What a stupendous alphabet to decipher, of which we have as yet only commenced to read the first few letters! When we are able to read it almost entirely, when observers are more numerous and have concerted their efforts, mutually illuminating, completing and correcting one another, then, and then only, we shall succeed, if not in resolving some of those high problems which have never ceased to interest mankind, at least in seizing some reflected knowledge of ourselves, and in seeing a little farther into the kingdom of the mind. CHAPTER 15. THE EVENINGS AT SÉRIGNAN. But it will doubtless be long before a new Fabre will resume, with the same heroic ardour, the life of solitary labour, varied only by a few austere recreations. Rising at six o'clock, he would first of all pace the tiles of his kitchen, breakfast in hand; so imperious in him was the need of action, if his mind was to work successfully, that even at this moment of morning meditation his body must already be in movement. Then, after many turns among the bushes of the enclosure, all irised with drops of dew which were already evaporating, he went straight to his cell: that is, to the silence of his laboratory. There, in unsociable silence, invisible to all, he worked hard and steadily until noon; pursuing an observation or carrying out some experiment, or recording what he saw or what he had seen the day before, or re-drafting his records in their final form. How many who have come hither to knock upon the door in these morning hours, or to ring at the little gate, silent as the tomb, which gives upon the private path frequented only by foot-passengers on their way to the fields, have undertaken a fruitless journey! But without such discipline would it have been possible to accomplish such a task as his? At last he would leave his workroom; jaded, exhausted by the excessive intensity of his work, "face pale and features drawn." (15/1.)