The Professor: Avignon 



Let us add that while no one was ever 

 more interested in authors and their writings, 

 to purchase which he often sacrificed his last 

 coppers, and even his daily bread, no one 

 was more resolutely determined to give the 

 first place to the language of facts, and di- 

 rect intercourse with the tiny living creatures 

 whom he had chosen for his own. So much 

 so that, if we wish fully to describe his 

 method, we must complete the maxim which 

 we have just quoted by this other, which 

 forms its exact counterpart: Amicus liber, 

 magis arnica natura. 



165 



