The Life of the Fly 



the end of the summer, grandfather comes 

 with a spade and turns my field of observation 

 topsy-turvy. From under ground there comes, 

 by the basketful and sackful, a sort of round 

 root. I know that root; it abounds in the 

 iiouse; time after time I have cooked it in the 

 peat-stove. It is the potato. Its violet flower 

 and its red fruit are pigeon-holed for good and 

 all in my memory. 



With an ever-watchful eye for animals 

 and plants, the future observer, the little 

 six-year-old monkey, practised by himself, 

 all unawares. He went to the flower, 

 he went to the insect, even as the Large 

 White Butterfly goes to the cabbage and 

 the Red Admiral to the thistle. He looked 

 and enquired, drawn by a curiosity whereof 

 heredity did not know the secret. He bore 

 within him the germ of a faculty unknown to 

 his family; he kept alive a glimmer that was 

 foreign to the ancestral hearth. What will be- 

 come of that infinitesimal spark of childish 

 fancy? It will die out, beyond a doubt, un- 

 less education intervene, giving it the fuel of 

 example, fanning it with the breath of experi- 

 ence. In that case, schooling will explain 

 what heredity leaves unexplained. This is 

 what we will examine in the next chapter, 

 130 



