Chapter 6
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 the University.
At this time the preoccupations of material life were more pressing than ever, and it was then that he devoted himself entirely and with perseverance to the writing of those admirable works of introduction and initiation, in which he applied himself to rendering science accessible to the youngest minds, and employed all his profound knowledge to the thorough teaching of its elements and its eternal laws.
To this ungrateful task--ungrateful, but in reality pleasurable, so strongly had he the vocation, the feeling, and the genius of the teacher-- Fabre applied himself thenceforth with all his heart, and for nine years never lifted his hand.
How insipid, how forbidding were the usual classbooks, the second-rate natural histories above all, stuffed with dry statements, with raw knowledge, which brought nothing but the memory into play! How many youthful faces had grown pale above them!
What a contrast and a deliverance in these little books of Fabre's, so clear, so luminous, so simple, which for the first time spoke to the heart and the understanding; for "work which one does not understand disgusts one." (5/1.)
To initiate others into science or art, it is not enough to have understood them oneself; it is not enough even that one should be an artist or a scientist. Scientists of the highest flight are sometimes very unskilful teachers, and very indifferent hands at explaining the alphabet. It is not given to the first comer to educate the young; to understand how to identify his understanding with theirs, to measure their powers. It is a matter of instinct and good sense rather than of memory or erudition, and Fabre, who had never in his life been the pupil of any one, could better than any remember the phases through which his mind had passed, could recollect by what detours of the mind, by what secret labours of thought, by what intuitive methods he had succeeded in conquering, one by one, all the difficulties in his path, and in gradually attaining to knowledge.
It is wonderful to watch the mastery with which he conducts his demonstrations, the simplest as well as the most involved, singling out the essential, little by little evoking the sense of things, ingeniously seeking familiar examples, finding comparisons, and employing picturesque and striking images, which throw a dazzling light upon the obscurest question or the most difficult problem. How in such matters can one dispense with figurative speech, when one is reduced, as a rule, to an inability to show the things themselves, but only their images and their symbols?
Follow him, for example, in the "The Sky" (5/2.), which seems to thrill with the ardent and comprehensive genius of a Humboldt, and admire the ease with which he surmounts all the difficulties and smooths the way for the vast voyage on which he conducts you, past the infinity of the suns and the stars in their millions, scintillating in the cold air of night, to descend once more to our humble "Earth" (5/3.); first an ocean of fire, rolling its heavy waves of molten porphyry and granite, then "slowly hardening into strange floes and bergs, hotter than the red iron in the fire of the forge," rounding its back, all covered with gaping pustules, eruptive mountains and craters, and the first folds of its calcined crust, until the day when the vast mist of densest vapours, heaped up on every hand and of immeasurable depth, begins gradually to show rifts, giving rise at last to an infinite storm, a stupendous deluge, and forming the strange universal sea, "a mineral sludge, veiled by a chaos of smoke," whence at length the primitive soil emerges, "and at last the green grass."
And although "a little animal proteid, capable of pleasure and pain, surpasses in interest the whole immense creation of dead matter," he does not forget to show us the spectacle of life flowing through matter itself; and he animates even the simple elementary bodies, celebrating the marvellous activities of the air, the violence of Chlorine, the metamorphoses of Carbon, the miraculous bridals of Phosphorus, and "the splendours which accompany the birth of a drop of water." (5/4.)
A man must indeed love knowledge deeply before he can make others love it, or render it easy and attractive, revealing only the smiling highways; and Fabre, above all things the impassioned professor, was the very man to lead his disciples "between the hedges of hawthorn and sloe," whether to show them the sap, "that fruitful current, that flowing flesh, that vegetable blood," or how the plant, by a mysterious transubstantiation, makes its wood, "and the delicate bundle of swaddling-bands of its buds," or how "from a putrid ordure it extracts the flavour and the fragrance of its fruits"; or whether he seeks to evoke the murderous plants that live as parasites at the cost of others; the white Clandestinus, "which strangles the roots of the alders beside the rivers," the Cuscuta, "which knows nothing of labour," the wicked Orobanche, plump, powerful and brazen, the skin covered with ugly scales, "with sombre flowers that wear the livery of death, which leaps at the throat of the clover, stifling it, devouring it, sucking its blood." (5/5.)
