeting, were +in keeping with their work. And while Mistral, still young and triumphant +despite the years, was at Maillane overwhelmed with honours and +consideration, the poor great man of Sérignan lived an obscure and +inglorious existence. + +He had the greatest trouble to live and rear his family, and almost his +sole income consisted of an uncertain sum of 120 pounds sterling annually, +which he had for some years received, in the guise of a pension, by the +generosity of the Institute, as the Gegner prize. + +Finally his situation was so precarious that he decided to sell to a museum +that magnificent collection of water-colour plates in which he had +represented, life-size and with an astonishing truth of colour, all the +fungi which grow in Provence. + +He wrote to Mistral on the subject, after the visit which the latter paid +him in the spring of 1908: the only visit of the kind. Before meeting in +Saint-Estelle, the Paradise of the Félibres, they had wished not to die +before at least meeting on this earth. + +Fabre wrote to mistral the following letter, which I owe to the kindness of +the great poet:-- + +"I have never thought of profiting by my humble fungoid water- +colours...Fate will perhaps decide otherwise. + +"In this connection, permit me to make a confession, to which your nobility +of character encourages me. Until latterly I had lived modestly on the +product of my school-books. To-day the weathercock has turned to another +quarter, and my books no longer sell. So here I am, more than ever in the +grip of that terrible problem of daily bread. If you think, then, that with +your help and that of your friends, my poor pictures might help me a +little, I have decided to let them go, but not without bitterness. It is +like tearing off a piece of my skin, and I still hold to this old skin, +shabby as it may be; a little for my own sake, much more for my family's, +and much more again for the sake of my entomological studies, studies which +I feel obliged to pursue, persuaded that for a long time to come no one +will care to resume them, so ungrateful is the calling." (16/18.) + +At the instigation of the poet the prefect Belleudy took it upon him to +intercede with the Minister, from whom he finally wrung a grant of 40 +pounds sterling, "in encouragement of the sciences." Finally he ventured to +reveal the situation to the General Council of Vaucluse, and to require it +to contribute at least its share, in order to ensure a peaceful and decent +old age to a man who was not only the greatest celebrity of the department, +but also one of the highest glories of the nation. He pleaded so well and +so nobly that the assembly granted Fabre an annual sum of 20 pounds +sterling, "as the public homage which his compatriots pay to his lofty +science and HIS EXCESSIVE MODESTY." (16/19.) At the same time, in a +generous impulse, the Council placed at his disposal all the scientific +equipment of the departmental laboratory of agricultural analysis, which +was no longer used; there was indeed talk of suppressing it. + +Now that the burden of his days weighed so heavily on him, and his task was +virtually finished, everything, by the customary irony of things, was +coming his way simultaneously: not only what was necessary and +indispensable, but even something that was superfluous. + +So one day all these delicate instruments, useless to a biologist who by +the very nature of his labours had done without them all his life, and had +never wearied of denying their utility, arrived at Sérignan. He did not +possess even one modest thermometer; and as for the superb microscope over +which he so often bent, the only costly instrument in his rustic +laboratory, it was a precious present which, at the instigation of Duruy, +Dumas the chemist had given him years before; but a simple lens very often +sufficed him. "The secrets of life," he somewhere writes, "are to be +obtained by simple, makeshift, inexpensive means. What did the best results +of my inquiry into instinct cost me? Only time, and above all, patience." + +It was then that a few of his disciples, finally affected by such +abandonment, decided to celebrate his jubilee, hoping thus to reveal both +his name and his wonderful books to the crowd that knew nothing of him. +(16/20.) + +It was time; a little longer, and, according to his racy phrase, "the +violins would have come too late." The old master is daily nearer his +decline; his sight, once so piercing, is now so obscured that he can barely +see to sign his name, in a small, tremulous hand, confused and illegible. +His muscles are so feeble now that he can walk only in short steps, on his +wife's arm, leaning on a cane; and he would soon be piteously exhausted +were not some seat available within immediate reach. Very soon now he will +no longer hope to make the tour of this Harmas, which his feet have trodden +daily for thirty years. In this failure of the body, all that survives are +the two sparkling cavities of his eyes and his extraordinary memory. + +But he is far from being mournful: he feels only an immense lassitude, and +an infinite regret that perhaps he will not be able to bring his series of +"Souvenirs" to the point he had desired; not wishing to die until he has +pushed his career as far as is in his power; without having worked, on his +feet, until the very hour when the light of this world is suddenly +withdrawn, and his eyes open upon the infinite