Note 1 — Chapter XIX · FABRE’S WRITINGS
Bernard Miall translation
I dare not believe in such a future for you. You will pass into strange hands, O my old friend; you will become a bedside-table laden with bowl after bowl of linseed-tea, until, decrepit, rickety, and broken-down, you are chopped up to feed the flames for a brief moment under the simmering saucepan. You will vanish in smoke to join my labours in that other smoke, oblivion, the ultimate resting-place of our vain agitations.1