bly loathed them; and yet they
had to get up every morning and spend the whole day nursing bugs. I
picture them, yawning and snarling over the tedious experiments, and
listening desperately to Fabre's coleopterous chatter. The members of
every famous man's family ought to give us their side of it. I want more
about Tolstoy by Mrs. Tolstoy. And a Life of Milton by his daughters.
That picture of those unfortunate daughters, looking so sweet and
devoted, taking the blind poet's dictation, is--must be--deceptive. They
were probably wanting to go off upstairs, all the time, and try new ways
of doing their hair; or go out and talk their heads off with other
girls, or look in shop windows: anything but take down old Mr. Milton's
poetry all day. They didn't know their papa was a classic: they just
thought that he was the longest-winded papa in their street. I have no
warrant for saying this, I may add. Except that it's human nature....

Fabre has his good points. He is imaginative and dramatic, and yet has a
passion for truth. He is a philosopher, an artist. And above all he is
not sentimental. He is fond of his insects, but he never is foolishly
fond. And sometimes the good old soul is as callous as can be toward
caterpillars. He shows no more bowels towards caterpillars than do his
own wasps. Take, for instance, that experiment when he kept some on the
march for eight days, watching them interestedly as they died of
exhaustion. Or his delight at the way caterpillars are eaten by the
Eumenes wasp.

This wasp shuts its egg up in a large, prison-like cell, with a pile of
live caterpillars beside it, to serve as its food, first half-paralyzing
these victims so they will keep still. Alive but unable to move, the
caterpillars lie there till the grub hatches out. (Dead caterpillars
wouldn't do because this little grub loves fresh meat.)

The grub, hanging by a thread from the ceiling, now begins having
dinner. "Head downward it is digging into the limp belly of one of the
caterpillars," says Fabre. "The caterpillars grow restless," he adds.
(There's a fine brutal touch!) The grub thereupon, to Fabre's delight,
climbs back up its thread. It is only a baby; it's tender; and when
those wretched caterpillars get to thrashing around, they might hurt the
sweet infant. Not till "peace" is restored, Fabre adds, does Baby dare
to come down again. Hideous infantile epicure! It takes another good
juicy bite.

And if its dinner moans again,