life, beyond the infinite +worlds of space. + +The festival took place on the 3rd of April of the year 1910, and was +touching in its simplicity. + +What an unforgettable day in the life of Fabre! That morning the gate of +the Harmas was left open to all, and many of the people of Sérignan who +invaded the garden were able to look for the first time on the face of +their fellow-citizen, who had so long lived among them, and whom they had +now, to their astonishment, discovered. + +But among the crowd of friends and admirers who, coming from all parts, +pressed around the little pink house, the most amazed of all was Marius, +the blind cabinet-maker, unable to contain his intense delight at the +sudden burning of so much incense before his idol, for to him it had seemed +that this day of apotheosis would never dawn! + +For nothing was certain, although the day of the jubilee had long been +fixed. In the first place there had been serious defections in the ranks of +the official personages who were to take part in the ceremony. Then the +weather was terrible for the time of year; the spring had commenced +gloomily, a season of floods and catastrophes. But on this morning the rain +of days had ceased to fall, and suddenly the sun appeared. + +Among other compliments and marks of homage the old man was presented with +a golden plaque, on one side of which Sicard, who stood revealed as a +master of the burin, had engraved his portrait with rare fidelity. The +reverse was resplendent with one of the most beautiful syntheses which the +history of art has known; a surprising allegory, in which the imagination +of the artist evoked the man of science, the singer of the insects, the +landscape which had seen the birth of so many little lives, and the village +amid the olive-trees, in front of the sun-steeped Ventoux. + +At this festival, the jubilee of a scientist, the scientists were least +numerous. + +The banquet was given in the large room of a cafe in the midst of Sérignan; +in order, no doubt, that in this humble life even glory should be modest. + +As Fabre could not walk, he was helped into the carriage of ceremony, which +was sent expressly from Orange, and the little procession, which was +swelled by the municipal choral society, spurred on by Marius, moved slowly +off along the sole central street. + +It was a great family repast: one of those love-feasts in which all +communicate in a single thought. + +Edmond Perrier brought the naturalist the homage of the Institute, and +expressed in unaffected terms the just admiration which he himself felt. +The better to praise him, he gave a summary of his admirable career, and +his immortal work. At the evocation of this long past of labour Fabre +regretted his poor vanished joys, "the sole moments of happiness in his +life." + +Moved to tears, by his memories and by the simple and pious homage at last +rendered to his genius, he wept, and many, seeing him weep, wept with him. + +Others spoke in the name of the great anonymous crowd of friends, of all +those who had found a source of infinite enjoyment in his works. At the +same time the greatest writers, the greatest poets sent on the same day, at +the same hour, their salutation or eloquent messages to the "Virgil of the +insects" (16/21.), to the "good magician who knew the language of the +myriad little creatures of the fields." (16/22.) + +Doubtless he would sooner or later have received full justice; but without +this circumstance it is permissible to add that the end of his life would +have passed amidst the completest oblivion, and that he would have taken +leave of the world without attracting any particular attention. His death +would have occurred unperceived, and when the little vault of Vaison stone, +up in the small square enclosure of pebbles which serves as the village +cemetery, where those he has loved await him, came to be opened for the +last time, they would hardly have troubled to close it again. + +Yet the honours paid him were far from being such as he merited. + +Why, at this jubilee of the greatest of the entomologists, was not a single +appointed representative of entomology present? (16/22.) + +The fact is that the majority of those who "amid the living seek only for +corpses," according to the expression of Bacon, unwilling to see in Fabre +anything more than an imaginative writer, and being themselves incapable of +understanding the beautiful and of distinguishing it in the true, +reproached him, perhaps with more jealousy than conviction, with having +introduced literature into the domains of science. + +Other entomological specialists accuse him of presenting in the guise of +science discoveries which have been made by others. But in the first place, +as he has read very little, he certainly did not know all that had been +done by others; and what matter if he had discovered nothing essential +concerning this or that insect if the result of his study of it has been to +impregnate it with something new, or to touch it with the breath of life? + +Others, finally, who wished to see with their own eyes the proof of his +statements, have reproached him with a few errors; but he observed so +skilfully that these errors, if any have really slipped into his books, +cannot be very serious. + +He was one of the glories of the University, but it failed to add to the +brilliance of this ceremony, and it is to be regretted that the Government +could not amid its