"her cheek blooming with animation," collaborated in some of his most
famous observations (6/6.); an unobtrusive figure, a soul full of devotion
and resignation, heroic and tender. Having in vain ventured into the world,
she had returned to the beloved roof at Sérignan, unable to part from the
father she so admired and adored.

Later, when the shadow of age grew denser and heavier, the young wife and
the younger children of the famous poet-entomologist took part in his
labours also; they gave him their material assistance, their hands, their
eyes, their hearing, their feet; he in the midst of them was the
conceiving, reasoning, interpreting, and directing brain.

>From this time forward the biography of Fabre becomes simplified, and
remains a statement of his inner life. For thirty years he never emerged
from his horizon of mountains and his garden of shingle; he lived wholly
absorbed in domestic affections and the tasks of a naturalist. None the
less, he still exercised his vocation as teacher, for neither pure science
nor poetry was sufficient to nourish his mind, and he was still Professor
Fabre, untiringly pursuing his programme of education, although no longer
applying himself thereto exclusively.

This long active period was also the most silent period of his life,
although not an hour, not a minute of his many days was left unoccupied.

In the first few months at his new home he resumed his hymn to labour.

"You will learn in your turn," he writes to his son Émile, "you will learn,
I hope, that we are never so happy as when work does not leave us a
moment's repose. To act is to live." (6/7.)