{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_1432/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_1432","id":"gutenberg_1432","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1432","summary":null,"tags":["Category: French Literature","Category: Novels","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","France -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction","French fiction -- Translations into English"],"text":"SERAPHITA\n\n\nBy Honore De Balzac\n\n\n\nTranslated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley\n\n\n\n                            DEDICATION\n\n  To Madame Eveline de Hanska, nee Comtesse Rzewuska.\n\n  Madame,--Here is the work which you asked of me. I am happy, in\n  thus dedicating it, to offer you a proof of the respectful\n  affection you allow me to bear you. If I am reproached for\n  impotence in this attempt to draw from the depths of mysticism a\n  book which seeks to give, in the lucid transparency of our\n  beautiful language, the luminous poesy of the Orient, to you the\n  blame! Did you not command this struggle (resembling that of\n  Jacob) by telling me that the most imperfect sketch of this\n  Figure, dreamed of by you, as it has been by me since childhood,\n  would still be something to you?\n\n  Here, then, it is,--that something. Would that this book could\n  belong exclusively to noble spirits, preserved like yours from\n  worldly pettiness by solitude! THEY would know how to give to it\n  the melodious rhythm that it lacks, which might have made it, in\n  the hands of a poet, the glorious epic that France still awaits.\n  But from me they must accept it as one of those sculptured\n  balustrades, carved by a hand of faith, on which the pilgrims\n  lean, in the choir of some glorious church, to think upon the end\n  of man.\n\n  I am, madame, with respect,\n  Your devoted servant,\n  De Balzac.\n\n\n\n\nSERAPHITA\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I. SERAPHITUS\n\n\nAs the eye glances over a map of the coasts of Norway, can the\nimagination fail to marvel at their fantastic indentations and serrated\nedges, like a granite lace, against which the surges of the North Sea\nroar incessantly? Who has not dreamed of the majestic sights to be seen\non those beachless shores, of that multitude of creeks and inlets and\nlittle bays, no two of them alike, yet all trackless abysses? We may\nalmost fancy that Nature took pleasure in recording by ineffaceable\nhieroglyphics the symbol of Norwegian life, bestowing on these coasts\nthe conformation of a fish\u2019s spine, fishery being the staple commerce of\nthe country, and well-nigh the only means of living of the hardy men who\ncling like tufts of lichen to the arid cliffs. Here, through fourteen\ndegrees of longitude, barely seven hundred thousand souls maintain\nexistence. Thanks to perils devoid of glory, to year-long snows which\nclothe the Norway peaks and guard them from profaning foot of traveller,\nthese sublime beauties are virgin still; they will be seen to harmonize\nwith human phenomena, also virgin--at least to poetry--which here took\nplace, the history of which it is our purpose to relate.\n\nIf one of these inlets, mere fissures to the eyes of the eider-ducks, is\nwide enough for the sea not to freeze between the prison-walls of\nrock against which it surges, the country-people call the little bay\na \u201cfiord,\u201d--a word which geographers of every nation have adopted into\ntheir respective languages. Though a certain resemblance exists\namong all these fiords, each has its own characteristics. The sea has\neverywhere forced its way as through a breach, yet the rocks about each\nfissure are diversely rent, and their tumultuous precipices defy the\nrules of geometric law. Here the scarp is dentelled like a saw; there\nthe narrow ledges barely allow the snow to lodge or the noble crests of\nthe Northern pines to spread themselves; farther on, some convulsion of\nNature may have rounded a coquettish curve into a lovely valley flanked\nin rising terraces with black-plumed pines. Truly we are tempted to call\nthis land the Switzerland of Ocean.\n\nMidway between Trondhjem and Christiansand lies an inlet called the\nStrom-fiord. If the Strom-fiord is not the loveliest of these rocky\nlandscapes, it has the merit of displaying the terrestrial grandeurs\nof Norway, and of enshrining the scenes of a history that is indeed\ncelestial.\n\nThe general outline of the Strom-fiord seems at first sight to be that\nof a funnel washed out by the sea. The passage which the waves have\nforced present to the eye an image of the eternal struggle between old\nOcean and the granite rock,--two creations of equal power, one through\ninertia, the other by ceaseless motion. Reefs of fantastic shape run out\non either side, and bar the way of ships and forbid their entrance. The\nintrepid sons of Norway cross these reefs on foot, springing from rock\nto rock, undismayed at the abyss--a hundred fathoms deep and only six\nfeet wide--which yawns beneath them. Here a tottering block of gneiss\nfalling athwart two rocks gives an uncertain footway; there the\nhunters or the fishermen, carrying their loads, have flung the stems of\nfir-trees in guise of bridges, to join the projecting reefs, around and\nbeneath which the surges roar incessantly. This dangerous entrance to\nthe little bay bears obliquely to the right with a serpentine movement,\nand there encounters a mountain rising some twenty-five hundred feet\nabove sea-level, the base of which is a vertical palisade of solid\nrock more than a mile and a half long, the inflexible granite nowhere\nyielding to clefts or undulations until it reaches a height of two\nhundred feet above the water. Rushing violently in, the sea is driven\nback with equal violence by the inert force of the mountain to the\nopposite shore, gently curved by the spent force of the retreating\nwaves.\n\nThe fiord is closed at the upper end by a vast gneiss formation crowned\nwith forests, down which a river plunges in cascades, becomes a torrent\nwhen the snows are melting, spreads into a sheet of waters, and then\nfalls with a roar into the bay,--vomiting as it does so the hoary pines\nand the aged larches washed down from the forests and scarce seen amid\nthe foam. These trees plunge headlong into the fiord and reappear after\na time on the surface, clinging together and forming islets which float\nashore on the beaches, where the inhabitants of a village on the left\nbank of the Strom-fiord gather them up, split, broken (though sometimes\nwhole), and always stripped of bark and branches. The mountain which\nreceives at its base the assaults of Ocean, and at its summit the\nbuffeting of the wild North wind, is called the Falberg. Its crest,\nwrapped at all seasons in a mantle of snow and ice, is the sharpest peak\nof Norway; its proximity to the pole produces, at the height of eighteen\nhundred feet, a degree of cold equal to that of the highest mountains of\nthe globe. The summit of this rocky mass, rising sheer from the fiord\non one side, slopes gradually downward to the east, where it joins the\ndeclivities of the Sieg and forms a series of terraced valleys, the\nchilly temperature of which allows no growth but that of shrubs and\nstunted trees.\n\nThe upper end of the fiord, where the waters enter it as they come down\nfrom the forest, is called the Siegdahlen,--a word which may be held to\nmean \u201cthe shedding of the Sieg,\u201d--the river itself receiving that name.\nThe curving shore opposite to the face of the Falberg is the valley\nof Jarvis,--a smiling scene overlooked by hills clothed with firs,\nbirch-trees, and larches, mingled with a few oaks and beeches, the\nrichest coloring of all the varied tapestries which Nature in these\nnorthern regions spreads upon the surface of her rugged rocks. The eye\ncan readily mark the line where the soil, warmed by the rays of the sun,\nbears cultivation and shows the native growth of the Norwegian flora.\nHere the expanse of the fiord is broad enough to allow the sea, dashed\nback by the Falberg, to spend its expiring force in gentle murmurs upon\nthe lower slope of these hills,--a shore bordered with finest sand,\nstrewn with mica and sparkling pebbles, porphyry, and marbles of a\nthousand tints, brought from Sweden by the river floods, together with\nocean waifs, shells, and flowers of the sea driven in by tempests,\nwhether of the Pole or Tropics.\n\nAt the foot of the hills of Jarvis lies a village of some two hundred\nwooden houses, where an isolated population lives like a swarm of bees\nin a forest, without increasing or diminishing; vegetating happily,\nwhile wringing their means of living from the breast of a stern Nature.\nThe almost unknown existence of the little hamlet is readily accounted\nfor. Few of its inhabitants were bold enough to risk their lives\namong the reefs to reach the deep-sea fishing,--the staple industry of\nNorwegians on the least dangerous portions of their coast. The fish of\nthe fiord were numerous enough to suffice, in part at least, for the\nsustenance of the inhabitants; the valley pastures provided milk and\nbutter; a certain amount of fruitful, well-tilled soil yielded rye\nand hemp and vegetables, which necessity taught the people to protect\nagainst the severity of the cold and the fleeting but terrible heat of\nthe sun with the shrewd ability which Norwegians display in the two-fold\nstruggle. The difficulty of communication with the outer world, either\nby land where the roads are impassable, or by sea where none but tiny\nboats can thread their way through the maritime defiles that guard the\nentrance to the bay, hinder these people from growing rich by the sale\nof their timber. It would cost enormous sums to either blast a channel\nout to sea or construct a way to the interior. The roads from Christiana\nto Trondhjem all turn toward the Strom-fiord, and cross the Sieg by a\nbridge some score of miles above its fall into the bay. The country to\nthe north, between Jarvis and Trondhjem, is covered with impenetrable\nforests, while to the south the Falberg is nearly as much separated\nfrom Christiana by inaccessible precipices. The village of Jarvis might\nperhaps have communicated with the interior of Norway and Sweden by\nthe river Sieg; but to do this and to be thus brought into contact with\ncivilization, the Strom-fiord needed the presence of a man of genius.\nSuch a man did actually appear there,--a poet, a Swede of great\nreligious fervor, who died admiring, even reverencing this region as one\nof the noblest works of the Creator.\n\nMinds endowed by study with an inward sight, and whose quick perceptions\nbring before the soul, as though painted on a canvas, the contrasting\nscenery of this universe, will now apprehend the general features of\nthe Strom-fiord. They alone, perhaps, can thread their way through the\ntortuous channels of the reef, or flee with the battling waves to the\neverlasting rebuff of the Falberg whose white peaks mingle with the\nvaporous clouds of the pearl-gray sky, or watch with delight the curving\nsheet of waters, or hear the rushing of the Sieg as it hangs for an\ninstant in long fillets and then falls over a picturesque abatis of\nnoble trees toppled confusedly together, sometimes upright, sometimes\nhalf-sunken beneath the rocks. It may be that such minds alone can dwell\nupon the smiling scenes nestling among the lower hills of Jarvis; where\nthe luscious Northern vegetables spring up in families, in myriads,\nwhere the white birches bend, graceful as maidens, where colonnades\nof beeches rear their boles mossy with the growth of centuries, where\nshades of green contrast, and white clouds float amid the blackness of\nthe distant pines, and tracts of many-tinted crimson and purple shrubs\nare shaded endlessly; in short, where blend all colors, all perfumes of\na flora whose wonders are still ignored. Widen the boundaries of this\nlimited ampitheatre, spring upward to the clouds, lose yourself among\nthe rocks where the seals are lying and even then your thought cannot\ncompass the wealth of beauty nor the poetry of this Norwegian coast.\nCan your thought be as vast as the ocean that bounds it? as weird as\nthe fantastic forms drawn by these forests, these clouds, these shadows,\nthese changeful lights?