Fabre, Poet of Science | Page 4

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