Fabre's Writings 



and a life of leisure wholly dedicated to the 

 patient and disinterested study of his beloved 

 insects. 



From another point of view this long 

 and patient effort of scientific popularisa- 

 tion and intense literary production was not 

 without its results as regard his later work. 

 It enabled him to obtain a mastery of his 

 medium, to exercise his faculty of expression 

 and his mind, to vary and mature his obser- 

 vations, and finally to realise that tour de 

 force of writing, for specialists, books that 

 he who runs may read, and of performing 

 the miracle of arousing the enthusiasm of 

 men of letters for books that compel the 

 admiration of scientists, and attracting the 

 attention of the scientists to books that de- 

 light the man of letters. 



The brilliance, colour, and vitality which 

 enhance without ever diminishing the high 

 scientific value of his Souvenirs are due, no 

 doubt, to his native qualities, to the limpid 

 and harmonious Gallic genius of which he 

 affords so admirable a type; he owes them 

 also, as we have said, to all those tiny lives, 

 so vibrant with diligence, and so picturesque, 

 whose lights and shades and nai've emotions 

 seem to have found their way into his own 

 heart, into his style; but he owes them still 

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