Botany, by this genial treatment, becomes a most interesting study, and I know of no more captivating reading than "The Plant" and "The Story of the Log," the jewels of this incomparable series.
Employ Fabre's method if you wish to learn by yourself, or to evoke in your children a love of science, and, according to the phrase of the gentle Jean-Jacques, to help them "to buy at the best possible of prices." Give them as sole guides these exquisite manuals, which touch upon everything, initiating them into everything, and bringing within the reach of all, for their instruction or amusement, the heavens and the earth, the planets and their moons, the mechanism of the great natural forces and the laws which govern them, life and its materials, agriculture and its applications. For more than a quarter of a century these catechisms of science, models of lucidity and good sense, effected the education of generations of Frenchmen. Abridgments of all knowledge, veritable codes of rural wisdom, these perfect breviaries have never been surpassed.
It was after reading these little books, it is said, that Duruy conceived the idea of confiding to this admirable teacher the education of the Imperial heir; and it is very probable that this was, in reality, the secret motive which would explain why he had so expressly summoned Fabre to Paris. What an ideal tutor he had thought of, and how proud might others have been of such a choice! But the man was too zealous of his independence, too difficult to tame, to bear with the environment of a court, and God knows whether he was made for such refulgence! We need not be surprised that Fabre never heard of it; it must have sufficed the minister to speak with him for a few minutes to realize that the most tempting offers and all the powers of seduction would never overcome his insurmountable dislike of life in a capital, nor prevail against his inborn, passionate, exclusive love of the open.
For these volumes Fabre was at first rather wretchedly paid; at all events, until public education had definitely received a fresh impulse; and for a long time his life at Orange was literally a hand-to-mouth existence.
As soon as he was able to realize a few advances, he had nothing so much at heart as the repayment of Mill, and he hastened to call on the philosopher; all the more filled with gratitude for his generosity in that the loan, although of the comparatively large amount of three thousand francs, was made without security, practically from hand to hand, with no other warranty than his probity.
For this reason this episode was always engraven on his memory. Thirty years later he would relate the affair even to the most insignificant details. How many times has he not reminded me of the transaction, insisting that I should make a note of it, so anxious was he that this incident in his career should not be lost in oblivion! How often has he not recalled the infinite delicacy of Mill, and his excessive scrupulousness, which went so far that he wished to give a written acknowledgment of the repayment of the debt, of which there was no record whatever save in the conscience of the debtor!
Scarcely two years later Mill died suddenly at Avignon. Grief finally killed him; for this unexpected death seemed to have been only the ultimate climax of the secret malady which had so long been undermining him.
It was in the outskirts of Orange that Fabre for the last time met him and accompanied him upon a botanizing expedition. He was struck by his weakness and his rapid decline. Mill could hardly drag himself along, and when he stooped to gather a specimen he had the greatest difficulty in rising. They were never to meet again.
A few days later--on the 8th May, 1873--Fabre was invited to lunch with the philosopher. Before going to the little house by the cemetery he halted, as was his custom, at the Libraire Saint-Just. It was there that he learned, with amazement, of the tragic and sudden event which set a so unexpected term to a friendship which was doubtless a little remote, but which was, on both sides, a singularly lofty and beautiful attachment.
His class-books were now bringing in scarcely anything; their preparation, moreover, involved an excessive expenditure of time, and gave him a great deal of trouble; it is impossible to imagine what scrupulous care, what zeal and self-respect Fabre brought to the execution of the programme which he had to fulfil.
