Fabre's Writings 



by its adjective and vivified by its verb, the name 

 became a living reality: what it said I saw. And 

 thus, gradually, was the magic of words revealed 

 to me, when the chances of my undirected reading 

 placed a few easy standard pages in my way. 1 



The magic of words! He has done more 

 than discover it in the pages of other writers. 

 He has illustrated it on every page of his 

 own writings, adapting it so exactly to the 

 magic of things that it delights the scientist 

 as Nature herself would, and enchants the 

 poet and the man of letters as only the mas- 

 terpieces of art and literature have power 

 to do. 



1 Souvenirs, ix., pp. 176-178. The Mason Bees, chap, xi., 

 " The Jeucoopes." 



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323 



