which all but carried him off, and every one gave him up for lost. However,
he recovered, and issued from his convalescence as though regenerated, and
with strength renewed he attacked the next stage of his labours.

But what are the most fruitful resolutions, and what poor playthings are we
in the hands of the unexpected! A vulgar incident of every-day life had
sufficed to make Fabre decide to break openly with the University, and to
leave Avignon. The secret motive of his departure from Orange was scarcely
more solid. His new landlord concluded one day, either from cupidity or
stupidity, to lop most ferociously the two magnificent rows of plane-trees
which formed a shady avenue before his house, in which the birds piped and
warbled in the spring, and the cicadae chorused in the summer. Fabre could
not endure this massacre, this barbarous mutilation, this crime against
nature. Hungry for peace and quiet, the enjoyment of a dwelling-place could
no longer content him; at all costs he must own his own home.

So, having won the modest ransom of his deliverance, he waited no longer,
but quitted the cities for ever; retiring to Sérignan, to the peaceful
obscurity of a tiny hamlet, and this quiet corner of the earth had
henceforth all his heart and soul in keeping.


CHAPTER 6. THE HERMITAGE.

Goethe has somewhere written: Whosoever would understand the poet and his
work should visit the poet's country.

Let us, then, the latest of many, make the pilgrimage which all those who
are fascinated by the enigma of nature will accomplish later, with the same
piety that has led so many and so fervent admirers to the dwelling of