\n\nDo you see above the meadows on that lowest slope which undulates around\nthe higher hills of Jarvis two or three hundred houses roofed with\n\u201cnoever,\u201d a sort of thatch made of birch-bark,--frail houses, long and\nlow, looking like silk-worms on a mulberry-leaf tossed hither by the\nwinds? Above these humble, peaceful dwellings stands the church, built\nwith a simplicity in keeping with the poverty of the villagers. A\ngraveyard surrounds the chancel, and a little farther on you see\nthe parsonage. Higher up, on a projection of the mountain is a\ndwelling-house, the only one of stone; for which reason the inhabitants\nof the village call it \u201cthe Swedish Castle.\u201d In fact, a wealthy Swede\nsettled in Jarvis about thirty years before this history begins, and did\nhis best to ameliorate its condition. This little house, certainly not\na castle, built with the intention of leading the inhabitants to build\nothers like it, was noticeable for its solidity and for the wall that\ninclosed it, a rare thing in Norway where, notwithstanding the abundance\nof stone, wood alone is used for all fences, even those of fields.\nThis Swedish house, thus protected against the climate, stood on rising\nground in the centre of an immense courtyard. The windows were sheltered\nby those projecting pent-house roofs supported by squared trunks of\ntrees which give so patriarchal an air to Northern dwellings. From\nbeneath them the eye could see the savage nudity of the Falberg, or\ncompare the infinitude of the open sea with the tiny drop of water in\nthe foaming fiord; the ear could hear the flowing of the Sieg, whose\nwhite sheet far away looked motionless as it fell into its granite\ncup edged for miles around with glaciers,--in short, from this vantage\nground the whole landscape whereon our simple yet superhuman drama was\nabout to be enacted could be seen and noted.\n\nThe winter of 1799-1800 was one of the most severe ever known to\nEuropeans. The Norwegian sea was frozen in all the fiords, where, as a\nusual thing, the violence of the surf kept the ice from forming. A wind,\nwhose effects were like those of the Spanish levanter, swept the ice of\nthe Strom-fiord, driving the snow to the upper end of the gulf. Seldom\nindeed could the people of Jarvis see the mirror of frozen waters\nreflecting the colors of the sky; a wondrous site in the bosom of\nthese mountains when all other aspects of nature are levelled beneath\nsuccessive sheets of snow, and crests and valleys are alike mere\nfolds of the vast mantle flung by winter across a landscape at once so\nmournfully dazzling and so monotonous. The falling volume of the Sieg,\nsuddenly frozen, formed an immense arcade beneath which the inhabitants\nmight have crossed under shelter from the blast had any dared to risk\nthemselves inland. But the dangers of every step away from their own\nsurroundings kept even the boldest hunters in their homes, afraid lest\nthe narrow paths along the precipices, the clefts and fissures among the\nrocks, might be unrecognizable beneath the snow.\n\nThus it was that no human creature gave life to the white desert where\nBoreas reigned, his voice alone resounding at distant intervals. The\nsky, nearly always gray, gave tones of polished steel to the ice of the\nfiord. Perchance some ancient eider-duck crossed the expanse, trusting\nto the warm down beneath which dream, in other lands, the luxurious\nrich, little knowing of the dangers through which their luxury has come\nto them. Like the Bedouin of the desert who darts alone across the sands\nof Africa, the bird is neither seen nor heard; the torpid atmosphere,\ndeprived of its electrical conditions, echoes neither the whirr of its\nwings nor its joyous notes. Besides, what human eye was strong enough to\nbear the glitter of those pinnacles adorned with sparkling crystals, or\nthe sharp reflections of the snow, iridescent on the summits in the rays\nof a pallid sun which infrequently appeared, like a dying man seeking to\nmake known that he still lives. Often, when the flocks of gray clouds,\ndriven in squadrons athwart the mountains and among the tree-tops, hid\nthe sky with their triple veils Earth, lacking the celestial lights, lit\nherself by herself.\n\nHere, then, we meet the majesty of Cold, seated eternally at the pole\nin that regal silence which is the attribute of all absolute monarchy.\nEvery extreme principle carries with it an appearance of negation and\nthe symptoms of death; for is not life the struggle of two forces? Here\nin this Northern nature nothing lived. One sole power--the unproductive\npower of ice--reigned unchallenged. The roar of the open sea no longer\nreached the deaf, dumb inlet, where during one short season of the year\nNature made haste to produce the slender harvests necessary for the food\nof the patient people. A few tall pine-trees lifted their black pyramids\ngarlanded with snow, and the form of their long branches and depending\nshoots completed the mourning garments of those solemn heights.\n\nEach household gathered in its chimney-corner, in houses carefully\nclosed from the outer air, and well supplied with biscuit, melted\nbutter, dried fish, and other provisions laid in for the seven-months\nwinter. The very smoke of these dwellings was hardly seen, half-hidden\nas they were beneath the snow, against the weight of which they were\nprotected by long planks reaching from the roof and fastened at some\ndistance to solid blocks on the ground, forming a covered way around\neach building.\n\nDuring these terrible winter months the women spun and dyed the woollen\nstuffs and the linen fabrics with which they clothed their families,\nwhile the men read, or fell into those endless meditations which have\ngiven birth to so many profound theories, to the mystic dreams of the\nNorth, to its beliefs, to its studies (so full and so complete in one\nscience, at least, sounded as with a plummet), to its manners and its\nmorals, half-monastic, which force the soul to react and feed upon\nitself and make the Norwegian peasant a being apart among the peoples of\nEurope.\n\nSuch was the condition of the Strom-fiord in the first year of the\nnineteenth century and about the middle of the month of May.\n\nOn a morning when the sun burst forth upon this landscape, lighting the\nfires of the ephemeral diamonds produced by crystallizations of the snow\nand ice, two beings crossed the fiord and flew along the base of the\nFalberg, rising thence from ledge to ledge toward the summit. What were\nthey? human creatures, or two arrows? They might have been taken for\neider-ducks sailing in consort before the wind. Not the boldest hunter\nnor the most superstitious fisherman would have attributed to human\nbeings the power to move safely along the slender lines traced beneath\nthe snow by the granite ledges, where yet this couple glided with the\nterrifying dexterity of somnambulists who, forgetting their own weight\nand the dangers of the slightest deviation, hurry along a ridge-pole and\nkeep their equilibrium by the power of some mysterious force.\n\n\u201cStop me, Seraphitus,\u201d said a pale young girl, \u201cand let me breathe. I\nlook at you, you only, while scaling these walls of the gulf; otherwise,\nwhat would become of me? I am such a feeble creature. Do I tire you?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo,\u201d said the being on whose arm she leaned. \u201cBut let us go on, Minna;\nthe place where we are is not firm enough to stand on.\u201d\n\nOnce more the snow creaked sharply beneath the long boards fastened to\ntheir feet, and soon they reached the upper terrace of the first ledge,\nclearly defined upon the flank of the precipice. The person whom Minna\nhad addressed as Seraphitus threw his weight upon his right heel,\narresting the plank--six and a half feet long and narrow as the foot of\na child--which was fastened to his boot by a double thong of leather.\nThis plank, two inches thick, was covered with reindeer skin, which\nbristled against the snow when the foot was raised, and served to stop\nthe wearer. Seraphitus drew in his left foot, furnished with another\n\u201cskee,\u201d which was only two feet long, turned swiftly where he stood,\ncaught his timid companion in his arms, lifted her in spite of the long\nboards on her feet, and placed her on a projecting rock from which he\nbrushed the snow with his pelisse.\n\n\u201cYou are safe there, Minna; you can tremble at your ease.\u201d\n\n\u201cWe are a third of the way up the Ice-Cap,\u201d she said, looking at the\npeak to which she gave the popular name by which it is known in Norway;\n\u201cI can hardly believe it.\u201d\n\nToo much out of breath to say more, she smiled at Seraphitus, who,\nwithout answering, laid his hand upon her heart and listened to its\nsounding throbs, rapid as those of a frightened bird.\n\n\u201cIt often beats as fast when I run,\u201d she said.\n\nSeraphitus inclined his head with a gesture that was neither coldness\nnor indifference, and yet, despite the grace which made the movement\nalmost tender, it none the less bespoke a certain negation, which in a\nwoman would have seemed an exquisite coquetry. Seraphitus clasped the\nyoung girl in his arms. Minna accepted the caress as an answer to her\nwords, continuing to gaze at him. As he raised his head, and threw back\nwith impatient gesture the golden masses of his hair to free his brow,\nhe saw an expression of joy in the eyes of his companion.\n\n\u201cYes, Minna,\u201d he said in a voice whose paternal accents were charming\nfrom the lips of a being who was still adolescent, \u201cKeep your eyes on\nme; do not look below you.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy not?\u201d she asked.\n\n\u201cYou wish to know why? then look!\u201d\n\nMinna glanced quickly at her feet and cried out suddenly like a child\nwho sees a tiger. The awful sensation of abysses seized her; one glance\nsufficed to communicate its contagion. The fiord, eager for food,\nbewildered her with its loud voice ringing in her ears, interposing\nbetween herself and life as though to devour her more surely. From the\ncrown of her head to her feet and along her spine an icy shudder ran;\nthen suddenly intolerable heat suffused her nerves, beat in her veins\nand overpowered her extremities with electric shocks like those of the\ntorpedo. Too feeble to resist, she felt herself drawn by a mysterious\npower to the depths below, wherein she fancied that she saw some monster\nbelching its venom, a monster whose magnetic eyes were charming her,\nwhose open jaws appeared to craunch their prey before they seized it.\n\n\u201cI die, my Seraphitus, loving none but thee,\u201d she said, making a\nmechanical movement to fling herself into the abyss.\n\nSeraphitus breathed softly on her forehead and eyes. Suddenly, like\na traveller relaxed after a bath, Minna forgot these keen emotions,\nalready dissipated by that caressing breath which penetrated her body\nand filled it with balsamic essences as quickly as the breath itself had\ncrossed the air.\n\n\u201cWho art thou?\u201d she said, with a feeling of gentle terror. \u201cAh, but I\nknow! thou art my life. How canst thou look into that gulf and not die?\u201d\n she added presently.\n\nSeraphitus left her clinging to the granite rock and placed himself at\nthe edge of the narrow platform on which they stood, whence his eyes\nplunged to the depths of the fiord, defying its dazzling invitation. His\nbody did not tremble, his brow was white and calm as that of a marble\nstatue,--an abyss facing an abyss.\n\n\u201cSeraphitus! dost thou not love me? come back!\u201d she cried. \u201cThy danger\nrenews my terror. Who art thou to have such superhuman power at thy\nage?\u201d she asked as she felt his arms inclosing her once more.\n\n\u201cBut, Minna,\u201d answered Seraphitus, \u201cyou look fearlessly at greater\nspaces far than that.\u201d\n\nThen with raised finger, this strange being pointed upward to the blue\ndome, which parting clouds left clear above their heads, where\nstars could be seen in open day by virtue of atmospheric laws as yet\nunstudied.\n\n\u201cBut what a difference!