The Life of Jean Henri Fabre 



modest and the laborious," to single him out 

 and drag him out of his hole; just as, at the 

 present time, a Parisian publicist, of whom 

 his fine talents have made a conquest, has 

 truly remarked, it needed the energetic in- 

 tervention of his friends to give his poetic 

 genius the supreme consecration reserved for 

 the works of our most eminent writers: 

 " Thank heaven, the author of the Poesie 

 des Betes and Bonne Terre has friends who 

 admire the poet as greatly as they esteem 

 the man, and if M. Francois Fabie cannot 

 make up his mind to emerge from the ob- 

 scurity in which he has only too long, indeed 

 always, enveloped himself, I venture to hope 

 that they will not hesitate to take him by the 

 shoulders and bring him out into the broad 

 light of day, and that they will then propel 

 him willy-nilly across the Pont des Arts at 

 the end of which rises the dome of the illus- 

 trious Forty." 1 



One might say the same of Fabre. Some 

 one should have taken him, too, by the shoul- 

 ders and pushed him forcibly across the Pont 

 des Arts, and should then have kept his eyes 

 upon him until he reached his destination, lest 

 he should turn aside and fly for the Pont 

 d' Avignon, for we must not forget that Du- 



1 Journal d'Aveyron, 8 November 1908. 

 182 



