e all discomfited and leave the
Spider in peace.

CHAPTER IV: THE NARBONNE LYCOSA: THE BURROW

Michelet {23} has told us how, as a printer's apprentice in a cellar, he
established amicable relations with a Spider. At a certain hour of the
day, a ray of sunlight would glint through the window of the gloomy
workshop and light up the little compositor's case. Then his
eight-legged neighbour would come down from her web and take her share of
the sunshine on the edge of the case. The boy did not interfere with
her; he welcomed the trusting visitor as a friend and as a pleasant
diversion from the long monotony. When we lack the society of our fellow-
men, we take refuge in that of animals, without always losing by the
change.

I do not, thank God, suffer from the melancholy of a cellar: my solitude
is gay with light and verdure; I attend, whenever I please, the fields'
high festival, the Thrushes' concert, the Crickets' symphony; and yet my
friendly commerce with the Spider is marked by an even greater devotion
than the young typesetter's. I admit her to the intimacy of my study, I
make room for her among my books, I set her in the sun on my
window-ledge, I visit her assiduously at her home, in the country. The
object of our relations is not to create a means of escape from the petty
worries of life, pin-pricks whereof I have my share like other men, a
very large share, indeed; I propose to submit to the Spider a host of
questions whereto, at times, she condescends to reply.

To what fair problems does not the habit of frequenting her give rise! To
set them forth worthily, the marvellous art which the little printer was
to acquire were not too much. One needs the pen of a Michelet; and I
have but a rough, blunt pencil. Let us try, nevertheless: even when
poorly clad, truth is still beautiful.

I will therefore once more take up the story of the Spider's instinct, a
story of which the preceding chapters have given but a very rough idea.
Since I wrote those earlier essays, my field of observation has been
greatly extended. My notes have been enriched by new and most remarkable
facts. It is right that I should employ them for the purpose of a more
detailed biography.

The exigencies of order and clearness expose me, it is true, to
occasional repetitions. This is inevitable when one has to marshal in an
harmonious whole a thousand items culled from day to day, often
unexpectedly, and bearing no relation