\u201d she answered smiling.\n\n\u201cYou are right,\u201d he said; \u201cwe are born to stretch upward to the\nskies. Our native land, like the face of a mother, cannot terrify her\nchildren.\u201d\n\nHis voice vibrated through the being of his companion, who made no\nreply.\n\n\u201cCome! let us go on,\u201d he said.\n\nThe pair darted forward along the narrow paths traced back and forth\nupon the mountain, skimming from terrace to terrace, from line to line,\nwith the rapidity of a barb, that bird of the desert. Presently they\nreached an open space, carpeted with turf and moss and flowers, where no\nfoot had ever trod.\n\n\u201cOh, the pretty saeter!\u201d cried Minna, giving to the upland meadow its\nNorwegian name. \u201cBut how comes it here, at such a height?\u201d\n\n\u201cVegetation ceases here, it is true,\u201d said Seraphitus. \u201cThese few plants\nand flowers are due to that sheltering rock which protects the meadow\nfrom the polar winds. Put that tuft in your bosom, Minna,\u201d he added,\ngathering a flower,--\u201cthat balmy creation which no eye has ever seen;\nkeep the solitary matchless flower in memory of this one matchless\nmorning of your life. You will find no other guide to lead you again to\nthis saeter.\u201d\n\nSo saying, he gave her the hybrid plant his falcon eye had seen amid the\ntufts of gentian acaulis and saxifrages,--a marvel, brought to bloom\nby the breath of angels. With girlish eagerness Minna seized the tufted\nplant of transparent green, vivid as emerald, which was formed of little\nleaves rolled trumpet-wise, brown at the smaller end but changing tint\nby tint to their delicately notched edges, which were green. These\nleaves were so tightly pressed together that they seemed to blend and\nform a mat or cluster of rosettes. Here and there from this green ground\nrose pure white stars edged with a line of gold, and from their throats\ncame crimson anthers but no pistils. A fragrance, blended of roses and\nof orange blossoms, yet ethereal and fugitive, gave something as it\nwere celestial to that mysterious flower, which Seraphitus sadly\ncontemplated, as though it uttered plaintive thoughts which he alone\ncould understand. But to Minna this mysterious phenomenon seemed a mere\ncaprice of nature giving to stone the freshness, softness, and perfume\nof plants.\n\n\u201cWhy do you call it matchless? can it not reproduce itself?\u201d she asked,\nlooking at Seraphitus, who colored and turned away.\n\n\u201cLet us sit down,\u201d he said presently; \u201clook below you, Minna. See! At\nthis height you will have no fear. The abyss is so far beneath us that\nwe no longer have a sense of its depths; it acquires the perspective\nuniformity of ocean, the vagueness of clouds, the soft coloring of the\nsky. See, the ice of the fiord is a turquoise, the dark pine forests are\nmere threads of brown; for us all abysses should be thus adorned.\u201d\n\nSeraphitus said the words with that fervor of tone and gesture seen\nand known only by those who have ascended the highest mountains of the\nglobe,--a fervor so involuntarily acquired that the haughtiest of men\nis forced to regard his guide as a brother, forgetting his own superior\nstation till he descends to the valleys and the abodes of his kind.\nSeraphitus unfastened the skees from Minna\u2019s feet, kneeling before her.\nThe girl did not notice him, so absorbed was she in the marvellous view\nnow offered of her native land, whose rocky outlines could here be seen\nat a glance. She felt, with deep emotion, the solemn permanence of those\nfrozen summits, to which words could give no adequate utterance.\n\n\u201cWe have not come here by human power alone,\u201d she said, clasping her\nhands. \u201cBut perhaps I dream.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou think that facts the causes of which you cannot perceive are\nsupernatural,\u201d replied her companion.\n\n\u201cYour replies,\u201d she said, \u201calways bear the stamp of some deep thought.\nWhen I am near you I understand all things without an effort. Ah, I am\nfree!\u201d\n\n\u201cIf so, you will not need your skees,\u201d he answered.\n\n\u201cOh!\u201d she said; \u201cI who would fain unfasten yours and kiss your feet!\u201d\n\n\u201cKeep such words for Wilfrid,\u201d said Seraphitus, gently.\n\n\u201cWilfrid!\u201d cried Minna angrily; then, softening as she glanced at her\ncompanion\u2019s face and trying, but in vain, to take his hand, she added,\n\u201cYou are never angry, never; you are so hopelessly perfect in all\nthings.\u201d\n\n\u201cFrom which you conclude that I am unfeeling.\u201d\n\nMinna was startled at this lucid interpretation of her thought.\n\n\u201cYou prove to me, at any rate, that we understand each other,\u201d she said,\nwith the grace of a loving woman.\n\nSeraphitus softly shook his head and looked sadly and gently at her.\n\n\u201cYou, who know all things,\u201d said Minna, \u201ctell me why it is that the\ntimidity I felt below is over now that I have mounted higher. Why do I\ndare to look at you for the first time face to face, while lower down I\nscarcely dared to give a furtive glance?\u201d\n\n\u201cPerhaps because we are withdrawn from the pettiness of earth,\u201d he\nanswered, unfastening his pelisse.\n\n\u201cNever, never have I seen you so beautiful!\u201d cried Minna, sitting down\non a mossy rock and losing herself in contemplation of the being who\nhad now guided her to a part of the peak hitherto supposed to be\ninaccessible.\n\nNever, in truth, had Seraphitus shone with so bright a radiance,--the\nonly word which can render the illumination of his face and the aspect\nof his whole person. Was this splendor due to the lustre which the pure\nair of mountains and the reflections of the snow give to the complexion?\nWas it produced by the inward impulse which excites the body at the\ninstant when exertion is arrested? Did it come from the sudden contrast\nbetween the glory of the sun and the darkness of the clouds, from whose\nshadow the charming couple had just emerged? Perhaps to all these causes\nwe may add the effect of a phenomenon, one of the noblest which human\nnature has to offer. If some able physiologist had studied this being\n(who, judging by the pride on his brow and the lightning in his eyes\nseemed a youth of about seventeen years of age), and if the student had\nsought for the springs of that beaming life beneath the whitest skin\nthat ever the North bestowed upon her offspring, he would undoubtedly\nhave believed either in some phosphoric fluid of the nerves shining\nbeneath the cuticle, or in the constant presence of an inward luminary,\nwhose rays issued through the being of Seraphitus like a light through\nan alabaster vase. Soft and slender as were his hands, ungloved to\nremove his companion\u2019s snow-boots, they seemed possessed of a strength\nequal to that which the Creator gave to the diaphanous tentacles of the\ncrab. The fire darting from his vivid glance seemed to struggle with the\nbeams of the sun, not to take but to give them light. His body, slim and\ndelicate as that of a woman, gave evidence of one of those natures which\nare feeble apparently, but whose strength equals their will, rendering\nthem at times powerful. Of medium height, Seraphitus appeared to grow in\nstature as he turned fully round and seemed about to spring upward. His\nhair, curled by a fairy\u2019s hand and waving to the breeze, increased\nthe illusion produced by this aerial attitude; yet his bearing, wholly\nwithout conscious effort, was the result far more of a moral phenomenon\nthan of a corporal habit.\n\nMinna\u2019s imagination seconded this illusion, under the dominion of which\nall persons would assuredly have fallen,--an illusion which gave to\nSeraphitus the appearance of a vision dreamed of in happy sleep. No\nknown type conveys an image of that form so majestically made to Minna,\nbut which to the eyes of a man would have eclipsed in womanly grace the\nfairest of Raphael\u2019s creations. That painter of heaven has ever put\na tranquil joy, a loving sweetness, into the lines of his angelic\nconceptions; but what soul, unless it contemplated Seraphitus himself,\ncould have conceived the ineffable emotions imprinted on his face? Who\nwould have divined, even in the dreams of artists, where all things\nbecome possible, the shadow cast by some mysterious awe upon that brow,\nshining with intellect, which seemed to question Heaven and to pity\nEarth? The head hovered awhile disdainfully, as some majestic bird whose\ncries reverberate on the atmosphere, then bowed itself resignedly, like\nthe turtledove uttering soft notes of tenderness in the depths of the\nsilent woods. His complexion was of marvellous whiteness, which brought\nout vividly the coral lips, the brown eyebrows, and the silken lashes,\nthe only colors that trenched upon the paleness of that face, whose\nperfect regularity did not detract from the grandeur of the sentiments\nexpressed in it; nay, thought and emotion were reflected there, without\nhindrance or violence, with the majestic and natural gravity which we\ndelight in attributing to superior beings. That face of purest marble\nexpressed in all things strength and peace.\n\nMinna rose to take the hand of Seraphitus, hoping thus to draw him to\nher, and to lay on that seductive brow a kiss given more from admiration\nthan from love; but a glance at the young man\u2019s eyes, which pierced her\nas a ray of sunlight penetrates a prism, paralyzed the young girl. She\nfelt, but without comprehending, a gulf between them; then she turned\naway her head and wept. Suddenly a strong hand seized her by the waist,\nand a soft voice said to her: \u201cCome!\u201d She obeyed, resting her head,\nsuddenly revived, upon the heart of her companion, who, regulating his\nstep to hers with gentle and attentive conformity, led her to a spot\nwhence they could see the radiant glories of the polar Nature.\n\n\u201cBefore I look, before I listen to you, tell me, Seraphitus, why you\nrepulse me. Have I displeased you? and how? tell me! I want nothing for\nmyself; I would that all my earthly goods were yours, for the riches\nof my heart are yours already. I would that light came to my eyes only\nthough your eyes just as my thought is born of your thought. I should\nnot then fear to offend you, for I should give you back the echoes of\nyour soul, the words of your heart, day by day,--as we render to God the\nmeditations with which his spirit nourishes our minds. I would be thine\nalone.\u201d\n\n\u201cMinna, a constant desire is that which shapes our future. Hope on! But\nif you would be pure in heart mingle the idea of the All-Powerful with\nyour affections here below; then you will love all creatures, and your\nheart will rise to heights indeed.\u201d\n\n\u201cI will do all you tell me,\u201d she answered, lifting her eyes to his with\na timid movement.\n\n\u201cI cannot be your companion,\u201d said Seraphitus sadly.\n\nHe seemed to repress some thoughts, then stretched his arms towards\nChristiana, just visible like a speck on the horizon and said:--\n\n\u201cLook!\u201d\n\n\u201cWe are very small,\u201d she said.\n\n\u201cYes, but we become great through feeling and through intellect,\u201d\n answered Seraphitus. \u201cWith us, and us alone, Minna, begins the knowledge\nof things; the little that we learn of the laws of the visible world\nenables us to apprehend the immensity of the worlds invisible. I know\nnot if the time has come to speak thus to you, but I would, ah, I would\ncommunicate to you the flame of my hopes! Perhaps we may one day be\ntogether in the world where Love never dies.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy not here and now?\u201d she said, murmuring.\n\n\u201cNothing is stable here,\u201d he said, disdainfully. \u201cThe passing joys of\nearthly love are gleams which reveal to certain souls the coming of\njoys more durable; just as the discovery of a single law of nature leads\ncertain privileged beings to a conception of the system of the universe.