The Life of Jean Henri Fabre 



tected against all causes of deviation or dis- 

 couragement. 



Not in vain does a man breathe at birth 

 the air of the mountain-tops; not in vain 

 does he live his earliest summers with the 

 vision of the heights before him. He retains 

 as it were a nostalgia for the heights, and 

 a wild longing to climb them. It will not 

 surprise us to learn that the child of the Haut- 

 Rouergue, transplanted, by the vicissitudes of 

 life, from the Levezou mountains to the 

 Provencal plains, should calm his brain, burn- 

 ing with the stress of study, by gazing at 

 Mont Ventoux, and anticipating his approach- 

 ing expedition to the mountain of his dreams. 1 

 We shall not be surprised to find that he 

 never allowed himself to be repulsed by the 

 difficulties of the enterprise, and that more 

 than a score of ascents failed to produce sa- 

 tiety, whereas many another found his cour- 

 age and his interest evaporate almost at the 

 outset. 2 For the ascent of Mont Ventoux 

 is a difficult task, more difficult than that of 

 the majority of our mountains: 



One might best compare the Ventoux with a 

 heap of stones broken up for road-mending pur- 



1 Souvenirs, in., p. 193. 



2 Ibid., 1., p. 182. The Hunting Wasps, chap, xi., "An 

 Ascent of Mont Ventoux." 



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