'Ah!' sighed Parkinson, 'I would give half of all I own in the world for the one gift of poetry.' 'What!' cried Osborne, staring in amazement at his host. 'Would you abandon science for literature if you had only to choose?' 'No.' Osborne looked perplexed, and said, with a faint smile,-- 'I did not think the muses and the sciences got on very well together.' 'On the contrary, they are inseparable.' George sat a little forward in his chair and said,-- 'I wish you would explain. I am most deeply interested. This is new to me. You are the first scientific man I have ever met.' 'There is nothing more simple. The vision of the poet is slow, long-drawn out, gradual in development, glorious. The vision of the man of science is instantaneously complete. The visions of "Allegro" and "Penseroso" dawned gradually on Milton. The images did not all rush in upon him at one moment. Do you not agree with me?' 'Yes. He thought of one and then he thought of another. Then he put them all together in a treasure-house, and made a present of a treasure-house to each member of posterity down to the last heart-beat of the last man.' Osborne's face flushed as his heart rose up in gratitude to the poet. '_But_,' said Parkinson, with strong emphasis on the word, 'when that intellectual giant, Newton, sat in his garden at Woolsthorpe watching from the earth, saw the great arm of gravitation dart his apples, he the great hand seize the apples and drag them to the ground. Then he saw other arms stretching from satellite to planet, from planet to sun, from sun to sun, until the whole firmament was traversed by arms, and all the heavenly bodies swung in secure order. _After_ this vision he took up mathematics, and optics, and astronomy, to prove the vision true; but he _saw_ before he tried to prove.' 'This is new to me--very new to me,' said Osborne, out of a profound reverie. 'I have not the poetic instinct; I can never fly, I must walk along on the sober earth. If I had the poetic faculty I should invent theories, discover facts.' 'You have a great admiration of Newton?' 'The greatest. I think he was the most marvellous philosopher the world ever saw. Bacon invented a noble philosophy, which some men were afraid of at the time--which some men are afraid of yet. Newton invented modern science, which some men were afraid of then--which no man is afraid of now, except--' 'Poets.' Osborne finished the sentence for him.