\nOur fleeting happiness here below is the forerunning proof of another\nand a perfect happiness, just as the earth, a fragment of the world,\nattests the universe. We cannot measure the vast orbit of the Divine\nthought of which we are but an atom as small as God is great; but we\ncan feel its vastness, we can kneel, adore, and wait. Men ever mislead\nthemselves in science by not perceiving that all things on their globe\nare related and co-ordinated to the general evolution, to a constant\nmovement and production which bring with them, necessarily, both\nadvancement and an End. Man himself is not a finished creation; if he\nwere, God would not Be.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow is it that in thy short life thou hast found the time to learn so\nmany things?\u201d said the young girl.\n\n\u201cI remember,\u201d he replied.\n\n\u201cThou art nobler than all else I see.\u201d\n\n\u201cWe are the noblest of God\u2019s greatest works. Has He not given us the\nfaculty of reflecting on Nature; of gathering it within us by thought;\nof making it a footstool and stepping-stone from and by which to rise\nto Him? We love according to the greater or the lesser portion of heaven\nour souls contain. But do not be unjust, Minna; behold the magnificence\nspread before you. Ocean expands at your feet like a carpet; the\nmountains resemble ampitheatres; heaven\u2019s ether is above them like the\narching folds of a stage curtain. Here we may breathe the thoughts of\nGod, as it were like a perfume. See! the angry billows which engulf the\nships laden with men seem to us, where we are, mere bubbles; and if we\nraise our eyes and look above, all there is blue. Behold that diadem of\nstars! Here the tints of earthly impressions disappear; standing on this\nnature rarefied by space do you not feel within you something deeper far\nthan mind, grander than enthusiasm, of greater energy than will? Are you\nnot conscious of emotions whose interpretation is no longer in us? Do\nyou not feel your pinions? Let us pray.\u201d\n\nSeraphitus knelt down and crossed his hands upon his breast, while Minna\nfell, weeping, on her knees. Thus they remained for a time, while\nthe azure dome above their heads grew larger and strong rays of light\nenveloped them without their knowledge.\n\n\u201cWhy dost thou not weep when I weep?\u201d said Minna, in a broken voice.\n\n\u201cThey who are all spirit do not weep,\u201d replied Seraphitus rising; \u201cWhy\nshould I weep? I see no longer human wretchedness. Here, Good appears\nin all its majesty. There, beneath us, I hear the supplications and the\nwailings of that harp of sorrows which vibrates in the hands of captive\nsouls. Here, I listen to the choir of harps harmonious. There, below,\nis hope, the glorious inception of faith; but here is faith--it reigns,\nhope realized!\u201d\n\n\u201cYou will never love me; I am too imperfect; you disdain me,\u201d said the\nyoung girl.\n\n\u201cMinna, the violet hidden at the feet of the oak whispers to itself:\n\u2018The sun does not love me; he comes not.\u2019 The sun says: \u2018If my rays\nshine upon her she will perish, poor flower.\u2019 Friend of the flower, he\nsends his beams through the oak leaves, he veils, he tempers them, and\nthus they color the petals of his beloved. I have not veils enough,\nI fear lest you see me too closely; you would tremble if you knew me\nbetter. Listen: I have no taste for earthly fruits. Your joys, I know\nthem all too well, and, like the sated emperors of pagan Rome, I have\nreached disgust of all things; I have received the gift of vision. Leave\nme! abandon me!\u201d he murmured, sorrowfully.\n\nSeraphitus turned and seated himself on a projecting rock, dropping his\nhead upon his breast.\n\n\u201cWhy do you drive me to despair?\u201d said Minna.\n\n\u201cGo, go!\u201d cried Seraphitus, \u201cI have nothing that you want of me. Your\nlove is too earthly for my love. Why do you not love Wilfrid? Wilfrid is\na man, tested by passions; he would clasp you in his vigorous arms and\nmake you feel a hand both broad and strong. His hair is black, his\neyes are full of human thoughts, his heart pours lava in every word he\nutters; he could kill you with caresses. Let him be your beloved, your\nhusband! Yes, thine be Wilfrid!\u201d\n\nMinna wept aloud.\n\n\u201cDare you say that you do not love him?\u201d he went on, in a voice which\npierced her like a dagger.\n\n\u201cHave mercy, have mercy, my Seraphitus!\u201d\n\n\u201cLove him, poor child of Earth to which thy destiny has indissolubly\nbound thee,\u201d said the strange being, beckoning Minna by a gesture, and\nforcing her to the edge of the saeter, whence he pointed downward to a\nscene that might well inspire a young girl full of enthusiasm with the\nfancy that she stood above this earth.\n\n\u201cI longed for a companion to the kingdom of Light; I wished to show you\nthat morsel of mud, I find you bound to it. Farewell. Remain on earth;\nenjoy through the senses; obey your nature; turn pale with pallid men;\nblush with women; sport with children; pray with the guilty; raise your\neyes to heaven when sorrows overtake you; tremble, hope, throb in all\nyour pulses; you will have a companion; you can laugh and weep, and give\nand receive. I,--I am an exile, far from heaven; a monster, far from\nearth. I live of myself and by myself. I feel by the spirit; I breathe\nthrough my brow; I see by thought; I die of impatience and of longing.\nNo one here below can fulfil my desires or calm my griefs. I have\nforgotten how to weep. I am alone. I resign myself, and I wait.\u201d\n\nSeraphitus looked at the flowery mound on which he had seated Minna;\nthen he turned and faced the frowning heights, whose pinnacles were\nwrapped in clouds; to them he cast, unspoken, the remainder of his\nthoughts.\n\n\u201cMinna, do you hear those delightful strains?\u201d he said after a pause,\nwith the voice of a dove, for the eagle\u2019s cry was hushed; \u201cit is like\nthe music of those Eolian harps your poets hang in forests and on the\nmountains. Do you see the shadowy figures passing among the clouds,\nthe winged feet of those who are making ready the gifts of heaven? They\nbring refreshment to the soul; the skies are about to open and shed the\nflowers of spring upon the earth. See, a gleam is darting from the pole.\nLet us fly, let us fly! It is time we go!\u201d\n\nIn a moment their skees were refastened, and the pair descended the\nFalberg by the steep slopes which join the mountain to the valleys of\nthe Sieg. Miraculous perception guided their course, or, to speak more\nproperly, their flight. When fissures covered with snow intercepted\nthem, Seraphitus caught Minna in his arms and darted with rapid motion,\nlightly as a bird, over the crumbling causeways of the abyss. Sometimes,\nwhile propelling his companion, he deviated to the right or left to\navoid a precipice, a tree, a projecting rock, which he seemed to see\nbeneath the snow, as an old sailor, familiar with the ocean, discerns\nthe hidden reefs by the color, the trend, or the eddying of the\nwater. When they reached the paths of the Siegdahlen, where they could\nfearlessly follow a straight line to regain the ice of the fiord,\nSeraphitus stopped Minna.\n\n\u201cYou have nothing to say to me?\u201d he asked.\n\n\u201cI thought you would rather think alone,\u201d she answered respectfully.\n\n\u201cLet us hasten, Minette; it is almost night,\u201d he said.\n\nMinna quivered as she heard the voice, now so changed, of her guide,--a\npure voice, like that of a young girl, which dissolved the fantastic\ndream through which she had been passing. Seraphitus seemed to be laying\naside his male force and the too keen intellect that flames from his\neyes. Presently the charming pair glided across the fiord and reached\nthe snow-field which divides the shore from the first range of houses;\nthen, hurrying forward as daylight faded, they sprang up the hill\ntoward the parsonage, as though they were mounting the steps of a great\nstaircase.\n\n\u201cMy father must be anxious,\u201d said Minna.\n\n\u201cNo,\u201d answered Seraphitus.\n\nAs he spoke the couple reached the porch of the humble dwelling where\nMonsieur Becker, the pastor of Jarvis, sat reading while awaiting his\ndaughter for the evening meal.\n\n\u201cDear Monsieur Becker,\u201d said Seraphitus, \u201cI have brought Minna back to\nyou safe and sound.\u201d\n\n\u201cThank you, mademoiselle,\u201d said the old man, laying his spectacles on\nhis book; \u201cyou must be very tired.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, no,\u201d said Minna, and as she spoke she felt the soft breath of her\ncompanion on her brow.\n\n\u201cDear heart, will you come day after to-morrow evening and take tea with\nme?\u201d\n\n\u201cGladly, dear.\u201d\n\n\u201cMonsieur Becker, you will bring her, will you not?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, mademoiselle.\u201d\n\nSeraphitus inclined his head with a pretty gesture, and bowed to the old\npastor as he left the house. A few moments later he reached the great\ncourtyard of the Swedish villa. An old servant, over eighty years of\nage, appeared in the portico bearing a lantern. Seraphitus slipped off\nhis snow-shoes with the graceful dexterity of a woman, then darting into\nthe salon he fell exhausted and motionless on a wide divan covered with\nfurs.\n\n\u201cWhat will you take?\u201d asked the old man, lighting the immensely tall\nwax-candles that are used in Norway.\n\n\u201cNothing, David, I am too weary.\u201d\n\nSeraphitus unfastened his pelisse lined with sable, threw it over him,\nand fell asleep. The old servant stood for several minutes gazing with\nloving eyes at the singular being before him, whose sex it would have\nbeen difficult for any one at that moment to determine. Wrapped as he\nwas in a formless garment, which resembled equally a woman\u2019s robe and a\nman\u2019s mantle, it was impossible not to fancy that the slender feet\nwhich hung at the side of the couch were those of a woman, and equally\nimpossible not to note how the forehead and the outlines of the head\ngave evidence of power brought to its highest pitch.\n\n\u201cShe suffers, and she will not tell me,\u201d thought the old man. \u201cShe is\ndying, like a flower wilted by the burning sun.\u201d\n\nAnd the old man wept.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II. SERAPHITA\n\n\nLater in the evening David re-entered the salon.\n\n\u201cI know who it is you have come to announce,\u201d said Seraphita in a sleepy\nvoice. \u201cWilfrid may enter.\u201d\n\nHearing these words a man suddenly presented himself, crossed the room\nand sat down beside her.\n\n\u201cMy dear Seraphita, are you ill?\u201d he said. \u201cYou look paler than usual.\u201d\n\nShe turned slowly towards him, tossing back her hair like a pretty woman\nwhose aching head leaves her no strength even for complaint.\n\n\u201cI was foolish enough to cross the fiord with Minna,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\nascended the Falberg.\u201d\n\n\u201cDo you mean to kill yourself?\u201d he said with a lover\u2019s terror.\n\n\u201cNo, my good Wilfrid; I took the greatest care of your Minna.\u201d\n\nWilfrid struck his hand violently on a table, rose hastily, and made\nseveral steps towards the door with an exclamation full of pain; then he\nreturned and seemed about to remonstrate.\n\n\u201cWhy this disturbance if you think me ill?\u201d she said.\n\n\u201cForgive me, have mercy!\u201d he cried, kneeling beside her. \u201cSpeak to me\nharshly if you will; exact all that the cruel fancies of a woman lead\nyou to imagine I least can bear; but oh, my beloved, do not doubt my\nlove. You take Minna like an axe to hew me down. Have mercy!\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy do you say these things, my friend, when you know that they are\nuseless?\u201d she replied, with a look which grew in the end so soft that\nWilfrid ceased to behold her eyes, but saw in their place a fluid light,\nthe shimmer of which was like the last vibrations of an Italian song.\n\n\u201cAh! no man dies of anguish!\u201d he murmured.\n\n\u201cYou are suffering?\u201d she said in a voice whose intonations produced upon\nhis heart the same effect as that of her look. \u201cWould I could help you!\u201d\n\n\u201cLove me as I love you.\u201d\n\n\u201cPoor Minna!\u201d she replied.\n\n\u201cWhy am I unarmed!\u201d exclaimed Wilfrid, violently.