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 its eyelid.  I hope Number Seven saw it.  He is one of the two men at our table who most need the tender looks and tones of a woman.  The Professor and I are hors de combat; the Counsellor is busy with his cases and his ambitions; the Doctor is probably in love with a microscope, and flirting with pathological specimens; but Number Seven and the Tutor are, I fear, both suffering from that worst of all famines, heart-hunger.

Do you remember that Number Seven said he never wrote a line of “poetry” in his life, except once when he was suffering from temporary weakness of body and mind?  That is because he is a poet.  If he had not been one, he would very certainly have taken to tinkling rhymes.  What should you think of the probable musical genius of a young man who was particularly fond of jingling a set of sleigh-bells?  Should you expect him to turn out a Mozart or a Beethoven?  Now, I think I recognize the poetical instinct in Number Seven, however imperfect may be its expression, and however he may be run away with at times by fantastic