The following episode is illuminating. Our entomologist was interested, as a scientist, in discovering whether the bite of the Black-bellied Tarantula, deadly to insects, [[202]]was dangerous to other animals, and to man, or whether it was not, in the latter case, a negligible accident. He therefore experimented upon a bird:
I make a Tarantula bite the leg of a young, well-fledged Sparrow, ready to leave the nest. A drop of blood flows: the wounded spot is surrounded by a reddish circle, changing to purple. The bird almost immediately loses the use of its leg, which drags, with the toes doubled in; it hops upon the other. Apart from this, the patient does not seem to trouble much about his hurt; his appetite is good. My daughters feed him on flies, bread-crumb, apricot-pulp. He is sure to get well, he will recover his strength; the poor victim of the curiosity of science will be restored to liberty. This is the wish, the intention of us all. Twelve hours later, the hope of a cure increases; the invalid takes nourishment readily; he clamours for it, if we keep him waiting. But the leg still drags. I set this down to a temporary paralysis which will soon disappear. Two days after, he refuses his food. Wrapping himself in his stoicism and his rumpled feathers, the Sparrow hunches into a ball, now motionless, now twitching. My girls take him in the hollow of their hands and warm him with their breath. The spasms become more frequent. A gasp proclaims that all is over. The bird is dead.
There was a certain coolness among us at the evening meal. I read mute reproaches, because [[203]]of my experiment, in the eyes of my home-circle; I read an unspoken accusation of cruelty all around me. The death of the unfortunate Sparrow had saddened the whole family. I myself was not without some remorse of conscience: the poor result achieved seemed to me too dearly bought. I am not made of the stuff of those who, without turning a hair, rip up live Dogs to find out nothing in particular.[1]
Is there not something touching in the simplicity of the father who, with such good will, becomes a child with his children; and in the compassionate kindness of the man who cannot without grieving witness the death of a Sparrow? Fabre indeed possessed in no common degree that quality which, according to Saint Augustine, is the foremost characteristic of spiritual beauty and, according to the poet of the animals, constitutes the essential nobility of the French mind:
“La bonté, c’est le fond de tout âme française.”
(Kindness, the base of every Frenchman’s mind.)
It was, at all events, the basis of his own. And we are conscious of a fundamental emotion, an intimate reprobation, that ascends from the depths of his being to oppose all ideas of violence and hatred. [[204]]
It does not surprise us to see the serene kindliness of our compatriot veiling itself in dejection and becoming almost pugnacious when confronted by the melancholy exploits of force; for how could he remain unaffected before the stupendous barbarism and iniquity of 1870?
At the time of his retirement to Orange, Fabre was already the father of five children: Antonia, Aglaé, Claire, Emile, and Jules, who, in course of time, were joined by three others, Paul, Anna, and Marie-Pauline.
It was not with Fabre as with some intellectuals, whose thoughts and life remain almost strangers to the home which they establish one day as though in a moment of distraction, and who divide their lives into two parts—one being devoted to their professional labours and the other reserved for the exigencies of family life.
Like the pagès of his native country who live surrounded by their wives and children, sharing their tasks and breaking bread with them, Fabre loved to make his family share in his work as well as in his leisure. He too was a worker in the fields, and was persuaded that, just as there can never be too many hands at work to extract their wealth, so there could never be too many eyes at [[205]]work contemplating their wonders. He made all his children, little as well as big, boys and girls, so many collaborators in his researches, and he loved to scatter their names about the pages of his books. And it is not the least charm of the Souvenirs that we meet in them, at every step, the father hand in hand with his children. Passing to and fro, like a refreshing breeze that blows through the scientific aridities of the subject, we feel a twofold current of sympathy flowing from the father to his children and the naturalist to his insects.