Fabre's Writings 



they are realised without effort and in the 

 most striking relief in the reader's mind and 

 imagination. 



Fabre hates to see science make use of 

 pedantic and pseudo-scholastic terminology. 

 Apart from the fact that it may repel the 

 reader, all this idle apparatus of obscurity 

 serves only too often to mask error or vague- 

 ness of thought. 



By seasoning the matter with indigestible terms, 

 useful for dissimulating vagueness of thought, one 

 might represent the Cione as a superb example of 

 the change brought about by the centuries in the 

 habits of an insect. It would be very scientific, 

 but would it- be very clear? I doubt it. When 

 my eyes fall upon a page bristling with barbarous 

 locutions, supposedly scientific, I say to myself: 

 " Take care ! The author does not properly un- 

 derstand what he is saying, or he would have found, 

 in the vocabulary which so many clever minds have 

 hammered out, some means of clearly stating his 

 thought." 



Boileau, who is denied the poetic afflatus, but 

 who certainly possessed common sense, and plenty 

 of it, informs us: 



" Ce que Von confoit blen s'enonce clairement." 

 (That which is clearly grasped is plainly said.) 



" Just so, Nicolas ! Yes, clearness, always clear- 

 ness. He calls a cat a cat. Let us do the same : let 

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