temporary preoccupations have done with all the +spontaneity that might have been looked for the one thing which might on +this memorable date have atoned for its unjust obliviousness. Since Duruy +had created Fabre a chevalier of the Empire more than forty years had gone +by, and in this long interval Fabre was absolutely ignored by the +authorities. While the State daily raises so many commonplace men to the +highest honours, it was afterwards needful to procure the intervention of +influential persons, to justify his worth and to prove his deserts, in +order to obtain his promotion through one degree of rank in that Legion of +Honour which his eminent services had so long adorned. + +This tardy reparation at least had the result of shedding a twilight of +glory over the evening of his life, and from that day he suddenly appeared +in his true place and took his rank as a man of the first order. Everybody +began to read him, and presently no one was willing to seem ignorant of +him, for more of his "Souvenirs entomologiques" were sold in a few months +than had been disposed of in more than twenty years. (16/24.) + +At last Fabre experienced not only glory and renown, but also popularity. +This was only justice, for his is essentially a popular genius. Has he not +striven all his life to place the marvels of science within reach of all? +And has he not written above all for the children of the people? + +So at last people have learned the way to the Harmas; they go thither now +in crowds, to visit the enclosure and the modest laboratory, as to a +veritable place of pilgrimage which attracts from afar many fervent +admirers. + +Some, it is true, go thither to see him simply as an object of curiosity; +but even among these there are those who on returning thence, full of +enthusiasm for what they have seen, find the flowers of the fields more +sweet and fragile, and the wild fragrance of the woods and hedges more +voluptuous, and the green of the trees more tender. They have learnt to +look at the earth and to "kneel in the grass." + +Scientists come to chat with the scientist. Others come to salute the +primary schoolman, the lay instructor, the great pedagogue whose glory is +reflected upon all the primary schools of France. + +Those who cannot visit him write, telling him of all the pleasure which +they owe him, thanking him for long and delightful hours passed in the +reading of his books, expressing the hope that he may yet live many years, +and still further increase the number of his "Souvenirs." + +Some ask him a host of questions relating to entomology or philosophy; +others ask him for impossible answers to some of the fascinating and +mysterious problems which he has expounded; women confide in him their +little private griefs or their intimate sorrows, a naive form of homage; +but a thousand times more touching than any other, and one that shows how +profound has been the beneficent influence of his books upon certain +isolated minds, and what consolation can be derived from science when it +finds a sufficiently eloquent voice to interpret it. + +As he can work no longer, these visits now fill his life, formally so +occupied; and in the midst of all the sympathy extended to him he is +sensible, not of the twilight, but of a sunrise; he feels that his work has +been good, that an infinity of minds are learning through him to regard +plants and animals with greater affection; and that the consideration of +men, finally directed upon his work, will not readily exhaust it, for it is +one of the Bibles of Nature. + + + + +NOTES. + +NOTES TO INTRODUCTION. + +Introduction/1. Letters to his brother, 1898-1900. + +Introduction/2. I have made some valuable "finds" here; among other pieces +cited the fragment on "Playthings," the curious description of the +"Eclipse," and the poem on "Number" are here published for the first time. + +Introduction/3. This negligence in the matter of correspondence is not +least among the causes which have mitigated against his popularity. + +NOTES TO CHAPTER 1. + +1/1. "It is a country that has very little charm." To his brother, 18th +August, 1846. + +1/2. "Practicien, homme d'affaires ou de chicane": roughly, "practitioner, +man of business or law": so his father is described in his birth +certificate. + +1/3. "Souvenirs entomologiques," 2nd series, chapter 4, and 7th series, +chapter 19. + +1/4. Id., 8th series, chapter 8. + +1/5. To his brother, 15th August, 1896. + +1/6. Id. "As brothers, we are one only; but in virtue of our different +tastes we are two, and I am amused and interested where you might well be +bored." + +1/7. Frédéric Fabre, like his brother, an ex-scholar of the normal primary +school of Vaucluse, was first of all teacher at Lapalud (Vaucluse), then +professor in the communal college of Orange. He was director of the primary +school attached to the normal school of Avignon, where he voluntarily +retired from teaching in 1859. He then became, successively, secretary to +the Chamber of Commerce of Avignon, director of the Vaucluse Docks, and +finally director of the Crillon Canal, which position he still occupies +(December, 1912). + +1/8. "Souvenirs entomologiques," 10th series, chapter 9. + +1/9. Among his innumerable manuscripts I have found a vast number of little +poems, which date from this period. + +1/10. It was then that he gave up his position to his brother Frédéric, who +had continually followed closely in his steps, and