er we look into the
depths of space beyond the reach of telescope and microscope, or
backward and forward along the vistas of time, we shall find ourselves
surrounded with an impenetrable mystery in which the imagination is free
to rove.

Science, far from destroying, will foster and develop poetry. It is the
part of the scientific to serve the poetical spirit by providing it with
fresh matter. The poet will take the truth discovered by the man of
science, and purify it from vulgar associations, or stamp it with a
beautiful and ideal form.

Consider the vast horizons opened to the vision of the poet by the
investigations of science and the doctrine of evolution. At present the
spirit of science is perhaps more active than the spirit of poetry, but
we are passing through an unsettled to a settled period. Tennyson was
the voice of the transition; but the singer of evolution is to come, and
after him the poet of truth.

If we allowed the scientific to drive away the poetical spirit, we
should have to go in quest of it again, as the forlorn Psyche went in
search of Eros. It is necessary to the proper balance and harmony of our
minds, to the purification of our feelings, and the right enjoyment of
life. Poetry expresses the inmost soul of man, and science can never
take its place. Religion apart, what does the present age of science
need more than poetry? What would benefit a hard-headed, matter-of-fact
man of science like Professor Gazen if not the arts of the sublime and
beautiful--if not a poetical companion--such as Miss Carmichael?

* * * * *

Thus, after a long rambling meditation, I had come back to my bachelor
friend and the fair American.

"Yes," thought I, rather uneasily, I must confess, for I could not
disguise from myself the fact that I was taken with her, "Gazen and she
are not an ill-matched pair by any means. They are alike in many
respects, and a contrast in others. They have common ground in their
love and aptitude for science; yet each has something which the other
lacks. She has poetry and sentiment for instance, but he--well, I'm
afraid that if he ever had any it has all evaporated by this time. On
the other hand, she"--but it puzzled me to think of any good quality
that Miss Carmichael did not possess, and I began to consider that she
would be throwing herself away upon him. "They seem to get on well
together, however--monstrously well. I wonder what star he is pic