In exchange for the mystery we have truth, which excites other emotions and ideas.  Moreover, the mystery is only pushed further back.  We cannot tell what the elements really are; they will never be more than symbols to us, and all nature at bottom will ever remain a mystery to us:  an organised illusion.  Think, too, of the innumerable worlds amongst the stars, and the eternity of the past and future.  Whether 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 picking to pieces now?”