To begin with, he considered that he could not enjoy a more splendid opportunity to give children a taste for science and to stimulate their curiosity than by finding a means to interest them, from their earliest infancy, in their simple playthings, even the crudest and most inexpensive; so true is it that "in the smallest mechanical device or engine, even in its simplest form, as conceived by the industry of a child, there is often the germ of important truths, and, better than books, the school of the playroom, if gently disciplined, will open for the child the windows of the universe."
"The humble teetotum, made of a crust of rye-bread transfixed by a twig, silently spinning on the cover of a school-book, will give a correct enough image of the earth, which retains unmoved its original impulse, and travels along a great circle, at the same time turning on itself. Gummed on its disc, scraps of paper properly coloured will tell us of white light, decomposable into various coloured rays...
"There will be the pop-gun, with its ramrod and its two plugs of tow, the hinder one expelling the foremost by the elasticity of the compressed air. Thus we get a glimpse of the ballistics of gunpowder, and the pressure of steam in engines..."
The little hydraulic fountain made of an apricot stone, patiently hollowed and pierced with a hole at either side, into which two straws are fitted, one dipping into a cup of water and the other duly capped, "expelling a slender thread of water in which the sunlight flickers," will introduce us to the true syphon of physics.
"What amusing and useful lessons" a well-balanced scheme of education might extract from this "academy of childish ingenuity"! (5/6.)
At this time he was undertaking the education of his own children. His chemistry lessons especially had a great success. (5/7.) With apparatus of his own devising and of the simplest kind, he could perform a host of elementary experiments, the apparatus as a rule consisting of the most ordinary materials, such as a common flask or bottle, an old mustard-pot, a tumbler, a goose-quill or a pipe-stem.
A series of astonishing phenomena amazed their wondering eyes. He made them see, touch, taste, handle, and smell, and always "the hand assisted the word," always "the example accompanied the precept," for no one more fully valued the profound maxim, so neglected and misunderstood, that "to see is to know."
He exerted himself to arouse their curiosity, to provoke their questions, to discover their mistakes, to set their ideas in order; he accustomed them to rectify their errors themselves, and from all this he obtained excellent material for his books.
For those more especially intended for the education of girls he took counsel with his daughter Antonia, inviting her collaboration, begging her to suggest every aspect of the matter that occurred to her; for instance, in respect of the chemistry of the household, "where exact science should shed its light upon a host of facts relating to domestic economy" (5/8.), from the washing of clothes to the making of a stew.
Even now, to his despair, although freed from the cares of school life, he was always almost wholly without leisure to devote himself to his chosen subjects.
It was at this period above all that he felt so "lonely, abandoned, struggling against misfortune; and before one can philosophize one has to live." (5/9.)
And his incessant labour was aggravated by a bitter disappointment. In the year of Mill's death Fabre was dismissed from his post as conservator of the Requien Museum, which he had held in spite of his departure from Avignon, going thither regularly twice a week to acquit himself of his duties. The municipality, working in the dark, suddenly dismissed him without explanation. To Fabre this dismissal was infinitely bitter; "a sweeper-boy would have been treated with as much ceremony." (5/10.) What afflicted him most was not the undeserved slight of the dismissal, but his unspeakable regret at quitting those beloved vegetable collections, "amassed with such love" by Requien, who was his friend and master, and by Mill and himself; and the thought that he would henceforth perhaps be unable to save these precious but perishable things from oblivion, or terminate the botanical geography of Vaucluse, on which he had been thirty years at work!
For this reason, when there was some talk of establishing an agronomic station at Avignon, and of appointing him director, he was at first warmly in favour of the idea. (5/11.) Already he foresaw a host of fascinating experiments, of the highest practical value, conducted in the peace and leisure and security of a fixed appointment. It is indeed probable that in so vast a field he would have demonstrated many valuable truths, fruitful in practical results; he was certainly meant for such a task, and he would have performed it with genuine personal satisfaction. He had already exerted his ingenuity by trying to develop, among the children of the countryside, a taste for agriculture, which he rightly considered the logical complement of the primary school, and which is based upon all the sciences which he himself had studied, probed, taught, and popularized.