who in turn had just +obtained the qualification of pupil-teacher and bursar (August, 1842). + +1/11. "Souvenirs entomologiques," 10 series, chapter 21. + +1/12. To his brother, 2nd and 9th of June, 1851. + + +NOTES TO CHAPTER 2. + +2/1. "Souvenirs entomologiques," 1st series, chapter 20, and 9th series, +chapter 13. + +2/2. Id., 6th series, chapter 21. + +2/3. To his brother, from Ajaccio, 10th June, 1850. + +2/4. Id., id. + +2/5. Id., from Carpentras, 15th August, 1846. + +2/6. Id., from Ajaccio, 10th June, 1850. + +2/7. Id., from Carpentras, 15th August, 1846. + +2/8. Id., id. + +2/9. "Souvenirs entomologiques," 1st series, chapter 14. + +2/10. To his brother, from Carpentras, 3rd September, 1848. + +2/11. Id., 8th September, 1848. + +2/12. Id., id. + +2/13. Id., 3rd September, 1848. + +2/14. Id., id. + +2/15. Letter to the Rector of the Nîmes Academy, 29th September, 1848. + +2/16. To his brother, 29th September, 1848. + +NOTES TO CHAPTER 3. + +3/1. To his father, from Ajaccio, 14th April, 1850. + +3/2. To his brother, from Ajaccio, 1851. + +3/3. To his brother, from Ajaccio, 9th June, 1851. +"I have set to work upon a conchology of Corsica, which I hope soon to +publish." + +3/4. The Helix Raspaillii. + +3/5. To his brother, from Ajaccio, 10th June, 1850. + +3/6. Id., id. + +3/7. "Souvenirs entomologiques," 9th series, chapter 14. + +3/8. Number, (Le Nombre--ARITHMOS), poem, Ajaccio, September, 1852. + +3/9. To his brother, from Ajaccio, 2nd June, 1851. + +3/10. Id., 10th October, 1852, and "Souvenirs entomologiques," 10th series, +chapter 21. + +3/11. Fr. Mistral, "Mémoires." +Moquin-Tandon, born at Montpellier, was professor of Natural History at +Marseilles, at Toulouse, and in Paris. + +3/12. To his brother, from Ajaccio, 10th October, 1852. + +3/13. Id. + +3/14. To his brother, from Carpentras, 3rd December, 1851. +"Our crossing was atrocious. Never have I seen so terrible a sea, and that +the packet-boat was not broken up by the force of the waves must have been +due to the fact that our time had not yet come. On two or three occasions I +thought my last moment was at hand; I leave you to imagine what a terrible +experience I had. In ordinary weather the packet by which we travelled +makes the voyage from Ajaccio to Marseilles in about eighteen hours; it is +said to be the fastest steamer on the Mediterranean. On this occasion it +took three days and two nights." + +3/15. January, 1853. + +NOTES TO CHAPTER 4. + +4/1. To his brother, from Avignon, 1st August, 1854. +"I have arrived at Toulouse, where I have passed the best examination one +could possibly wish. I have been accepted as licentiate with the most +flattering compliments, and the expenses of the examination should be +returned to me. The examination was of a higher level than I had expected." + +4/2. To M. -- (of the Institute), from Avignon, 1854. +(Letter communicated to M. Belleudy, prefect of Vaucluse, by M. Vollon, +painter.) + +4/3. Id. + +4/4. To his brother, from Ajaccio, 10th October, 1852. + +4/5. Observations concerning the habits of the Cerceris and the cause of +the long preservation of the coleoptera with which it provisions its +larvae.--"Annales de Sc. natur.," 4th series, 1855. + +4/6. "Souvenirs entomologiques," 10th series, chapter 22. + +4/7. "I had only one idea: to free myself, to leave the lycée, where, not +being a fellow, I was treated as a subordinate. An inspector-general told +me frankly one day, 'You will never amount to anything if you are not a +fellow' (agrégé). 'These distinctions disgust me,' I replied." +(Conversations.) + +4/8. To his brother, from Ajaccio, 14th January, 1850. + +4/9. Inquiries respecting the tubercles of Himantoglossum hircinum. Thesis +in Botany, 1855. + +4/10. Inquiries respecting the anatomy of the reproductive organs, and the +developments of the Myriapoda. Thesis in Zoology, 1855. + +4/11. Prize for experimental physiology, 1856. + +4/12. Letter to Léon Dufour, 1st February, 1857. + +4/13. "The Origin of Species," 1857 (?), translated by Barbier, page 15. + +4/14. "Souvenirs entomologiques," 1st series, chapter 1, and 5th series, +chapter 1. + +4/15. Id., 1st series, chapter 16. + +4/16. Id., 1st series, chapter one. + +4/17. Henry Devillario, magistrate at Carpentras, where he performed his +duties as juge d'instruction until his death. A notable collector and +distinguished publicist. +Dr. Bordone, to-day at Frontignan. Vayssières, professor of Zoology in the +faculty of sciences at Marseilles. + +4/18. "Souvenirs entomologiques," 1st series, chapter 13. + +4/19. He was subject in his youth to violent headaches, "which sometimes +developed into a cerebral fever," as well as strange nervous troubles: "A +few days ago I was attacked, at night, with a sudden nervous illness, of a +terrifying nature, which I have not as yet been able to identify." To his +brother, 3rd September, 1848. +Severe disappointment or annoyance always had a great effect upon him; on +the occasion of his first marriage he fell into a sort of cataleptic +condition as a result of the opposition of his parents and relations, who +sought to oppose it. (Conversations with his brother.) + +4/20. "Souvenirs entomologiques" 9th series, chapter 23. + +4/21. Id., 10th series, chapter 22. + +4/22. Letter to Lèon Dufour, 1st February, 1857. +"Steps have been taken to obtain for me the post of drawing-master (maître +des travaux graphiques). If they succeed, thanks to the little talent