Note 22 — Chapter XIX · FABRE’S WRITINGS
Bernard Miall translation
As a boy [writes Fabre] I was always an ardent reader; but the refinements of a well-balanced style hardly interested me: I did not understand them. A good deal later, when close upon fifteen, I began vaguely to see that words have a physiognomy of their own. Some pleased me better than others by the distinctness of their meaning and the resonance of their rhythm; they produced a clearer image in my mind; after their fashion, they gave me a picture of the objects described. Coloured by its adjective and vivified by its verb, the name became a living reality: what it said I saw. And thus, gradually, was the magic of words revealed to me, when the chances of my undirected reading placed a few easy standard pages in my way.22