The Life of the Grasshopper 



the Milky Way; below, all around me, the 

 insects' symphony rises and falls. The in- 

 finitesimal telling its joys makes me forget 

 the pageant of the stars. We know nothing 

 of those celestial eyes which look down upon 

 us, placid and cold, with scintillations that 

 are like blinking eyelids. Science tells us of 

 their distance, their speed, their mass, their 

 volum^e; it overwhelms us with enorm.ous 

 figures, stupefies us with immensities; but 

 it does not succeed in stirring a fibre within 

 us. Why? Because it lacks the great 

 secret, that of life. What is there up 

 there ? What do those suns warm ? Worlds 

 like ours, reason declares; planets whereon 

 life revolves in infinite variety. It is a superb 

 conception of the universe, but, when all is 

 said, only a conception, not supported by 

 obvious facts, those supreme proofs within 

 the reach of all. The probable, the ex- 

 tremely probable, is not the manifest, which 

 forces itself upon us irresistibly and leaves 

 no room for doubt. 



In your company, on the contrary, O my 

 Crickets, I feel the throbbing of life, which 

 is the soul of our lump of clay; and that is 

 why, under my rosemary-hedge, I give but an 

 absent glance at the constellation of the 



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