I +have for drawing, my salary will reach a reasonable figure, 120 pounds +sterling, and I can then, by giving up these abominable private lessons, +cultivate rather more seriously the studies into which you have initiated +me." Communicated by M. Achard. + +4/23. "Souvenirs entomologiques" 10th series, chapter 22. + +4/24. Oubreto Prouvençalo. La Cigale et la Fourmi. + +4/25. Lavisse. A minister. Victor Duruy. + +4/26. Letter to the municipal councillors of Avignon. + +4/27. J. Stuart Mill, "Autobiography," chapter 6. + +4/28. I have visited this house; nothing, at all events outside, has +changed in the least. + +4/29. Mill collaborated in his "Flore du Vaucluse": "A virtuous man whose +recent loss we shall all deplore joined his efforts to mine in this +undertaking." Letter to the Mayor of Avignon, 1st December, 1833, +communicated by M. Félix Achard. + +NOTES TO CHAPTER 5. + +5/1. "Chimie agricole." + +5/2. "Le Ciel." Lectures et Leçons pour tous. + +5/3. "La Terre." Lectures et Leçons pour tous. + +5/4. "La Chimie de l'oncle Paul." Lectures courantes pour toutes les +écoles. + +5/5. "Histoire de la bûche." + +5/6. "Les jouets. Le Toton" (manuscript). +The primitive fountain, the "antique appliance" transmitted by inheritance, +"the invention perhaps of some little unemployed herd-boy," consisted +originally of three apertures and three straws; two similar apertures on +one side, with two short straws, which dipped into the water, and a single +orifice on the other side for the longer straw which delivered the water. +Happening one day to use only two straws, one on each side, the little +Fabre perceived that the device worked just as well, and "so, quite +unconsciously, without thinking of it, I discovered the syphon, the true +syphon of the physicist." Loco cit. + +5/7. "The chemistry course is a great success at home." To his brother, +from Orange, 1875. + +5/8. To his son Émile, 4th November, 1879. +"The household; discussions as to domestic economy for use in girls' +schools." + +5/9. "Souvenirs entomologiques," 2nd series, chapter 1. + +5/10. To the Mayor of Avignon, 1st December, 1873. Communicated by M. Félix +Achard. + +5/11. Letter to his brother, 1875. + +5/12. Id. + +NOTES TO CHAPTER 6. + +6/1. "Souvenirs entomologiques," 2nd series, chapter 1. "L'Harmas." + +6/2. Id., 6th series, chapter 5. + +6/3. The Lumbricus phosporeus of Dugés. Fabre had already clearly perceived +that this curious phenomenon of phosphorescence appears at birth, and he +saw in it a process of oxidation, a species of respiration, especially +active in certain tissues. +Letter to Léon Dufour, 1st February, 1857. Communicated by M. Félix Achard. + +6/4. To his brother, from Carpentras, 15th August, 1846. + +6/5. He died at the age of 96. + +6/6. "Souvenirs entomologiques," 1st series, chapter 21. + +6/7. To his son Émile, 4th November, 1879. + +6/8. To Henry Devillario, 30th March, 1883. + +6/9. Id., 17th December, 1888. + +NOTES TO CHAPTER 7. + +7/1. "Souvenirs entomologiques," 8th series, chapter 12. + +7/2. Id., 7th series, chapter 16. + +7/3. Id., 1st series, chapter 4. + +7/4. Id., 2nd series, chapter 3. + +7/5. Id., 6th series, chapter 21. + +7/6. Id., 1st series, chapter 19, and 2nd series, chapter 7. + +7/7. Id., 7th series, chapter 23. + +7/8. Maeterlinck, "The Bee." + +7/9. "Souvenirs entomologiques," 7th series, chapter 2. + +7/10. Id., 8th series, chapter 22. + +7/11. Id., 6th series, chapter 6. + +7/12. Id., 9th series, chapter 10. + +7/13. Bergson, "l'Evolution créatrice." + +7/14. "Souvenirs entomologiques," 10th series, chapter 6. + +7/15. "Les Serviteurs" and "Les Auxiliaires." + +7/16. François Raspail, born at Carpentras in 1794, was also a professor at +the college of Carpentras. + +7/17. To his brother, 3rd September, 1848. +The improvement did not last long; the child died finally a short time +afterwards. + +7/18. "Souvenirs entomologiques," 10th series, chapter 21. + +7/19. Ed. Perrier. Private letter, 27th October, 1909. +"He is the finest of all our observers, and all scientists should bow to +the facts which he excels in discovering." + +7/20. "Souvenirs entomologiques," 6th series, chapter 25. + +7/21. Id., 10th series, chapter 16. + +7/22. Id., 10th series, chapter 20. + +7/23. Manuscripts, unpublished observations. + +7/24. A common spectacle in Provence, but one which Fabre never wearied of +seeing. + +7/25. "Souvenirs entomologiques," 6th series, chapter 17. + +7/26. We know that the great naturalist was far from being charmed by the +song of the nightingale. + +7/27. Manuscripts, unpublished observation. These remarks deal with the +solar eclipse of 28th May, 1900. + +7/28. Among the insects which he has observed there are many which are not +always sufficiently characterized. "Insectes coléoptères observes aux +environs d'Avignon." Avignon, pub. Seguin, 1870. + +7/29. Coleoptera observed in the neighbourhood of Avignon. A catalogue now +very scarce, a copy of which I owe to the kindness of Dr. Chobaut, of +Avignon. + +7/30. Nomina si nescis, perit et cognitio rerum. + +7/31. "Souvenirs entomologiques," 4th series, chapter 11. + +7/32. Id., 9th series, chapter 19. + +7/33. Id., 1st series, chapter 9. + +7/34. "Jenner's Legend of the isolation of the young Cuckoo in the nest," +by Xavier Raspail, "Bull. de la Soc. Zool. de France," 1903. + +7/35. "Souvenirs entomologiques" 1st series, passim. + +7/36. Id., 4th series, chapter 14. + +7/37. Id., 1st series, chapter 