Retirement: Orange 



of my experiment, in the eyes of my home-circle; 

 I read an unspoken accusation of cruelty all around 

 me. The death of the unfortunate Sparrow had 

 saddened the whole family. I myself was not 

 without some remorse of conscience: the poor re- 

 sult achieved seemed to me too dearly bought. I 

 am not made of the stuff of those who, without 

 turning a hair, rip up live Dogs to find out nothing 

 in particular. 1 



Is there not something touching in the 

 simplicity of the father who, with such good 

 will, becomes a child with his children; and 

 in the compassionate kindness of the man 

 who cannot without grieving witness the 

 death of a Sparrow? Fabre indeed pos- 

 sessed in no common degree that quality 

 which, according to Saint Augustine, is the 

 foremost characteristic of spiritual beauty 

 and, according to the poet of the animals, 

 constitutes the essential nobility of the French 

 mind: 



" La bonte, c'est le fond de tout ame francaise." 

 (Kindness, the base of every Frenchman's mind.) 



It was, at all events, the basis of his own. 

 And we are conscious of a fundamental emo- 

 tion, an intimate reprobation, that ascends 

 from the depths of his being to oppose all 

 ideas of violence and hatred. 



1 Souvenirs, n., pp. 202-203. The Life of the Spider, 

 chap, i., "The Black-bellied Tarantula." 



203 



