LIFE AND WORK OF FABRE BOUVIER. 597 



authors, and the formuLa of his style as well as the secret of his art 

 are uniquely his own since he acquired them." 



Fabre has proved more than anyone else the difficulties of life, 

 but he knew how to dominate them by his own talent and by his 

 courage in conserving intact the independence which kept him open 

 minded and which he always considered as his most valuable asset. 

 Modest and simple in his tastes, eager in his researches, deeply in 

 love with the quiet country, he would taste the most profound joys 

 in the open field where he dwelt alone among his favorite insects 

 and the perfumed plants which there shot forth without fetters as 

 in full nature. In this terrestrial paradise of the biologist now 

 given to science by his devoted friends his step has traced unusual 

 and numerous paths where henceforth continuers of his work will 

 come for inspiration. It was there that the homage of the institute, 

 which made him one of its correspondents, and later, the plaudits 

 of a renown of which he never dreamed, came to find, I was about 

 to say, to disturb him. It is there that he forever rests, leaving to 

 new^ generations the example of a life made fertile by constant toil, 

 by noble independence, and by the brilliancy of a talent that borders 

 upon genius. 



73839°— SM 1916 39 