7. + +7/38. Id., 2nd series, chapter 2. + +NOTES TO CHAPTER 8. + +8/1. "Souvenirs entomologiques" 1st series, chapter 2. + +8/2. Bergson, "l'Evolution créatrice." + +8/3. "Souvenirs entomologiques," 2nd series, chapter 4. + +8/4. Id., 5th series, chapter 8. + +8/5. Id., 9th series, chapter 3. + +8/6. Id., 1st series, chapter 22. + +8/7. Id., 4th series, chapter 3. + +8/8. Id., 4th series, chapter 3. + +8/9. Id., 4th and 1st series, chapter 19. + +8/10. Id., 9th series, chapter 24. + +8/11. Id., 10th series, chapter 5. + +8/12. Id., 4th series, chapter 6. + +8/13. Id., 9th series, chapter 16. + +8/14. Id., 2nd series, chapter 5. + +8/15. Id., 5th series, chapter 7. + +8/16. Id., 6th series, chapter 8. + +8/17. Id., 3rd series, chapters 17, 18, 19 and 20. + +8/18. Id., 2nd series, chapter 15. + +8/19. Id., 3rd series, chapter 11. + +8/20. Emerson. + +8/21. "Souvenirs entomologiques," 4th series, chapter 9. + +8/22. Unpublished observations. + +8/23. "Mireille," 3rd canto. + +NOTES TO CHAPTER 9. + +9/1. "Souvenirs entomologiques," 8th series, chapter 21. + +9/2. "Les Ravageurs," chapter 34, agriculture. + +9/3. "Souvenirs entomologiques," 10th series, chapter 12. + +9/4. Id., 1st series, chapter 2, and 10th series, chapter 13. + +9/5. Id., 2nd series, chapter 17. + +9/6. Id., 7th series, chapter 20. + +9/7. Id., 2nd series, chapter 4. + +9/8. At novitas mundi nec frigora dura ciebat, +Nec nimios aestus. +Lucretius, "De Natura rerum." + +9/9. In this connection see the excellent introduction written by M. Edmond +Perrier to serve as preface to the work of M. de Romanes: "l'Intelligence +des animaux." + +9/10. "Souvenirs entomologiques," 8th series, chapter 20. + +9/11. To Henry Devillario, 30th March, 1883. + +9/12. To Henry Devillario, 12th May, 1883. + +9/13. To his brother, 1900. + +9/14. Letters to his brother. +"I am not sulking; far from it...I have no lack of ink and paper; I am too +careful of them to lack them; but I do lack time...So you still think I am +sulking because I do not reply! But imagine, my dear and petulant brother, +that for several weeks I have been pursuing, with unequalled persistence, +some abominable conic problems proposed at the fellowship examination, and +once I have mounted my hobby-horse, good-bye to letters, good-bye to +replies, goodbye to everything." (Carpentras, 27th November, 1848.) +"You are right, seven times right to storm at me, to grumble at my silence, +and I admit, in all contrition, that I am the worst correspondent you could +find. To force myself to write a letter is to place myself on the rack, as +well you know...But why do you get it into your head, why do you tell me, +that I disdain you, that I forget you, that I ignore you, you, my best +friend?...For my silence blame only the multiplicity of tasks, which often +surpasses, not my courage, but my strength and my time." (Ajaccio, 1st +June, 1851.) + +9/15. "Souvenirs entomologiques," 10th series, chapter 8. + +9/16. Id., 9th series, chapter 2. + +NOTES TO CHAPTER 10. + +10/1. "Souvenirs entomologiques," 1st series, chapter 21. + +10/2. Id., 9th series, chapter 2. + +10/3. Id., 10th series, chapter 4. + +10/4. Montaigne's Essays. + +10/5. "Souvenirs entomologiques," 8th series, chapter 17. + +10/6. "Les Ravageurs." + +10/7. "Souvenirs entomologiques," 10th series, chapter 18, and "Merveilles +de l'instinct: la Chenille du chou." + +10/8. Id., 8th series, chapter 17. + +NOTES TO CHAPTER 11. + +11/1. "Souvenirs entomologiques," 3rd series, chapter 8. + +11/2. Id., 2nd series, chapter 14 et seq. + +11/3. Id., 6th series, chapter 9. + +11/4. Id., 5th series, chapter 19. + +11/5. Tolstoy: "All that the human heart contains of evil should disappear +at the contact of nature, that most immediate expression of the beautiful +and the good." ("The Invaders.") + +11/6. The "Livre d'histoires" and "Chimie agricole." + +11/7. "Oubreto Provençalo. La Bise." + +11/8. Id., "Le Semeur." + +11/9. Id., "Le Crapaud." + +NOTES TO CHAPTER 12. + +12/1. "Oubreto Provençalo. Le Maréchal." + +12/2. "Oubreto Provençalo." + +12/3. In this connection see the admirable passage in Sainte-Beuve's "Port- +Royal," Book 2, chapter 14. + +12/4. "Souvenirs entomologiques," 4th series, chapter 1. + +12/5. Id., 1st series, chapter 17. + +12/6. Id., 7th series, chapter 8. + +12/7. Id., 7th series, chapter 10. + +12/8. Id., 8th series, chapter 8. + +12/9. Id., 8th series, chapter 20. + +12/10. Id., 6th series, chapter 14. + +12/11. Id., 8th series, chapter 18. + +12/12. Id., 10th series, chapter 8. + +12/13. Id., 10th series, chapter 6. + +12/14. Id., 5th series, chapter 22. + +NOTES TO CHAPTER 13. + +13/1. "Souvenirs entomologiques," 10th series, chapter 17. + +13/2. Id., 9th series, chapter 4, "l'Exode des arignées" (the Exodus of the +Spiders), and chapter 5, "l'Araignée crabe" (the Crab Spider). + +13/3. Id., 5th series, chapter 17. + +13/4. Id., 3rd series, chapter 8. + +13/5. Id., 6th series, chapter 14. +"Oubreto. Le Grillon," and unpublished verses. + +13/6. "Souvenirs entomologiques," 2nd series, chapter 16. + +13/7. Id., 9th series, chapter 21. + +13/8. "Les Merveilles de l'instinct: le Ver luisant" (Marvels of Instinct: +the Glow-worm). + +13/9. "Souvenirs entomologiques," 2nd series, chapter 12. + +13/10. Id., 8th series, chapter 22, and 9th series, chapter 11. + +13/11. Id., 5th series, chapter 18. + +NOTES TO CHAPTER 14. + +14/1. Grandjean de Fouchy: eulogy of Réaumur, in "Recueils de l'Acad.des +sciences," volume 157 H, page 201, and Preface to the "Lettres inédites de +Réaumur," by G. Musset. + +14/2. "Mémoires," passim, and volume 2, 1st mémoire. + +14/3. Id., volume 3, 3rd mémoire. + +14/4. Id., volume 2, 1st mémoire. +Ch. Tellier, "Le Frigorifique" (Refrigeration), story of a modern +invention, chapter 23; cold applied to the animal kingdom. + +14/5. Léon Dufour: "Journal de sa vie." +Souvenirs and impressions of travel in the Pyrenees to Gavarnie, Héas, the +"Montagnes maudites," etc. Entomological excursions on the dunes of +Biscarosse and Arcachon. + +14/6. Id., direction of entomological studies. + +14/7. "Souvenirs entomologiques" 2nd series, chapter 1: "L'Harmas." + +14/8. Id., 5th series, chapter 11. + +NOTES TO CHAPTER 15. + +15/1. Louis Charrasse, private letter, 20th February, 1912, and "Le Bassin +du Rhône," March, 1911. + +15/2. "Oubreto. Le Crapaud." + +15/3. It was only in the afternoon that he devoted himself, when needful, +to microscopic researches, on account of the better inclination of the +light. + +15/4. He lost it at the end of last spring. + +15/5. "Les Serviteurs. Le Canard." + +15/6. "Souvenirs entomologiques," 1st series, chapter 13: an ascent of Mont +Ventoux. + +15/7. The name given to Christmas in Provence. + +15/8. Louis Charrasse, private letters. + +15/9. Id. + +15/10. 1888-1892. + +15/11. "Souvenirs entomologiques," 2nd series, chapter 2. + +15/12. Louis Charrasse, private letter. + +15/13. Letter to his nephew, Antonin Fabre, 4th January, 1885. + +15/14. "Souvenirs entomologiques," 6th series, chapter 19. + +15/15. Id., 6th series, chapter 2. + +15/16. Id., 6th series, chapter 11. + +15/17. Conversations. + +NOTES TO CHAPTER 16. + +16/1. Letter to his brother, 4th February, 1900. + +16/2. To his brother, 18th July, 1908. At this time the eighth volume of +his "Souvenirs" had just appeared, and the ninth was in hand. + +16/3. Id. + +16/4. "Chimie agricole." + +16/5. To his brother, 10th October, 1898. + +16/6. Private letter, 30th March, 1908. + +16/7. Id. + +16/8. Id. + +16/9. Unpublished experiments. + +16/10. To Charles Delagrave, 27th January, 1899. + +16/11. To his brother, 4th February, 1900. + +16/12. This prize was awarded to Fabre in 1899. The amount of the prize is +400 pounds sterling. It is one of the chief prizes of the Institute. + +16/13. Edmond Rostand. Private letter, 7th April, 1910: "His books have +been my delight during a very long convalescence." + +16/14. This magnificent atlas, the gem of Fabre's collections, comprises +nearly 700 plates, and a large body of explanatory and descriptive matter. + +16/15. To Charles Delagrave, undated. + +16/16. Maeterlinck. Private letter, 17th November, 1909. +"Les 4 Chemins, +"Grasse (Alpes-Maritimes). +"You overwhelm me with pleasure and do me the greatest honour in allowing +my name to be inscribed among those of the committee which proposes to +celebrate the jubilee of Henri Fabre...Henri Fabre is, indeed, one of the +chiefest and purest glories that the civilized world at present possesses; +one of the most learned naturalists and the most wonderful of poets in the +modern and truly legitimate sense of the word. I cannot tell you how +delighted I am by the chance you offer me of expressing in this way one of +the profoundest admirations of my life." + +16/17. J. Belleudy, prefect of Vaucluse. Private letter, 29th September, +1909. +"It pains me to see so great a mind, so eminent a scientist, such a master +of French literature, so little known. Two years ago, when the Gegner prize +was awarded to him, I felt that I must speak of him to certain of those +about me; and they had hardly heard his name!" + +16/18. Letter to Frédéric Mistral, 4th July, 1908. + +16/19. Council General of Vaucluse, session of August, 1908. The words of +the recorder, M. Lacour, mayor of Orange, to-day deputy for Vaucluse, a +personal friend and ardent admirer of the old master. + +16/20. Edmond Rostand. Private letter, 20th November, 1909. +"I am, sir, not only greatly touched, but also and above all delighted that +you have thought of including me among the friends who wish to fete Henri +Fabre. Thanks for having considered that my name would assist your +undertaking. The "Souvenirs entomologiques" have long ago made me intimate +with his charming, profound, and moving genius. I owe them an infinity of +delightful hours. Perhaps also I ought to thank them for having encouraged +one of my sons to pursue the vocation which he entered. If, in order to +honour Henri Fabre, you run the pious risk of disturbing, for a moment, the +studious retreat in which, for so many years, he has pursued his life and +his work, it is an act of justice toward this great scientist, who thinks +as a philosopher, sees as an artist, and feels and expresses himself as a +poet." +Romain Rolland. Private letter, 7th January, 1910. +"You cannot imagine what pleasure you have given me by requesting me to +associate myself in the glorification of J.H. Fabre. He is one of the +Frenchmen whom I most admire. The impassioned patience of his ingenious +observations delights me as much as the masterpieces of art. For years I +have read and loved his books. During my last holidays, of three volumes +that I travelled with two were volumes of his "Souvenirs entomologiques." +You will honour me and delight me by counting me as one of you." + +16/21. Edmond Rostand. Telegram. + +16/22. Romain Rolland. + + +INDEX. + +Achard, M. + +Agaricus, luminosity