not so very large, but fenced in, to avoid the drawbacks of a
public way; an abandoned, barren, sun scorched bit of land,
favored by thistles and by wasps and bees. Here, without fear of
being troubled by the passersby, I could consult the Ammophila and
the Sphex [two digger or hunting wasps] and engage in that
difficult conversation whose questions and answers have experiment
for their language; here, without distant expeditions that take up
my time, without tiring rambles that strain my nerves, I could
contrive my plans of attack, lay my ambushes and watch their
effects at every hour of the day. Hoc erat in votis. Yes, this
was my wish, my dream, always cherished, always vanishing into the
mists of the future.

And it is no easy matter to acquire a laboratory in the open
fields, when harassed by a terrible anxiety about one's daily
bread. For forty years have I fought, with steadfast courage,
against the paltry plagues of life; and the long-wished-for
laboratory has come at last. What it has cost me in perseverance
and relentless work I will not try to say. It has come; and, with
it--a more serious condition--perhaps a little leisure. I say
perhaps, for my leg is still hampered with a few links of the
convict's chain.

The wish is realized. It is a little late, O my pretty insects! I
greatly fear that the peach is offered to me when I am beginning
to have no teeth wherewith to eat it. Yes, it is a little late:
the wide horizons of the outset have shrunk into a low and
stifling canopy, more and more straitened day by day. Regretting
nothing in the past, save those whom I have lost; regretting
nothing, not even my first youth; hoping nothing either, I have