Why, after this brilliant success, was Fabre not tempted to enter himself
for a fellowship, which would later in his career have averted so many
disappointments? It was doubtless because he felt, obscurely, that his
ideal future lay along other lines, and that he would have been taking a
wrong turning. Despite all the solicitations which were addressed to him he
would think of nothing but "his beloved studies in natural history" (4/2.);
he feared to lose precious time in preparing himself for a competitive
examination; "to compromise by such labour, which he felt would be
fruitless" (4/3.), the studies which he had already commenced, and the
inquiries already carried out in Corsica. He was busy with his first
original labours, the theses which he was preparing with a view to his
doctorate in natural science, "which might one day open the doors of a
faculty for him, far more easily than would a fellowship and its
mathematics." (4/4.)

At heart he was utterly careless of dignities and degrees. He worked only
to learn, not to attain and follow up a settled calling. What he hoped
above all was to succeed in devoting all his leisure to those marvellous
natural sciences in which he could vaguely foresee studies full of
interest; something animated and vital; a thousand fascinating themes, and
an atmosphere of poetry.

His genius, as yet invisible, was ripening in obscurity, but was ready to
come forth; he lacked only the propitious circumstance which would allow
him to unfold his wings.

He was seeking them in vain when a volume by Léon Dufour, the famous
entomologist, who then lived in the depths of the Landes, fell by chance
into his hands, and lit the first spark of that beacon which was presently