in the enchanted atmosphere of southern Europe when suddenly at Avignon
Harriett Mill was carried off by a violent illness. (Mill retired in 1858,
when the government of India passed to the Crown. He had married Mrs. John
Taylor in 1851. [Tr.])

>From that time the philosopher's horizon was suddenly contracted to the
limit of those places whence had vanished the adored companion and the
beneficent genius who had been the sole charm of his entire existence.
Overwhelmed with grief, he acquired a small country house in one of the
least frequented parts of the suburbs of Avignon, close to the cemetery
where the beloved dead was laid to rest for ever. A silent alley of planes
and mulberry-trees led to the threshold, which was shaded by the delicate
foliage of a myrtle. All about he had planted a dense hedge of hawthorn,
cypress, and arborvitae, above which, from the vantage of a small terrace,
built, under his orders, at the level of the first floor, he could see, day
by day and at all hours, the white tomb of his wife, and a little ease his
grief.

Thus he cloistered himself, "living in memory," having no companion but the
daughter of his wife; trying to console himself by work, recapitulating his
life, the story of which he has told in his remarkable "Memoirs." (4/28.)

Fabre paid a few visits to this Thebaïd. A solitary such as Mill had become
could be attracted only by a man of his temper, in whom he found, if not an
affinity of nature, at least tastes like his own, and immense learning, as
great as his. For Mill also was versed in all the branches of human
knowledge: not only had he meditated on the high problems of history and
political economy, but he had also probed all branches of science:
mathematics, physics, and natural history. It was above all botany which
served them as a bond of union, and they were often seen to set forth on a