pent-star's egg and the birth of that expiring wan- 

 derer's parent sun. 



I suppose that I am as emotionally responsive to 

 the sight of the scintillant midnight heavens as are 

 other average humans. Yet, in that vast panorama 

 of tremendous beauty, wherein all is scaled in 

 magnitudes that the mind is powerless to grasp, 

 and therefore beholds only with admiration and 

 dismay, I see nothing therein that is intrinsically 

 more wonderful than in the microcosm on my 

 work-bench. Surely, in the last analysis, Nature is 

 not less ingenious in the molding of a larva than 

 in the modeling of a planet. Let the poets and the 

 philosophers have the heavens for their sentimen- 

 tal transcendencies; I am content to thrill over 

 the Riddle of Existence as I contemplate the orbit 

 of a polar body within a single cell. For here, also, 

 superlatives may abound. Here are the infinitely 

 beautiful, the infinitely little, and the infinitely 

 near. And for me it holds another attraction greater 

 still; it is the one enchantment that holds me 

 spellbound to the microscope long hours after my 

 enthusiastic wonder at other aspects of the cell has 

 waned. It is Life. Of all manifestations of matter 

 it is the most beautiful, the most mysterious, the 



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