and so positive that it seemed to seek support in an intense grasp of
things and beings--two gifts well-nigh incompatible, and often mutually
destructive--already it knew, not only the love of study and a passion for
the truth, but the sovereign delight of feeling everything and
understanding everything.

It was under these conditions--that is, amid the rudest privations--that he
ventured to enter a competitive examination for a bursary at the École
Normale Primaire of Avignon; and his will-power realized this first miracle
of his career--he straightway obtained the highest place.

In those days, when education had barely reached the lower classes, the
instruction given in the primary normal school was still of the most
summary. Spelling, arithmetic, and geometry practically exhausted its
resources. As for natural history, a poor despised science, almost unknown,
no one dreamed of it, and no one learned or taught it; the syllabus ignored
it, because it led to nothing. For Fabre only, notwithstanding, it was his
fixed idea, his constant preoccupation, and "while the dictation class was
busy around him, he would examine, in the secrecy of his desk, the sting of
a wasp or the fruit of the oleander," and intoxicate himself with poetry.
(1/9.) His pedagogic studies suffered thereby, and the first part of his
stay at the normal school was by no means extremely brilliant. In the
middle of his second year he was declared idle, and even marked as an
insufficient pupil and of mediocre intelligence. Stung to the quick, he
begged as a favour that he should be given the opportunity of following the
third year's course in the six months that remained, and he made such an
effort that at the end of the year he victoriously won his superior
certificate. (1/10.)

A year in advance of the regulation studies, his curiosity might now