The Star Dreamer by Egerton Castle

O, who shall tell what deep inspirèd things Thou speakest me, when, tranquil as the skies, O Night, I stand in shadow of thy wings, And with thy robe of suns fulfil mine eyes! -E. SWEETMAN (_The Star-Gazer_).

It is no unusual thing for a man whom human love has betrayed and left bare; whose life some violent human passion has robbed of all savour, to turn for consolation to the things of heaven. This is what, in course of time, had befallen Sir David Cheveral, when his youthful dream of happiness had fled before a bitter awakening. But the heaven to which he had turned was not that "Realm beyond the Stars" pictured by the faith of ages, but that actual region above and about our globe, as mysterious a world, perhaps, and as little heeded by the bulk of mankind; that immensity peopled by other suns and earths, ruled by a harmony so vast and grandiose that the thought of centuries is but beginning to grasp it; that universe of space and time, as unfathomable to our finite groping senses and as appealing to imagination and reason both as any realm of eternity pictured by the poets of any creed!