Fabre, Poet of Science | Page 5

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