\n\n\u201cYou are out of temper,\u201d said Seraphita, smiling. \u201cCome, have I not\nspoken to you like those Parisian women whose loves you tell of?\u201d\n\nWilfrid sat down, crossed his arms, and looked gloomily at Seraphita. \u201cI\nforgive you,\u201d he said; \u201cfor you know not what you do.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou mistake,\u201d she replied; \u201cevery woman from the days of Eve does good\nand evil knowingly.\u201d\n\n\u201cI believe it,\u201d he said.\n\n\u201cI am sure of it, Wilfrid. Our instinct is precisely that which makes us\nperfect. What you men learn, we feel.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, then, do you not feel how much I love you?\u201d\n\n\u201cBecause you do not love me.\u201d\n\n\u201cGood God!\u201d\n\n\u201cIf you did, would you complain of your own sufferings?\u201d\n\n\u201cYou are terrible to-night, Seraphita. You are a demon.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, but I am gifted with the faculty of comprehending, and it is awful.\nWilfrid, sorrow is a lamp which illumines life.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy did you ascend the Falberg?\u201d\n\n\u201cMinna will tell you. I am too weary to talk. You must talk to me,--you\nwho know so much, who have learned all things and forgotten nothing; you\nwho have passed through every social test. Talk to me, amuse me, I am\nlistening.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat can I tell you that you do not know? Besides, the request is\nironical. You allow yourself no intercourse with social life; you\ntrample on its conventions, its laws, its customs, sentiments, and\nsciences; you reduce them all to the proportions such things take when\nviewed by you beyond this universe.\u201d\n\n\u201cTherefore you see, my friend, that I am not a woman. You do wrong\nto love me. What! am I to leave the ethereal regions of my pretended\nstrength, make myself humbly small, cringe like the hapless female of\nall species, that you may lift me up? and then, when I, helpless and\nbroken, ask you for help, when I need your arm, you will repulse me! No,\nwe can never come to terms.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou are more maliciously unkind to-night than I have ever known you.\u201d\n\n\u201cUnkind!\u201d she said, with a look which seemed to blend all feelings into\none celestial emotion, \u201cno, I am ill, I suffer, that is all. Leave me,\nmy friend; it is your manly right. We women should ever please you,\nentertain you, be gay in your presence and have no whims save those that\namuse you. Come, what shall I do for you, friend? Shall I sing, shall I\ndance, though weariness deprives me of the use of voice and limbs?--Ah!\ngentlemen, be we on our deathbeds, we yet must smile to please you; you\ncall that, methinks, your right. Poor women! I pity them. Tell me, you\nwho abandon them when they grow old, is it because they have neither\nhearts nor souls? Wilfrid, I am a hundred years old; leave me! leave me!\ngo to Minna!\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, my eternal love!\u201d\n\n\u201cDo you know the meaning of eternity? Be silent, Wilfrid. You desire\nme, but you do not love me. Tell me, do I not seem to you like those\ncoquettish Parisian women?\u201d\n\n\u201cCertainly I no longer find you the pure celestial maiden I first saw in\nthe church of Jarvis.\u201d\n\nAt these words Seraphita passed her hands across her brow, and when\nshe removed them Wilfrid was amazed at the saintly expression that\noverspread her face.\n\n\u201cYou are right, my friend,\u201d she said; \u201cI do wrong whenever I set my feet\nupon your earth.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, Seraphita, be my star! stay where you can ever bless me with that\nclear light!\u201d\n\nAs he spoke, he stretched forth his hand to take that of the young girl,\nbut she withdrew it, neither disdainfully nor in anger. Wilfrid rose\nabruptly and walked to the window that she might not see the tears that\nrose to his eyes.\n\n\u201cWhy do you weep?\u201d she said. \u201cYou are not a child, Wilfrid. Come back to\nme. I wish it. You are annoyed if I show just displeasure. You see that\nI am fatigued and ill, yet you force me to think and speak, and listen\nto persuasions and ideas that weary me. If you had any real perception\nof my nature, you would have made some music, you would have lulled my\nfeelings--but no, you love me for yourself and not for myself.\u201d\n\nThe storm which convulsed the young man\u2019s heart calmed down at these\nwords. He slowly approached her, letting his eyes take in the seductive\ncreature who lay exhausted before him, her head resting in her hand and\nher elbow on the couch.\n\n\u201cYou think that I do not love you,\u201d she resumed. \u201cYou are mistaken.\nListen to me, Wilfrid. You are beginning to know much; you have suffered\nmuch. Let me explain your thoughts to you. You wished to take my hand\njust now\u201d; she rose to a sitting posture, and her graceful motions\nseemed to emit light. \u201cWhen a young girl allows her hand to be taken it\nis as though she made a promise, is it not? and ought she not to fulfil\nit? You well know that I cannot be yours. Two sentiments divide and\ninspire the love of all the women of the earth. Either they devote\nthemselves to suffering, degraded, and criminal beings whom they desire\nto console, uplift, redeem; or they give themselves to superior men,\nsublime and strong, whom they adore and seek to comprehend, and by whom\nthey are often annihilated. You have been degraded, though now you are\npurified by the fires of repentance, and to-day you are once more noble;\nbut I know myself too feeble to be your equal, and too religious to bow\nbefore any power but that On High. I may refer thus to your life, my\nfriend, for we are in the North, among the clouds, where all things are\nabstractions.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou stab me, Seraphita, when you speak like this. It wounds me to hear\nyou apply the dreadful knowledge with which you strip from all things\nhuman the properties that time and space and form have given them,\nand consider them mathematically in the abstract, as geometry treats\nsubstances from which it extracts solidity.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, I will respect your wishes, Wilfrid. Let the subject drop. Tell\nme what you think of this bearskin rug which my poor David has spread\nout.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is very handsome.\u201d\n\n\u201cDid you ever see me wear this \u2018doucha greka\u2019?\u201d\n\nShe pointed to a pelisse made of cashmere and lined with the skin of the\nblack fox,--the name she gave it signifying \u201cwarm to the soul.\u201d\n\n\u201cDo you believe that any sovereign has a fur that can equal it?\u201d she\nasked.\n\n\u201cIt is worthy of her who wears it.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd whom you think beautiful?\u201d\n\n\u201cHuman words do not apply to her. Heart to heart is the only language I\ncan use.\u201d\n\n\u201cWilfrid, you are kind to soothe my griefs with such sweet words--which\nyou have said to others.\u201d\n\n\u201cFarewell!\u201d\n\n\u201cStay. I love both you and Minna, believe me. To me you two are as one\nbeing. United thus you can be my brother or, if you will, my sister.\nMarry her; let me see you both happy before I leave this world of trial\nand of pain. My God! the simplest of women obtain what they ask of a\nlover; they whisper \u2018Hush!\u2019 and he is silent; \u2018Die\u2019 and he dies; \u2018Love\nme afar\u2019 and he stays at a distance, like courtiers before a king! All\nI desire is to see you happy, and you refuse me! Am I then\npowerless?--Wilfrid, listen, come nearer to me. Yes, I should grieve to\nsee you marry Minna but--when I am here no longer, then--promise me to\nmarry her; heaven destined you for each other.\u201d\n\n\u201cI listen to you with fascination, Seraphita. Your words are\nincomprehensible, but they charm me. What is it you mean to say?\u201d\n\n\u201cYou are right; I forget to be foolish,--to be the poor creature whose\nweaknesses gratify you. I torment you, Wilfrid. You came to these\nNorthern lands for rest, you, worn-out by the impetuous struggle of\ngenius unrecognized, you, weary with the patient toils of science, you,\nwho well-nigh dyed your hands in crime and wore the fetters of human\njustice--\u201d\n\nWilfrid dropped speechless on the carpet. Seraphita breathed softly on\nhis forehead, and in a moment he fell asleep at her feet.\n\n\u201cSleep! rest!\u201d she said, rising.\n\nShe passed her hands over Wilfrid\u2019s brow; then the following sentences\nescaped her lips, one by one,--all different in tone and accent, but all\nmelodious, full of a Goodness that seemed to emanate from her head in\nvaporous waves, like the gleams the goddess chastely lays upon Endymion\nsleeping.\n\n\u201cI cannot show myself such as I am to thee, dear Wilfrid,--to thee who\nart strong.\n\n\u201cThe hour is come; the hour when the effulgent lights of the future cast\ntheir reflections backward on the soul; the hour when the soul awakes\ninto freedom.\n\n\u201cNow am I permitted to tell thee how I love thee. Dost thou not see the\nnature of my love, a love without self-interest; a sentiment full of\nthee, thee only; a love which follows thee into the future to light that\nfuture for thee--for it is the one True Light. Canst thou now conceive\nwith what ardor I would have thee leave this life which weighs thee\ndown, and behold thee nearer than thou art to that world where Love is\nnever-failing? Can it be aught but suffering to love for one life only?\nHast thou not felt a thirst for the eternal love? Dost thou not feel the\nbliss to which a creature rises when, with twin-soul, it loves the Being\nwho betrays not love, Him before whom we kneel in adoration?\n\n\u201cWould I had wings to cover thee, Wilfrid; power to give thee strength\nto enter now into that world where all the purest joys of purest earthly\nattachments are but shadows in the Light that shines, unceasing, to\nillumine and rejoice all hearts.\n\n\u201cForgive a friendly soul for showing thee the picture of thy sins, in\nthe charitable hope of soothing the sharp pangs of thy remorse. Listen\nto the pardoning choir; refresh thy soul in the dawn now rising for thee\nbeyond the night of death. Yes, thy life, thy true life is there!\n\n\u201cMay my words now reach thee clothed in the glorious forms of dreams;\nmay they deck themselves with images glowing and radiant as they hover\nround you. Rise, rise, to the height where men can see themselves\ndistinctly, pressed together though they be like grains of sand upon\na sea-shore. Humanity rolls out like a many-colored ribbon. See the\ndiverse shades of that flower of the celestial gardens. Behold the\nbeings who lack intelligence, those who begin to receive it, those who\nhave passed through trials, those who love, those who follow wisdom and\naspire to the regions of Light!\n\n\u201cCanst thou comprehend, through this thought made visible, the destiny\nof humanity?--whence it came, whither to goeth? Continue steadfast in\nthe Path. Reaching the end of thy journey thou shalt hear the clarions\nof omnipotence sounding the cries of victory in chords of which a single\none would shake the earth, but which are lost in the spaces of a world\nthat hath neither east nor west.\n\n\u201cCanst thou comprehend, my poor beloved Tried-one, that unless the\ntorpor and the veils of sleep had wrapped thee, such sights would rend\nand bear away thy mind as the whirlwinds rend and carry into space the\nfeeble sails, depriving thee forever of thy reason? Dost thou understand\nthat the Soul itself, raised to its utmost power can scarcely endure in\ndreams the burning communications of the Spirit?\n\n\u201cSpeed thy way through the luminous spheres; behold, admire, hasten!