FABRE'S BOOK OF INSECTS 



CHAPTER I 



MY WORK AND MY WORKSHOP 



WE all have our own talents, our special gifts. 

 Sometimes these gifts seem to come to us 

 from our forefathers, but more often it is 

 difficult to trace their origin. 



A goatherd, perhaps, amuses himself by counting little 

 pebbles and doing sums with them. He becomes an as- 

 toundingly quick reckoner, and in the end is a professor 

 of mathematics. Another boy, at an age when most of 

 us care only for play, leaves his schoolfellows at their 

 games and listens to the imaginary sounds of an organ, a 

 secret concert heard by him alone. He has a genius for 

 music. A third — so small, perhaps, that he cannot eat 

 his bread and jam without smearing his face — takes a 

 keen delight in fashioning clay into little figures that are 

 amazingly lifelike. If he be fortunate he will some day 

 be a famous sculptor. 



To talk about oneself is hateful, I know, but perhaps 

 I may be allowed to do so for a moment, in order to intro- 

 duce myself and my studies. 



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