It will be remembered how patiently he devoted himself for twelve years to the study of madder, multiplying his researches, and applying himself not only to extracting the colouring principle, but also to indicating means whereby adulteration and fraud might be detected.
He had published memoirs of great importance dealing with entomology in its relations to agriculture. Impressed with the importance of this little world, he suggested valuable remedies, means of preservation; which were all the more logical in that the destruction of insects, if it is to be efficacious, must be based not upon a gross empiricism, but on a previous study of their social life and their habits.
With what patience he observed the terribly destructive weevils, and those formidable moths with downy wings, which fly without sound of a night, and whose depredations have often been valued at millions of francs! How meticulously he has recorded the conditions which favour or check the development of those parasitic fungi whose mortal blemishes are seen on buds and flowers, on the green shoots and clusters that promise a prosperous vintage!
But then he became anxious. Was it all worth the sacrifice of his liberty? "Would he not suffer a thousand annoyances from pretentious nobodies?" for as things were, all ideas of again "enregimenting" himself "filled him with horror." (5/12.)
Slowly, however, the first instalment of the work which he had spent nearly twenty-five years in planning, creating, and polishing, began to take shape. At the end of the year 1878 he was able to assemble a sufficient number of studies to form material for what was to be the first volume of his "Souvenirs entomologiques." (A selection of which forms "Social Life in the Insect World" (T. Fisher Unwin, 1912).)
Let us stop for a moment to consider this first book, whose publication constitutes a truly historical date, not only in the career of Fabre, but in the annals of universal science. It was at once the foundation and the keystone of the marvellous edifice which we shall watch unfolding and increasing, but to which the future was in reality to add nothing essential. The cardinal ideas as to instinct and evolution, the necessity of experimenting in the psychology of animals, and the harmonic laws of the conservation of the individual, are here already expounded in their final and definite form. This fruitful and decisive year brought Fabre a great grief. He lost his son Jules, that one of all his children whom he seems most ardently to have loved.
He was a youth of great promise, "all fire, all flame"; of a serious nature; an exquisite being, of a precocious intelligence, whose rare aptitudes both for science and literature were truly extraordinary. Such too was the subtlety of his senses that by handling no matter what plant, with his eyes closed, he could recognize and define it merely by the sense of touch. This delightful companion of his father's studies had scarcely passed his fifteenth year when death removed him. A terrible void was left in his heart, which was never filled. Thirty years later the least allusion to this child, however tactful, which recalled this dear memory to his mind, would still wring his heart, and his whole body would be shaken by his sobs. As always, work was his refuge and consolation; but this terrible blow shattered his health, until then so robust. In the midst of this disastrous winter he fell seriously ill. He was stricken with pneumonia, which all but carried him off, and every one gave him up for lost. However, he recovered, and issued from his convalescence as though regenerated, and with strength renewed he attacked the next stage of his labours.
But what are the most fruitful resolutions, and what poor playthings are we in the hands of the unexpected! A vulgar incident of every-day life had sufficed to make Fabre decide to break openly with the University, and to leave Avignon. The secret motive of his departure from Orange was scarcely more solid. His new landlord concluded one day, either from cupidity or stupidity, to lop most ferociously the two magnificent rows of plane-trees which formed a shady avenue before his house, in which the birds piped and warbled in the spring, and the cicadae chorused in the summer. Fabre could not endure this massacre, this barbarous mutilation, this crime against nature. Hungry for peace and quiet, the enjoyment of a dwelling-place could no longer content him; at all costs he must own his own home.
So, having won the modest ransom of his deliverance, he waited no longer, but quitted the cities for ever; retiring to Sérignan, to the peaceful obscurity of a tiny hamlet, and this quiet corner of the earth had henceforth all his heart and soul in keeping.