aded or empty. We are used to force in the
muscles of horses, in the expansive potency of steam, but here we have
force stripped stark naked,--nothing but a filament to cover its
nudity,--and yet showing its might in efforts that would task the
working-beam of a ponderous steam-engine. I am thankful that in an age
of cynicism I have not lost my reverence. Perhaps you would wonder to
see how some very common sights impress me. I always take off my hat if
I stop to speak to a stone-cutter at his work. "Why?" do you ask me?
Because I know that his is the only labor that is likely to endure. A
score of centuries has not effaced the marks of the Greek's or the
Roman's chisel on his block of marble. And now, before this new
manifestation of that form of cosmic vitality which we call electricity,
I feel like taking the posture of the peasants listening to the Angelus.
How near the mystic effluence of mechanical energy brings us to the
divine source of all power and motion! In the old mythology, the right
hand of Jove held and sent forth the lightning. So, in the record of the
Hebrew prophets, did the right hand of Jehovah cast forth and direct it.
Was Nahum thinking of our far-off time when he wrote, "The chariots shall
rage in the streets, they shall justle one against another in the broad
ways: they shall seem like torches, they shall run like the lightnings"?

Number Seven had finished reading his paper. Two bright spots in his
cheeks showed that he had felt a good deal in writing it, and the flush
returned as he listened to his own thoughts. Poor old fellow! The
"cracked Teacup" of our younger wits,--not yet come to their full human
sensibilities,--the "crank" of vulgar tongues, the eccentric, the seventh
son of a seventh son, too often made the butt of thoughtless pleasantry,
was, after all, a fellow-creature, with flesh and blood like the rest of
us. The wild freaks of his fancy did not hurt us, nor did they prevent
him from seeing many things justly, and perhaps sometimes more vividly
and acutely than if he were as sound as the dullest of us.

The teaspoons tinkled loudly all round the table, as he finished reading.
The Mistress caught her breath. I was afraid she was going to sob, but
she took it out in vigorous stirring of her tea. Will you believe that I
saw Number Five, with a sweet, approving smile on her face all the time,
brush her cheek with her hand-kerchief? There must have been a tear
stealing from beneath it