that I was privileged to become a fisher of facts — 

 not always an expert one, perhaps, as sometimes 

 these facts are extremely elusive. But always the 

 sport is fascinating. No matter how insignificant 

 the haul may be, it has elements of rare beauty. 

 Not seldom is it that a vision of Truth is caught in 

 the magic net of Science, as starlight is caught on 

 the shuddering crests of a breeze-tossed sea, its 

 reflection quickly fading into the Night of the 

 Unknowable — leaving merely a memory, only a 

 haunting recollection of that fleeting glimpse of a 

 loveliness indescribable . . . 



I see it now, as I saw it years ago on a winter 

 night in a Chicago pawnshop window, its bright 

 brass flashing under the cold gleam of an electric 

 arc outside, catching my attention as I passed. I 

 paused and appraised with understanding eye its 

 every detail. Never had I possessed a microscope; 

 never had I even looked into one of more than a 

 very moderate power — and this occasion was in 

 my childhood school-days. But I was not ignorant 

 of the theory and construction and use of the mi- 

 croscope. My passion at that time for natural sci- 

 ence as it had been revealed under the simple 

 pocket magnifier (the sole optical accessory I then 



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