of. + +"Agricultural Chemistry." + +Ajaccio, Fabre at. + +Ammophila. + +Anthidium. + +Anthophora. + +Anthrax. + +Arachne clotho. + +Arachnoids, cannibalism of. + +Audubon. + +Avignon, Fabre at. +suggested agronomic station at. + +Balaninus. + +Balzac. + +Bees. + +Belleudy, M. + +Bembex. + +Bergson. + +Bernard, Claude. + +Blanchard. + +Blue fly. + +Bombyx. + +Bordone. + +Bossuet. + +Bourdon. + +Buffon. + +Buprestis. + +Calendal. + +Calendar-beetle. + +Calosoma sycophanta. + +Candolle, de. + +Cannibalism. + +Cantharides. + +Cantharis, courtship of. + +Capricornis. + +Carabidae. + +Carpentras. +fauna of. + +Caterpillars, poisonous. + +Centipedes. + +Cerceris. + +Chalcidia. + +Chalicodoma. + +Charrasse, Louis. + +Chermes. + +Cicada (Cigale). + +Cicadelina. + +Cicindela. + +Cione. + +Clathrix. + +Clythris. + +Clytus. + +Cleona opthalmica. + +Coincidence in life of parasites. + +Coleoptera of Avignon. + +Conchology, Fabre studies. + +Copris. + +Corsica. + +Courrier. + +Crickets, courtship of. + +Crioceris. + +Cuckoo. + +Curves, properties of. + +Darwin, Charles, Fabre an opponent of. +praises Fabre. +corresponds with Fabre. + +Darwin, Erasmus. + +Decticus. + +Delagrave, Charles. + +Dermestes. + +Devillario, Henry. + +Dorthesia. + +Dufour, Léon. + +Dumas. + +Dung-beetles. + +Duruy, Victor. +sends for Fabre to attend Court. +fall of. + +Dyticus. + +"Earth, The." + +Eclipse of sun. + +Education in France. + +Ephippigera. + +Epeïra. + +Emerson. + +Empusa. + +Ergatus. + +Eucera. + +Eumenes. + +Evil. + +Evolution. + +Fabre, Aglaë. + +Fabre, Antoine. + +Fabre, Antonia. + +Fabre, Antonin. + +Fabre, Émile. + +Fabre, Frédéric. + +Fabre, Henri. +birthplace. +childhood. +boyhood. +school days. +a primary teacher. +marriage and loss of first child. +professor of physics at Ajaccio. +professor at Avignon. +takes up entomology. +salary. +poverty. +as teacher. +character. +his pupils. +goes to Court and is decorated. +writes textbooks for schools. +portraits of. +meets J.S. Mill. +denounced for subversive teaching. +evicted. +settles at Orange, money difficulties solved by Mill. +breaks with the University. +continues his series of textbooks. +repays Mill money lent. +dismissed from Requien Museum. +researches concerning madder. +leaves Orange. +work at Sérignan. +second marriage. +his workshop. +methods of work. +attitude toward evolution. +corresponds with Darwin. +ideas as to origin of species. +methods of work. +compared with Réaumur. +life at Sérignan. +love of music. +old age. +poverty. +jubilee celebrated. + +Fabre, Henri, of Avignon. + +Fabre, Jules. + +Fabre, Paul. + +Fabre, Mme (mother of Henri). + +Fabre, Mme (1st wife). + +Fabre, Mme (2nd wife). + +Fabre, Mme Antoine. + +Favier. + +Female education. + +Frog, bellringer. + +Gadfly. + +Gegner prize. + +Geometry, Fabre's love of. + +Geotrupes. + +Glow-worm. + +Goat caterpillar. + +Goethe. + +Grasshopper. + +Halictus. + +Harmas, the. + +Heat, takes place of food. + +Helix raspaillii. + +Hemerobius, curious garment of. + +Horace. + +Horn-beetle. + +Horus Apollo. + +Huber. + +Hugo, Victor. + +Hyper-metamorphism. + +Instinct. + +Intelligence, function of. + +Janin, Jules. + +Jullian. + +Jussieu, de. + +La Fontaine. + +Lamarck. + +Lapalud. + +Latreille. + +Larra. + +Leibnitz. + +Leucopsis. + +Libellula. + +Linnaeus. + +Locust. + +"Log, Story of the." + +Lycosa. + +Madder, Fabre's researches concerning. + +Magendie. + +Malaval. + +Mantis. + +Maquis, the Corsican. + +Marius. + +Mason-bee. + +Medicine, Fabre's inclination toward. + +Megachile. + +Meloë. + +Michelet. + +Mill, J.S. +helps Fabre in difficulties. +death of. + +Mill, Mrs. + +Millipedes. + +Mimicry. + +Mind, of animals. + +Minotaurus. + +Mistral. +corresponds with Fabre. + +Mitscherlich. + +Montyon prize. + +Moquin-Tandon. + +Mushrooms, recipe for cooking. + +Napoleon III. + +Necrophorus. + +Number, properties of. +poem. + +Odynerus. + +Oniticella. + +Onthophagus. + +Orange, Fabre at. + +Orchids, Fabre on. + +"Origin of Species." + +Orthoptera, primitive. + +Osmia, control of sex. +courtship of. + +Pasteur. + +Peacock moth. + +Pelopaeus. + +Perrier, Ed. + +Philanthus. + +Phryganea. + +Pieris. + +"Plant, The." + +Pliny. + +Poems, Fabre's. + +Polygons, properties of. + +Pompilus. + +Potato. + +Processional caterpillar. + +Psyche. + +Rabelais. + +Raspail. + +Racine. + +Réaumur. +compared with Fabre. + +Requien of Avignon. + +Requien Museum. + +Rhynchites. + +Ricard, Pierre, schoolmaster. + +Rose-beetle. + +Roumanille. + +Saint-Léons. + +Saprinidae. + +Sarcophagus. + +Scarabaeus sacer. + +Scolia. + +Scolopendra. + +Scorpion. + +Sérignan. +Fabre settles at. +evenings at. + +Sicard's portraits of Fabre. + +Silkworm moth. + +Sisyphus. + +Sitaris. + +"Sky, The." + +"Souvenirs entomologiques." + +Spaeriaceae. + +Sphex. + +Spiders, aeronautic. + +Sport, Fabre's love of. + +Staphylinus. + +Tachina. + +Tachinarius. + +Tachytes. + +Tarantula. + +Taylor, Harriett (Mrs. J.S. Mill). + +Taylor, Miss. + +Terebinth louse. + +Theophrastus. + +Thomisus. + +Tolstoy. + +Toussenel. + +Trox. + +Vanessa. + +"Vaucluse, Flora of the." + +Vaucluse, General Council of, grants Fabre a pension. + +Vayssières, M. + +Ventoux Alp. +banquet on the. + +Vezins. + +Villard, Marie (Mme Henri Fabre). + +Virgil. + +Volucella. + +Wasps' nest in winter. + +Weevils, sloe. +poplar. +acorn and poplar. + +Woodland bug. + +Xylocopa. + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Fabre, Poet of Science by Legros + |