The Life of Jean Henri Fabre 



has retained an indelible fold of continual atten- 

 tion; the other, on the contrary, always updrawn, 

 has the look of defying the interlocutor, of fore- 

 seeing his objections, of waiting with an ever-ready 

 return-thrust. 1 



Is not the reader dazzled by the brilliant 

 colours, the warm tones of this picture ? The 

 Provenqal light shines upon his face, splen- 

 didly avenging us for the obscurity which had 

 too long withheld him from the admiration 

 of the world. 



We could not choose a better guide to in- 

 troduce us to the home of the Hermit of 

 Serignan, and to give us access to his person. 



In front of the house, beyond a low wall, 

 of a comfortable height to lean on, is the 

 most unexpected and improbable of gardens, 

 a kind of couderc — that is, a tract of poor, 

 stony ground, of which the naturalist has 

 made a sort of wild park, jealously protected 

 from the access of the profane, and literally 

 invaded by all sorts of plants and insects. 

 Fabre speaks of this retreat as follows: 



This is what I wished for, hoc erat in votis : a 

 bit of land, oh, not so very large, but fenced in, 

 to avoid the drawbacks of a public way; an aban- 

 doned, barren, sun-scorched bit of land, favoured 



1 Fabre, Poet of Science, G. V. Legros, pp. 108-115. 



212 



