I do not exactly remember at what period I started my museum which
absorbed so much of my time. Just above my Aunt Bertha's room there was
a tiny garret-chamber that I had taken possession of; the chief charm of
the place was the window that opened to the west, and commanded a view
of the ramparts and its old trees. The reddish spots in the distance,
that broke the uniform green of the meadows, were herds of wandering
oxen and cows. I had persuaded my mother to paper this attic room, and
she had covered its walls with a pinkish chamois paper which is still
there; she also put a what-not and some glass cases there. In these
latter I placed my butterflies which I looked upon as rare specimens; I
also arranged therein the birds'-nests that I had found in the woods of
Limoise; the shells I had gathered upon the shores of the Island, and
those others (brought from the colonies at an early time by unknown
ancestors) that I had found in the garret at the bottom of old chests
where they had lain for years and years, given over to dust and
darkness.
I spent many tranquil hours in this retreat contemplating the tropical
mother-of-pearl shells, and trying to image to myself the strange coasts
from which they had come.
A good old great uncle of mine, who was very fond of me, encouraged me
in these diversions. He was a physician, and in his youth he had lived
for a long time upon the coast of Africa; he had a collection of natural
history specimens almost as valuable and varied as any found in a city
museum. His wonderful things captivated me: the rare and exquisite
shells, amulets and wooden weapons that still retained their exotic
odor, with which I became so surfeited later, and indescribably
beautiful butterflies under glass enchanted me.
He lived in our neighborhood and I visited him often. To get to his
cabinets, it was necessary to go through his garden where thorn-apples
and cacti grew abundantly, and where they kept a gray parrot, brought
from Gaboon, whose vocabulary consisted of words learnt from the
negroes.
And when my old uncle spoke of Senegal, of Goree, and of Guinea,
the music of these names intoxicated me, and conveyed to me vaguely
something of the sad languor of the dark continent. My uncle predicted
that I would become a great naturalist,--but he was as mistaken as were
all those others who foretold my future; indeed he struck farther from
the centre than any one else; he did not understand that my liking for
natural history was no more than a temporary and erratic excursion of
my unformed mind; he could not know that the cold glass and the formal,
rigid arrangements of dead science had not power to hold me for long.