\nFlying thus thou canst pause or advance without weariness. Like other\nmen, thou wouldst fain be plunged forever in these spheres of light and\nperfume where now thou art, free of thy swooning body, and where thy\nthought alone has utterance. Fly! enjoy for a fleeting moment the wings\nthou shalt surely win when Love has grown so perfect in thee that thou\nhast no senses left; when thy whole being is all mind, all love. The\nhigher thy flight the less canst thou see the abysses. There are none in\nheaven. Look at the friend who speaks to thee; she who holds thee above\nthis earth in which are all abysses. Look, behold, contemplate me yet a\nmoment longer, for never again wilt thou see me, save imperfectly as the\npale twilight of this world may show me to thee.\u201d\n\nSeraphita stood erect, her head with floating hair inclining gently\nforward, in that aerial attitude which great painters give to messengers\nfrom heaven; the folds of her raiment fell with the same unspeakable\ngrace which holds an artist--the man who translates all things into\nsentiment--before the exquisite well-known lines of Polyhymnia\u2019s veil.\nThen she stretched forth her hand. Wilfrid rose. When he looked at\nSeraphita she was lying on the bear\u2019s-skin, her head resting on her\nhand, her face calm, her eyes brilliant. Wilfrid gazed at her silently;\nbut his face betrayed a deferential fear in its almost timid expression.\n\n\u201cYes, dear,\u201d he said at last, as though he were answering some question;\n\u201cwe are separated by worlds. I resign myself; I can only adore you. But\nwhat will become of me, poor and alone!\u201d\n\n\u201cWilfrid, you have Minna.\u201d\n\nHe shook his head.\n\n\u201cDo not be so disdainful; woman understands all things through love;\nwhat she does not understand she feels; what she does not feel she sees;\nwhen she neither sees, nor feels, nor understands, this angel of earth\ndivines to protect you, and hides her protection beneath the grace of\nlove.\u201d\n\n\u201cSeraphita, am I worthy to belong to a woman?\u201d\n\n\u201cAh, now,\u201d she said, smiling, \u201cyou are suddenly very modest; is it a\nsnare? A woman is always so touched to see her weakness glorified. Well,\ncome and take tea with me the day after to-morrow evening; good Monsieur\nBecker will be here, and Minna, the purest and most artless creature\nI have known on earth. Leave me now, my friend; I need to make long\nprayers and expiate my sins.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou, can you commit sin?\u201d\n\n\u201cPoor friend! if we abuse our power, is not that the sin of pride? I\nhave been very proud to-day. Now leave me, till to-morrow.\u201d\n\n\u201cTill to-morrow,\u201d said Wilfrid faintly, casting a long glance at the\nbeing of whom he desired to carry with him an ineffaceable memory.\n\nThough he wished to go far away, he was held, as it were, outside the\nhouse for some moments, watching the light which shone from all the\nwindows of the Swedish dwelling.\n\n\u201cWhat is the matter with me?\u201d he asked himself. \u201cNo, she is not a mere\ncreature, but a whole creation. Of her world, even through veils and\nclouds, I have caught echoes like the memory of sufferings healed,\nlike the dazzling vertigo of dreams in which we hear the plaints of\ngenerations mingling with the harmonies of some higher sphere where all\nis Light and all is Love. Am I awake? Do I still sleep? Are these the\neyes before which the luminous space retreated further and further\nindefinitely while the eyes followed it? The night is cold, yet my head\nis on fire. I will go to the parsonage. With the pastor and his daughter\nI shall recover the balance of my mind.\u201d\n\nBut still he did not leave the spot whence his eyes could plunge into\nSeraphita\u2019s salon. The mysterious creature seemed to him the radiating\ncentre of a luminous circle which formed an atmosphere about her wider\nthan that of other beings; whoever entered it felt the compelling\ninfluence of, as it were, a vortex of dazzling light and all consuming\nthoughts. Forced to struggle against this inexplicable power, Wilfrid\nonly prevailed after strong efforts; but when he reached and passed the\ninclosing wall of the courtyard, he regained his freedom of will, walked\nrapidly towards the parsonage, and was soon beneath the high wooden\narch which formed a sort of peristyle to Monsieur Becker\u2019s dwelling. He\nopened the first door, against which the wind had driven the snow, and\nknocked on the inner one, saying:--\n\n\u201cWill you let me spend the evening with you, Monsieur Becker?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d cried two voices, mingling their intonations.\n\nEntering the parlor, Wilfrid returned by degrees to real life. He bowed\naffectionately to Minna, shook hands with Monsieur Becker, and looked\nabout at the picture of a home which calmed the convulsions of his\nphysical nature, in which a phenomenon was taking place analogous to\nthat which sometimes seizes upon men who have given themselves up\nto protracted contemplations. If some strong thought bears upward on\nphantasmal wing a man of learning or a poet, isolates him from the\nexternal circumstances which environ him here below, and leads him\nforward through illimitable regions where vast arrays of facts become\nabstractions, where the greatest works of Nature are but images, then\nwoe betide him if a sudden noise strikes sharply on his senses and calls\nhis errant soul back to its prison-house of flesh and bones. The\nshock of the reunion of these two powers, body and mind,--one of which\npartakes of the unseen qualities of a thunderbolt, while the other\nshares with sentient nature that soft resistant force which deifies\ndestruction,--this shock, this struggle, or, rather let us say, this\npainful meeting and co-mingling, gives rise to frightful sufferings. The\nbody receives back the flame that consumes it; the flame has once more\ngrasped its prey. This fusion, however, does not take place without\nconvulsions, explosions, tortures; analogous and visible signs of which\nmay be seen in chemistry, when two antagonistic substances which science\nhas united separate.\n\nFor the last few days whenever Wilfrid entered Seraphita\u2019s presence his\nbody seemed to fall away from him into nothingness. With a single\nglance this strange being led him in spirit through the spheres where\nmeditation leads the learned man, prayer the pious heart, where vision\ntransports the artist, and sleep the souls of men,--each and all have\ntheir own path to the Height, their own guide to reach it, their own\nindividual sufferings in the dire return. In that sphere alone all veils\nare rent away, and the revelation, the awful flaming certainty of an\nunknown world, of which the soul brings back mere fragments to this\nlower sphere, stands revealed. To Wilfrid one hour passed with Seraphita\nwas like the sought-for dreams of Theriakis, in which each knot of\nnerves becomes the centre of a radiating delight. But he left her\nbruised and wearied as some young girl endeavoring to keep step with a\ngiant.\n\nThe cold air, with its stinging flagellations, had begun to still\nthe nervous tremors which followed the reunion of his two natures, so\npowerfully disunited for a time; he was drawn towards the parsonage,\nthen towards Minna, by the sight of the every-day home life for which\nhe thirsted as the wandering European thirsts for his native land when\nnostalgia seizes him amid the fairy scenes of Orient that have seduced\nhis senses. More weary than he had ever yet been, Wilfrid dropped into\na chair and looked about him for a time, like a man who awakens from\nsleep. Monsieur Becker and his daughter accustomed, perhaps, to the\napparent eccentricity of their guest, continued the employments in which\nthey were engaged.\n\nThe parlor was ornamented with a collection of the shells and insects\nof Norway. These curiosities, admirably arranged on a background of the\nyellow pine which panelled the room, formed, as it were, a rich tapestry\nto which the fumes of tobacco had imparted a mellow tone. At the further\nend of the room, opposite to the door, was an immense wrought-iron\nstove, carefully polished by the serving-woman till it shone like\nburnished steel. Seated in a large tapestried armchair near the stove,\nbefore a table, with his feet in a species of muff, Monsieur Becker was\nreading a folio volume which was propped against a pile of other books\nas on a desk. At his left stood a jug of beer and a glass, at his right\nburned a smoky lamp fed by some species of fish-oil. The pastor seemed\nabout sixty years of age. His face belonged to a type often painted by\nRembrandt; the same small bright eyes, set in wrinkles and surmounted by\nthick gray eyebrows; the same white hair escaping in snowy flakes from a\nblack velvet cap; the same broad, bald brow, and a contour of face\nwhich the ample chin made almost square; and lastly, the same calm\ntranquillity, which, to an observer, denoted the possession of some\ninward power, be it the supremacy bestowed by money, or the magisterial\ninfluence of the burgomaster, or the consciousness of art, or the\ncubic force of blissful ignorance. This fine old man, whose stout body\nproclaimed his vigorous health, was wrapped in a dressing-gown of rough\ngray cloth plainly bound. Between his lips was a meerschaum pipe,\nfrom which, at regular intervals, he blew the smoke, following with\nabstracted vision its fantastic wreathings,--his mind employed, no\ndoubt, in assimilating through some meditative process the thoughts of\nthe author whose works he was studying.\n\nOn the other side of the stove and near a door which communicated with\nthe kitchen Minna was indistinctly visible in the haze of the good man\u2019s\nsmoke, to which she was apparently accustomed. Beside her on a little\ntable were the implements of household work, a pile of napkins, and\nanother of socks waiting to be mended, also a lamp like that which shone\non the white page of the book in which the pastor was absorbed. Her\nfresh young face, with its delicate outline, expressed an infinite\npurity which harmonized with the candor of the white brow and the clear\nblue eyes. She sat erect, turning slightly toward the lamp for better\nlight, unconsciously showing as she did so the beauty of her waist and\nbust. She was already dressed for the night in a long robe of white\ncotton; a cambric cap, without other ornament than a frill of the same,\nconfined her hair. Though evidently plunged in some inward meditation,\nshe counted without a mistake the threads of her napkins or the meshes\nof her socks. Sitting thus, she presented the most complete image, the\ntruest type, of the woman destined for terrestrial labor, whose glance\nmay piece the clouds of the sanctuary while her thought, humble and\ncharitable, keeps her ever on the level of man.\n\nWilfrid had flung himself into a chair between the two tables and\nwas contemplating with a species of intoxication this picture full of\nharmony, to which the clouds of smoke did no despite. The single window\nwhich lighted the parlor during the fine weather was now carefully\nclosed. An old tapestry, used for a curtain and fastened to a stick,\nhung before it in heavy folds. Nothing in the room was picturesque,\nnothing brilliant; everything denoted rigorous simplicity, true\nheartiness, the ease of unconventional nature, and the habits of a\ndomestic life which knew neither cares nor troubles. Many a dwelling is\nlike a dream, the sparkle of passing pleasure seems to hide some ruin\nbeneath the cold smile of luxury; but this parlor, sublime in reality,\nharmonious in tone, diffused the patriarchal ideas of a full and\nself-contained existence. The silence was unbroken save by the movements\nof the servant in the kitchen engaged in preparing the supper, and\nby the sizzling of the dried fish which she was frying in salt butter\naccording to the custom of the country.\n\n\u201cWill you smoke a pipe?\u201d said the pastor, seizing a moment when he\nthought that Wilfrid might listen to him.\n\n\u201cThank you, no, dear Monsieur Becker,\u201d replied the visitor.\n\n\u201cYou seem to suffer more to-day than usual,\u201d said Minna, struck by the\nfeeble tones of the stranger\u2019s voice.\n\n\u201cI am always so when I leave the chateau.\u201d\n\nMinna quivered.