t 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

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

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

g. What he hoped above all was to succeed in devoting all his leisure to those marvellous natural sciences in which he could vag

but was ready to come forth; he lacked only the propitiou

then lived in the depths of the Landes, fell by chance into his hands, and lit the fi

y latent within him. These had only awaited such an occasion as that

manifestations of talent. How many have suddenly felt the unexpected awakening

rison of the specific characteristics of certain crystals that Pasteur so enthusiastically took up h

ving out of simple curiosity undertaken to verify certain experiments of Réaumur's, was so comple

et Magendie? Similarly Léon Dufour's little work was to Fabre the

stis, 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

estes were dead, and he gave an atte

to his great surprise, he discovered how incomplete and insufficiently verified were th

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 e

ked the beginning of his fame: the history, which might well be called marvellous and incredible, of the great C

uced, 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

ary 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, an

principal, was a general favourite, and had perfect liberty to follow his inspiration during his partly gratu

ternal self; his character, ever so little shy and un

. (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 beyon

int upon his nature, he remained an "outsider," and refused to comply with a host of factitious or worldly obligations whic

mpany. So I have seen no one; I did not respond to the princi

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 p

did not forget Moquin-Tandon, who had formerly, in Corsica, revealed to him the nat

ducing 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 professo

welcome was by no means such as Fabre had the right to expect. Far from insisting,

, ought to lead him one day to a university professorship, did not

eds; 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 mor

scence of the agaric of the olive-tree, a pheno

e 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 w

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 documentatio

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

lanes, collecting his beautiful insects, breathing the free air, the scent of the vines and olives, and gazing upon Mont

gled 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

up; those little beetles, cousins of the Cantharides, whose complex metamorphoses and astonishing and peculiar habits have been revealed by Fabre. T

two excellent titles to fame, and would by themselves have sufficed t

of which, needless to say, he had never dreamed." (4/12.) Darwin, in his celebrated work on the "Origin of Sp

scovered fresh localities frequented almost exclusively by other

y, 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

ts. 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,"

take his pupils with him, to spend a morning in the fields, "at th

ion, were Devillario, Bordone, and Vayssières (4/17.), "young people with warm hearts and smiling imag

otebook 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

cable 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 t

y of his wit, his enthusiasm, his geniality and his infectious gaiety, and also of the singular uncertaint

im 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

contrasts of temperament, in which they themselves saw nothing but natural

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

m what Fabre has said, that Pasteur treated him with a hauteur which was slightly disdainful. The ignorant genius questioned his humble c

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 i

hing the theory of spontaneous generation, the other by refuting the mechanical theory of the origin of instincts, have brought into

uien 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

her 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 pri

o be able to devote himself entirely to his chosen work: this was his

acting directly, by a perfectly simple method, which for a time very advantageously replaced the extremely primitive methods of t

hatever 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 charac

d 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

zed 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

le of his fable (See "Social Life in the Insect World," by Jean-Henri F

e b

juicy, of

is quickly s

beetle too with h

h

oney'd lips, and

im. 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 leisur

tic griefs, this was certainly the deepest and

to work, under the powerful stimulus of Duruy, preoccupied as he always was by his incessant desire for freedom. The first rudiments of hi

agrave, 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 coul

cular 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

the first time the golden gates of knowledge; an audacious innovation, and formidable withal, for it shrewdly touched the interests of

ion. 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 "t

s which had hitherto never been proposed; and in particular that Natural History which to him was a book in which all the worl

profound faith, to his hearers: that sacred fire which a

bre brought no less application and ardour. In the intention of those who instituted them these latter were

roubling about the possible applications of scientific theory, desired above all to be initiated into

the letter which he addressed to the administration of the city, when he was ent

derstood 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

s him twenty years later: he wore a large black felt hat; his face was shaven, the chin strong and wilful, the ey

given, was occupied also by the Requien Museum, of which Fabre

y 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

beautiful as she was astonishingly gifted with the rarest faculties; combining with the most searching intelligenc

studious retreat in the enchanted atmosphere of southern Europe when suddenly at Avignon Harriett Mill was carried off by a violen

e 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

daughter of his wife; trying to console himself by work, recapitulating hi

ense 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 bran

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

his own thoughts, and each self-contained as thoug

edants, "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. So

work and by the magic of his teaching, assume a position so unique and so disproportionate. Others

d under the incessant attacks of the clericals. In him Fabre lost a friend, a protector, and his only support. E

ite of his enemies, and abruptly gave him notice to quit. he had to leave before the end of the month

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;

r 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 ha