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Here I offer to the public the life of Jean-Henri Fabre; at once an admiring commentary upon his work and an act of pious homage, such as ought to be offered, while he lives, to the great naturalist who is even to-day so little known. Hitherto it was not easy to speak of Henri Fabre with exactitude.
If there is a "spirit" of the hive, the insect also has its morality and the wasp's nest its "law," and the conduct of its inmates, horrible though it may seem to Fabre, is doubtless only a submission to certain exigencies of that universal law which makes nature a "savage foster-mother who knows nothing of pity."
"Insect Life", by J.H. Fabre, translated by the author of "Mademoiselle Mori": chapters 1 and 2; and "The Life and Love of the Insect", by J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chapters 1 to 4. Cf. "Insect Life": chapters 6 to 12.
But, inquires Fabre, do you say that having profited by a fortuitous act, which has turned out to be favourable to them, they have perfected themselves by contact with their elders, "thanks to the imitation of example," and that they have thus crystallized their experiences, which have been transmitted by heredity thereby fixed in the race? How much we should prefer that it were so!
Do you know the history of that terrible hussy and her stupid husband? Perhaps not entirely; it is a treat I am keeping for you." The only subject which is hardly ever mentioned during these evenings at Sérignan is politics, although Fabre, strange as it may seem, was one year appointed to sit on the municipal council.
He early became blind from excessive study and conducted his scientific work thereafter with the aid of his wife. Fabre often refers to him as the Wizard of the Landes. Cf. "The Life of the Spider", by J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chapter 1; and "The Life of the Fly": chapter 1. Ah, fond illusions, what has come of you?
Such is the thrilling mystery of which Fabre discovered the key. With inconceivable ingenuity, the victim is seized and thrown to the ground, and the wasp plunges her sting, not at random into the body, which would involve the risk of death, but at determined points, exactly into the seat of those invisible nervous ganglions whose mechanism commands the various movements of the creature.
To this ungrateful task ungrateful, but in reality pleasurable, so strongly had he the vocation, the feeling, and the genius of the teacher Fabre applied himself thenceforth with all his heart, and for nine years never lifted his hand.
It is seen at last to be one of the "fundamental characteristics of the species," which should be recognized by all students. Even insects, which Fabre has described with such a wealth of detail, small and remote as they are from ourselves, exhibit wonderful phenomena of maternal love.
To the gaze of Duke, still blurred by slumber, this monstrosity was all of one piece the bone seemed a living part of it. What he saw was like those interesting insect-faces that the magnifying glass reveals to great M. Fabre. It was impossible for Duke to maintain the philosophic calm of M. Fabre, however; there was no magnifying glass between him and this spined and spiky face.
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