\n\n\u201cA strange being lives there, Monsieur Becker,\u201d he continued after a\npause. \u201cFor the six months that I have been in this village I have never\nyet dared to question you about her, and even now I do violence to\nmy feelings in speaking of her. I began by keenly regretting that my\njourney in this country was arrested by the winter weather and that I\nwas forced to remain here. But during the last two months chains have\nbeen forged and riveted which bind me irrevocably to Jarvis, till now\nI fear to end my days here. You know how I first met Seraphita, what\nimpression her look and voice made upon me, and how at last I was\nadmitted to her home where she receives no one. From the very first day\nI have longed to ask you the history of this mysterious being. On that\nday began, for me, a series of enchantments.\u201d\n\n\u201cEnchantments!\u201d cried the pastor shaking the ashes of his pipe into an\nearthen-ware dish full of sand, \u201care there enchantments in these days?\u201d\n\n\u201cYou, who are carefully studying at this moment that volume of the\n\u2018Incantations\u2019 of Jean Wier, will surely understand the explanation of\nmy sensations if I try to give it to you,\u201d replied Wilfrid. \u201cIf we study\nNature attentively in its great evolutions as in its minutest works, we\ncannot fail to recognize the possibility of enchantment--giving to that\nword its exact significance. Man does not create forces; he employs the\nonly force that exists and which includes all others namely Motion, the\nbreath incomprehensible of the sovereign Maker of the universe. Species\nare too distinctly separated for the human hand to mingle them. The only\nmiracle of which man is capable is done through the conjunction of\ntwo antagonistic substances. Gunpowder for instance is germane to a\nthunderbolt. As to calling forth a creation, and a sudden one, all\ncreation demands time, and time neither recedes nor advances at the word\nof command. So, in the world without us, plastic nature obeys laws the\norder and exercise of which cannot be interfered with by the hand of\nman. But after fulfilling, as it were, the function of Matter, it would\nbe unreasonable not to recognize within us the existence of a gigantic\npower, the effects of which are so incommensurable that the known\ngenerations of men have never yet been able to classify them. I do not\nspeak of man\u2019s faculty of abstraction, of constraining Nature to\nconfine itself within the Word,--a gigantic act on which the common\nmind reflects as little as it does on the nature of Motion, but which,\nnevertheless, has led the Indian theosophists to explain creation by\na word to which they give an inverse power. The smallest atom of their\nsubsistence, namely, the grain of rice, from which a creation issues and\nin which alternately creation again is held, presented to their minds so\nperfect an image of the creative word, and of the abstractive word, that\nto them it was easy to apply the same system to the creation of worlds.\nThe majority of men content themselves with the grain of rice sown in\nthe first chapter of all the Geneses. Saint John, when he said the\nWord was God only complicated the difficulty. But the fructification,\ngermination, and efflorescence of our ideas is of little consequence if\nwe compare that property, shared by many men, with the wholly\nindividual faculty of communicating to that property, by some mysterious\nconcentration, forces that are more or less active, of carrying it up\nto a third, a ninth, or a twenty-seventh power, of making it thus fasten\nupon the masses and obtain magical results by condensing the processes\nof nature.\n\n\u201cWhat I mean by enchantments,\u201d continued Wilfrid after a moment\u2019s pause,\n\u201care those stupendous actions taking place between two membranes in the\ntissue of the brain. We find in the unexplorable nature of the Spiritual\nWorld certain beings armed with these wondrous faculties, comparable\nonly to the terrible power of certain gases in the physical world,\nbeings who combine with other beings, penetrate them as active agents,\nand produce upon them witchcrafts, charms, against which these helpless\nslaves are wholly defenceless; they are, in fact, enchanted, brought\nunder subjection, reduced to a condition of dreadful vassalage. Such\nmysterious beings overpower others with the sceptre and the glory of\na superior nature,--acting upon them at times like the torpedo which\nelectrifies or paralyzes the fisherman, at other times like a dose of\nphosphorous which stimulates life and accelerates its propulsion; or\nagain, like opium, which puts to sleep corporeal nature, disengages the\nspirit from every bond, enables it to float above the world and shows\nthis earth to the spiritual eye as through a prism, extracting from it\nthe food most needed; or, yet again, like catalepsy, which deadens\nall faculties for the sake of one only vision. Miracles, enchantments,\nincantations, witchcrafts, spells, and charms, in short, all those\nacts improperly termed supernatural, are only possible and can only be\nexplained by the despotism with which some spirit compels us to feel the\neffects of a mysterious optic which increases, or diminishes, or exalts\ncreation, moves within us as it pleases, deforms or embellishes all\nthings to our eyes, tears us from heaven, or drags us to hell,--two\nterms by which men agree to express the two extremes of joy and misery.\n\n\u201cThese phenomena are within us, not without us,\u201d Wilfrid went on. \u201cThe\nbeing whom we call Seraphita seems to me one of those rare and terrible\nspirits to whom power is given to bind men, to crush nature, to enter\ninto participation of the occult power of God. The course of her\nenchantments over me began on that first day, when silence as to her\nwas imposed upon me against my will. Each time that I have wished to\nquestion you it seemed as though I were about to reveal a secret of\nwhich I ought to be the incorruptible guardian. Whenever I have tried\nto speak, a burning seal has been laid upon my lips, and I myself have\nbecome the involuntary minister of these mysteries. You see me here\nto-night, for the hundredth time, bruised, defeated, broken, after\nleaving the hallucinating sphere which surrounds that young girl, so\ngentle, so fragile to both of you, but to me the cruellest of magicians!\nYes, to me she is like a sorcerer holding in her right hand the\ninvisible wand that moves the globe, and in her left the thunderbolt\nthat rends asunder all things at her will. No longer can I look upon her\nbrow; the light of it is insupportable. I skirt the borders of the abyss\nof madness too closely to be longer silent. I must speak. I seize this\nmoment, when courage comes to me, to resist the power which drags me\nonward without inquiring whether or not I have the force to follow. Who\nis she? Did you know her young? What of her birth? Had she father and\nmother, or was she born of the conjunction of ice and sun? She burns and\nyet she freeze; she shows herself and then withdraws; she attracts me\nand repulses me; she brings me life, she gives me death; I love her and\nyet I hate her! I cannot live thus; let me be wholly in heaven or in\nhell!\u201d\n\nHolding his refilled pipe in one hand, and in the other the cover\nwhich he forgot to replace, Monsieur Becker listened to Wilfrid with a\nmysterious expression on his face, looking occasionally at his daughter,\nwho seemed to understand the man\u2019s language as in harmony with the\nstrange being who inspired it. Wilfrid was splendid to behold at this\nmoment,--like Hamlet listening to the ghost of his father as it rises\nfor him alone in the midst of the living.\n\n\u201cThis is certainly the language of a man in love,\u201d said the good pastor,\ninnocently.\n\n\u201cIn love!\u201d cried Wilfrid, \u201cyes, to common minds. But, dear Monsieur\nBecker, no words can express the frenzy which draws me to the feet of\nthat unearthly being.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen you do love her?\u201d said Minna, in a tone of reproach.\n\n\u201cMademoiselle, I feel such extraordinary agitation when I see her, and\nsuch deep sadness when I see her no more, that in any other man what I\nfeel would be called love. But that sentiment draws those who feel it\nardently together, whereas between her and me a great gulf lies, whose\nicy coldness penetrates my very being in her presence; though the\nfeeling dies away when I see her no longer. I leave her in despair; I\nreturn to her with ardor,--like men of science who seek a secret from\nNature only to be baffled, or like the painter who would fain put life\nupon his canvas and strives with all the resources of his art in the\nvain attempt.\u201d\n\n\u201cMonsieur, all that you say is true,\u201d replied the young girl, artlessly.\n\n\u201cHow can you know, Minna?\u201d asked the old pastor.\n\n\u201cAh! my father, had you been with us this morning on the summit of the\nFalberg, had you seen him praying, you would not ask me that question.\nYou would say, like Monsieur Wilfrid, that he saw his Seraphita for the\nfirst time in our temple, \u2018It is the Spirit of Prayer.\u2019\u201d\n\nThese words were followed by a moment\u2019s silence.\n\n\u201cAh, truly!\u201d said Wilfrid, \u201cshe has nothing in common with the creatures\nwho grovel upon this earth.\u201d\n\n\u201cOn the Falberg!\u201d said the old pastor, \u201chow could you get there?\u201d\n\n\u201cI do not know,\u201d replied Minna; \u201cthe way is like a dream to me, of which\nno more than a memory remains. Perhaps I should hardly believe that I\nhad been there were it not for this tangible proof.\u201d\n\nShe drew the flower from her bosom and showed it to them. All three\ngazed at the pretty saxifrage, which was still fresh, and now shone in\nthe light of the two lamps like a third luminary.\n\n\u201cThis is indeed supernatural,\u201d said the old man, astounded at the sight\nof a flower blooming in winter.\n\n\u201cA mystery!\u201d cried Wilfrid, intoxicated with its perfume.\n\n\u201cThe flower makes me giddy,\u201d said Minna; \u201cI fancy I still hear that\nvoice,--the music of thought; that I still see the light of that look,\nwhich is Love.\u201d\n\n\u201cI implore you, my dear Monsieur Becker, tell me the history of\nSeraphita,--enigmatical human flower,--whose image is before us in this\nmysterious bloom.\u201d\n\n\u201cMy dear friend,\u201d said the old man, emitting a puff of smoke, \u201cto\nexplain the birth of that being it is absolutely necessary that\nI disperse the clouds which envelop the most obscure of Christian\ndoctrines. It is not easy to make myself clear when speaking of that\nincomprehensible revelation,--the last effulgence of faith that has\nshone upon our lump of mud. Do you know Swedenborg?\u201d\n\n\u201cBy name only,--of him, of his books, and his religion I know nothing.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen I must relate to you the whole chronicle of Swedenborg.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III. SERAPHITA-SERAPHITUS\n\n\nAfter a pause, during which the pastor seemed to be gathering his\nrecollections, he continued in the following words:--\n\n\u201cEmanuel Swedenborg was born at Upsala in Sweden, in the month of\nJanuary, 1688, according to various authors,--in 1689, according to his\nepitaph. His father was Bishop of Skara. Swedenborg lived eighty-five\nyears; his death occurred in London, March 29, 1772. I use that term to\nconvey the idea of a simple change of state. According to his disciples,\nSwedenborg was seen at Jarvis and in Paris after that date. Allow me,\nmy dear Monsieur Wilfrid,\u201d said Monsieur Becker, making a gesture to\nprevent all interruption, \u201cI relate these facts without either affirming\nor denying them. Listen; afterwards you can think and say what you like.\nI will inform you when I judge, criticise, and discuss these doctrines,\nso as to keep clearly in view my own intellectual neutrality between HIM\nand Reason.