s souvenirs gathered by flitting Summer
tourists prattle of glimpses of wild, towering fastnesses, where strewn
bones of martyr pioneers whiten as monuments of failure. In the guise
of a green-kirtled enchantress, with wild poppies and primroses
wreathed above her starry eyes, Science was luring him through the
borderland of her kingdom, toward that dark, chill, central realm
where, transformed as a gnome, she clutches her votaries, plunges into
the primeval abyss-the matrix of time--and sets them the Egyptian task
of weighing, analyzing the Titanic "potential" energy, the
infinitesimal atomic engines, the "kinetic" force, the chemical motors,
the subtle intangible magnetic currents, whereby in the thundering,
hissing, whirling laboratory of Nature, nebulae grow into astral and
solar systems; the prophetic floral forms of crystals become, after
disintegration, instinct with organic vegetable germs,--and the Sphinx
Life--blur-eyed--deaf, blind, sets forth on her slow evolutionary
journey through the wastes of aeons; mounting finally into that throne
of rest fore-ordained through groping ages, crowned with the soul of
Shakspeare, sceptred with the brain of Newton.

Like a child with some Chinese puzzle far beyond the grasp of his
smooth, uncreased baby brain, Prince played in unfeigned delight with
his problem: "Given the Universe, to explain the origin and permanence
of Law," without any assistance from the exploded hypothesis of a law
maker. Equipped with hammer, chisel, microscope, spectroscope and
crucibles, he essayed the solution, undismayed by memories of his
classics, of Sisyphus and Tantalus; seeing only the nodding poppies,
the gilded primroses of his dancing goddess.

Will he discover ere long, that a lesser riddle would have been to
stand in the manufactory of the Faubourg St. Marcel, and abolishing the
pattern of the designers, the directing touch of Lebrun, the restraint
of the heddle, demand that the blind, insensate automatic warp and
woof should originate, design and trace as well as mechanically execute
the weaving of the marvellous tapestries?

"Prince. I learn from Kittie that you visited the penitentiary last
week."

"Yes. I could not resist the curiosity to see the author of my recent
misfortunes; but I regret the sight. I am haunted by the painful
recurrence of that blanched, hopeless, beautiful face, which reminds me
of a pathetic picture I saw abroad--Charlotte Corday peering through
the b