The Hermit of Serlgnan 



the world, that his life has been passed, in un- 

 changing uniformity; and here he has been able 

 to pursue, with resolute labour and incredible pa- 

 tience, that prodigious series of marvellous observa- 

 tions which for nearly fifty years he has never 

 ceased to accumulate. 



Frangois Sicard, in his faultless medal and his 

 admirable bust, has succeeded with rare felicity in 

 reproducing for posterity this rugged, shaven face, 

 full of laborious years; a peasant face, stamped 

 with originality, under the wide felt hat of Prov- 

 ence; touched with geniality and benevolence, yet 

 reflecting a world of energy. Sicard has fixed for 

 ever this strange mask; the thin cheeks, ploughed 

 into deep furrows, the strained nose, the pendent 

 wrinkles of the throat, the thin, shrivelled lips, 

 with an indescribable fold of bitterness at the cor- 

 ners of the mouth. The hair, tossed back, falls 

 in fine curls over the ears, revealing a high, rounded 

 forehead, obstinate and full of thought. But what 

 chisel, what graver could reproduce the surprising 

 shrewdness of that gaze, eclipsed from time to 

 time by a convulsive tremor of the eyelids! What 

 Holbein, what Chardin could render the almost 

 extraordinary brilliance of those black eyes, those 

 dilated pupils — the eyes of a prophet, a seer; sin- 

 gularly wide and deeply set, as though gazing al- 

 ways upon the mystery of things, as though made 

 expressly to scrutinise Nature and decipher her enig- 

 mas? Above the orbits, two short, bristling eye- 

 brows seem set there to guide the vision; one, by 

 dint of knitting itself above the magnifying-glass, 

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