The Life of Jean Henri Fabre 



room where he silently finished his life, ma- 

 jestically leaning back in his arm-chair, with 

 his best shirt and old-fashioned necktie, his 

 eyes still bright in his emaciated face, his 

 lips fine and still mobile, but thin with age 

 and at moments trembling with emotion, or 

 moved by a sudden inspiration — to see him 

 thus, would you not say that he was still 

 observing? Yes, but his observations are 

 now of an invisible w r orld, a world even 

 richer in mysteries and revelations than the 

 world below, so patiently explored for more 

 than fifty years. 



One day, when two professors of 

 the Grand-Seminaire de Saint-Paul-Trois- 

 Chateaux * had come to see him, as the time 

 drew near to bid them good-bye, the old man 

 held out his hands and tucked them under 

 their arms, and, not without difficulty, rose 

 from his arm-chair, and arm-in-arm with 

 them advanced, tile by tile, to the threshold 

 of the house, whither he had determined to 

 accompany them. Suddenly, pressing their 

 arms more closely and alluding to their cas- 

 socks and their vocation, he said, energeti- 

 cally: "You have chosen the better part"; 

 and, holding them back for a last word, he 



1 The Abbe Joseph Betton and his friend, the Abbe 

 Juiot. 



390 



