advance.

Then, filled with disgust, the "irregular person" shook off the yoke and
retired to Orange. At first he took shelter where he could, anxious only to
avoid as far as possible any contact with his fellow-men; then, having
finally discovered a dwelling altogether in conformity with his tastes, he
moved to the outskirts of the city, and settled at the edge of the fields,
in the middle of a great meadow, in an isolated house, pleasant and
commodious, connected with the road to Camaret by a superb avenue of tall
and handsome plane-trees. This hermitage in some respects recalled that of
Mill in the outskirts of Avignon; and thence his eyes, embracing a vast
horizon, from the pediment of the ancient theatre to the hills of Sérignan,
could already distinguish the promised land.


CHAPTER 5. A GREAT TEACHER.

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--