Fabre, Poet of Science

Here I offer to the public the life of Jean-Henri Fabre; at once an admiring commentary upon his work and an act of pious homage, such as ought to be offered, while he lives, to...

Every part of nature has its mystery and its beauty, its logic and its explanation; and the epigraph given me by Fabre himself, which appears on the title-page of this volume, i...

The salary of the school teacher, in the year 1842, did not exceed 28 pounds sterling a year, and this ungrateful calling barely fed him, save on "chickpeas and a little wine."...

At last the chair of physics fell vacant at the college of Ajaccio, the salary being 72 pounds sterling, and he left for Corsica. His stay there was well calculated to impress h...

The resolute worker resumed his indefatigable labours with an ardour greater than ever, for now he was haunted by a noble ambition, that of becoming a teacher of the superior gr...

It was in 1871. Fabre had lived twenty years at Avignon. This date constitutes an important landmark in his career, since it marks the precise moment of his final rupture with t...

Let us, then, the latest of many, make the pilgrimage which all those who are fascinated by the enigma of nature will accomplish later, with the same piety that has led so many...

In his deep, sunny garden a thousand insects fly, creep, crawl, and hum, and each relates its history to him. A golden gardener-beetle trots along the path. Rose-beetles pass, i...

Is it possible, by studying the habits of animals, to discover some of those elementary springs of action whose knowledge would enable us to dive more deeply into our own natures?

"How did a miserable grub acquire its marvellous knowledge? Are its habits, its aptitudes, and its industries the integration of the infinitely little, acquired by successive ex...

The cunning anatomist has now successively laid bare all the springs of the animal intellect; he has shown how the various movements are mutually combined and engaged. But so fa...

Such indeed is the economy of nature that secret relations and astonishing concordances exist throughout the whole vast weft of things. There are no loose ends; everything is co...

We have noted the essential features of his precise and unfailing vision and the value of the documents which record the work of Fabre, but the writer merits no less attention t...

Although in his portraits and descriptions Fabre is simple and exact, and so full of natural geniality; although he can so handle his words as to render them "adequate" to repro...

We have now seen what entomology becomes in the hands of the admirable Fabre. The vast poem of creation has never had a more familiar and luminous interpreter, and you will nowh...

Rising at six o'clock, he would first of all pace the tiles of his kitchen, breakfast in hand; so imperious in him was the need of action, if his mind was to work successfully,...

How he has laboured in this solitude! For he considers that he is still far from having completed his task. He feels more and more that he has scarcely done more than sketch the...

1/6. Id. "As brothers, we are one only; but in virtue of our different tastes we are two, and I am amused and interested where you might well be bored."

3/14. To his brother, from Carpentras, 3rd December, 1851. "Our crossing was atrocious. Never have I seen so terrible a sea, and that the packet-boat was not broken up by the fo...

4/17. Henry Devillario, magistrate at Carpentras, where he performed his duties as juge d'instruction until his death. A notable collector and distinguished publicist. Dr. Bordo...