The Life of Jean Henri Fabre 



more to his young friends, the primary 

 school-children, to the pains which he took, 

 the ingenuity which he expended in bringing 

 within the grasp of the child's mind, in im- 

 pressing upon his imagination and sensibility 

 as well as his understanding, the creatures 

 and the doings of the living world. 



As we have recorded, it was only in 1879 

 that Fabre inaugurated his great and im- 

 mortal collection of Souvenirs entomolo- 

 giques. 



From this same year dates the acquisi- 

 tion, so greatly desired, of the open-air 

 laboratory and his installation in the 

 cherished solitude of Serignan, where he was 

 able to give free play to his entomological 

 tastes, and to continue to add to the 

 Souvenirs. 



Henri Fabre was then fifty-five years of 

 age, and apparently broken by fatigue and 

 suffering. This did not prevent him from 

 undertaking and accomplishing a task in 

 which we know not which to admire the 

 most: the acuteness of observation or the 

 vigour of thought, the enthusiasm of the in- 

 vestigator or the animation of the writer. 

 Here is a wonderful example to all those 

 whom advancmg age and life have already 

 cruelly bruised; to all those who might be 

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