\n\n\u201cThe life of Swedenborg was divided into two parts,\u201d continued the\npastor. \u201cFrom 1688 to 1745 Baron Emanuel Swedenborg appeared in the\nworld as a man of vast learning, esteemed and cherished for his virtues,\nalways irreproachable and constantly useful. While fulfilling high\npublic functions in Sweden, he published, between 1709 and 1740, several\nimportant works on mineralogy, physics, mathematics, and astronomy,\nwhich enlightened the world of learning. He originated a method of\nbuilding docks suitable for the reception of large vessels, and he\nwrote many treatises on various important questions, such as the rise\nof tides, the theory of the magnet and its qualities, the motion and\nposition of the earth and planets, and while Assessor in the Royal\nCollege of Mines, on the proper system of working salt mines. He\ndiscovered means to construct canal-locks or sluices; and he also\ndiscovered and applied the simplest methods of extracting ore and of\nworking metals. In fact he studied no science without advancing it. In\nyouth he learned Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, also the oriental languages,\nwith which he became so familiar that many distinguished scholars\nconsulted him, and he was able to decipher the vestiges of the oldest\nknown books of Scripture, namely: \u2018The Wars of Jehovah\u2019 and \u2018The\nEnunciations,\u2019 spoken of by Moses (Numbers xxi. 14, 15, 27-30), also\nby Joshua, Jeremiah, and Samuel,--\u2018The Wars of Jehovah\u2019 being the\nhistorical part and \u2018The Enunciations\u2019 the prophetical part of the\nMosaical Books anterior to Genesis. Swedenborg even affirms that \u2018the\nBook of Jasher,\u2019 the Book of the Righteous, mentioned by Joshua, was\nin existence in Eastern Tartary, together with the doctrine of\nCorrespondences. A Frenchman has lately, so they tell me, justified\nthese statements of Swedenborg, by the discovery at Bagdad of several\nportions of the Bible hitherto unknown to Europe. During the widespread\ndiscussion on animal magnetism which took its rise in Paris, and in\nwhich most men of Western science took an active part about the year\n1785, Monsieur le Marquis de Thome vindicated the memory of Swedenborg\nby calling attention to certain assertions made by the Commission\nappointed by the King of France to investigate the subject. These\ngentlemen declared that no theory of magnetism existed, whereas\nSwedenborg had studied and promulgated it ever since the year 1720.\nMonsieur de Thome seizes this opportunity to show the reason why so many\nmen of science relegated Swedenborg to oblivion while they delved into\nhis treasure-house and took his facts to aid their work. \u2018Some of the\nmost illustrious of these men,\u2019 said Monsieur de Thome, alluding to\nthe \u2018Theory of the Earth\u2019 by Buffon, \u2018have had the meanness to wear the\nplumage of the noble bird and refuse him all acknowledgment\u2019; and he\nproved, by masterly quotations drawn from the encyclopaedic works of\nSwedenborg, that the great prophet had anticipated by over a century the\nslow march of human science. It suffices to read his philosophical and\nmineralogical works to be convinced of this. In one passage he is\nseen as the precursor of modern chemistry by the announcement that the\nproductions of organized nature are decomposable and resolve into two\nsimple principles; also that water, air, and fire are _not elements_. In\nanother, he goes in a few words to the heart of magnetic mysteries and\ndeprives Mesmer of the honors of a first knowledge of them.\n\n\u201cThere,\u201d said Monsieur Becker, pointing to a long shelf against the\nwall between the stove and the window on which were ranged books of all\nsizes, \u201cbehold him! here are seventeen works from his pen, of which one,\nhis \u2018Philosophical and Mineralogical Works,\u2019 published in 1734, is in\nthree folio volumes. These productions, which prove the incontestable\nknowledge of Swedenborg, were given to me by Monsieur Seraphitus, his\ncousin and the father of Seraphita.\n\n\u201cIn 1740,\u201d continued Monsieur Becker, after a slight pause, \u201cSwedenborg\nfell into a state of absolute silence, from which he emerged to bid\nfarewell to all his earthly occupations; after which his thoughts turned\nexclusively to the Spiritual Life. He received the first commands of\nheaven in 1745, and he thus relates the nature of the vocation to\nwhich he was called: One evening, in London, after dining with a great\nappetite, a thick white mist seemed to fill his room. When the\nvapor dispersed a creature in human form rose from one corner of the\napartment, and said in a stern tone, \u2018Do not eat so much.\u2019 He refrained.\nThe next night the same man returned, radiant in light, and said to him,\n\u2018I am sent of God, who has chosen you to explain to men the meaning of\nhis Word and his Creation. I will tell you what to write.\u2019 The vision\nlasted but a few moments. The _angel_ was clothed in purple. During that\nnight the eyes of his _inner man_ were opened, and he was forced to\nlook into the heavens, into the world of spirits, and into hell,--three\nseparate spheres; where he encountered persons of his acquaintance who\nhad departed from their human form, some long since, others lately.\nThenceforth Swedenborg lived wholly in the spiritual life, remaining in\nthis world only as the messenger of God. His mission was ridiculed by\nthe incredulous, but his conduct was plainly that of a being superior\nto humanity. In the first place, though limited in means to the bare\nnecessaries of life, he gave away enormous sums, and publicly, in\nseveral cities, restored the fortunes of great commercial houses\nwhen they were on the brink of failure. No one ever appealed to his\ngenerosity who was not immediately satisfied. A sceptical Englishman,\ndetermined to know the truth, followed him to Paris, and relates that\nthere his doors stood always open. One day a servant complained of this\napparent negligence, which laid him open to suspicion of thefts\nthat might be committed by others. \u2018He need feel no anxiety,\u2019 said\nSwedenborg, smiling. \u2018But I do not wonder at his fear; he cannot see the\nguardian who protects my door.\u2019 In fact, no matter in what country he\nmade his abode he never closed his doors, and nothing was ever\nstolen from him. At Gottenburg--a town situated some sixty miles from\nStockholm--he announced, eight days before the news arrived by courier,\nthe conflagration which ravaged Stockholm, and the exact time at which\nit took place. The Queen of Sweden wrote to her brother, the King, at\nBerlin, that one of her ladies-in-waiting, who was ordered by the courts\nto pay a sum of money which she was certain her husband had paid before\nhis death, went to Swedenborg and begged him to ask her husband where\nshe could find proof of the payment. The following day Swedenborg,\nhaving done as the lady requested, pointed out the place where the\nreceipt would be found. He also begged the deceased to appear to\nhis wife, and the latter saw her husband in a dream, wrapped in a\ndressing-gown which he wore just before his death; and he showed her the\npaper in the place indicated by Swedenborg, where it had been securely\nput away. At another time, embarking from London in a vessel commanded\nby Captain Dixon, he overheard a lady asking if there were plenty of\nprovisions on board. \u2018We do not want a great quantity,\u2019 he said; \u2018in\neight days and two hours we shall reach Stockholm,\u2019--which actually\nhappened. This peculiar state of vision as to the things of the\nearth--into which Swedenborg could put himself at will, and\nwhich astonished those about him--was, nevertheless, but a feeble\nrepresentative of his faculty of looking into heaven.\n\n\u201cNot the least remarkable of his published visions is that in which he\nrelates his journeys through the Astral Regions; his descriptions\ncannot fail to astonish the reader, partly through the crudity of their\ndetails. A man whose scientific eminence is incontestable, and who\nunited in his own person powers of conception, will, and imagination,\nwould surely have invented better if he had invented at all. The\nfantastic literature of the East offers nothing that can give an idea\nof this astounding work, full of the essence of poetry, if it is\npermissible to compare a work of faith with one of oriental fancy. The\ntransportation of Swedenborg by the Angel who served as guide to this\nfirst journey is told with a sublimity which exceeds, by the distance\nwhich God has placed betwixt the earth and the sun, the great epics of\nKlopstock, Milton, Tasso, and Dante. This description, which serves in\nfact as an introduction to his work on the Astral Regions, has never\nbeen published; it is among the oral traditions left by Swedenborg to\nthe three disciples who were nearest to his heart. Monsieur Silverichm\nhas written them down. Monsieur Seraphitus endeavored more than once to\ntalk to me about them; but the recollection of his cousin\u2019s words was so\nburning a memory that he always stopped short at the first sentence and\nbecame lost in a revery from which I could not rouse him.\u201d\n\nThe old pastor sighed as he continued: \u201cThe baron told me that the\nargument by which the Angel proved to Swedenborg that these bodies are\nnot made to wander through space puts all human science out of sight\nbeneath the grandeur of a divine logic. According to the Seer, the\ninhabitants of Jupiter will not cultivate the sciences, which they call\ndarkness; those of Mercury abhor the expression of ideas by speech,\nwhich seems to them too material,--their language is ocular; those of\nSaturn are continually tempted by evil spirits; those of the Moon are as\nsmall as six-year-old children, their voices issue from the abdomen, on\nwhich they crawl; those of Venus are gigantic in height, but stupid, and\nlive by robbery,--although a part of this latter planet is inhabited by\nbeings of great sweetness, who live in the love of Good. In short, he\ndescribes the customs and morals of all the peoples attached to the\ndifferent globes, and explains the general meaning of their existence as\nrelated to the universe in terms so precise, giving explanations which\nagree so well with their visible evolutions in the system of the world,\nthat some day, perhaps, scientific men will come to drink of these\nliving waters.\n\n\u201cHere,\u201d said Monsieur Becker, taking down a book and opening it at a\nmark, \u201chere are the words with which he ended this work:--\n\n\u201c\u2018If any man doubts that I was transported through a vast number of\nAstral Regions, let him recall my observation of the distances in that\nother life, namely, that they exist only in relation to the external\nstate of man; now, being transformed within like unto the Angelic\nSpirits of those Astral Spheres, I was able to understand them.\u2019\n\n\u201cThe circumstances to which we of this canton owe the presence among\nus of Baron Seraphitus, the beloved cousin of Swedenborg, enabled me to\nknow all the events of the extraordinary life of that prophet. He has\nlately been accused of imposture in certain quarters of Europe, and the\npublic prints reported the following fact based on a letter written\nby the Chevalier Baylon. Swedenborg, they said, informed by certain\nsenators of a secret correspondence of the late Queen of Sweden with her\nbrother, the Prince of Prussia, revealed his knowledge of the secrets\ncontained in that correspondence to the Queen, making her believe he\nhad obtained this knowledge by supernatural means. A man worthy of all\nconfidence, Monsieur Charles-Leonhard de Stahlhammer, captain in\nthe Royal guard and knight of the Sword, answered the calumny with a\nconvincing letter.\u201d\n\nThe pastor opened a drawer of his table and looked through a number of\npapers until he found a gazette which he held out to Wilfrid, asking him\nto read aloud the following letter:--\n\nStockholm, May 18, 1788.\n\n  I have read with amazement a letter which purports to relate the\n  interview of the famous Swedenborg with Queen Louisa-Ulrika. The\n  circumstances therein stated are wholly false; and I hope the\n  writer will excuse me for showing him by the following faithful\n  narration, which can be proved by the testimony of many\n  distinguished persons then present and still living, how\n  completely he has been deceived.\n\n  In 1758, shortly after the death of the Prince of Prussia\n  Swedenborg came to court, where he was in the habit of attending\n  regularly. He had scarcely entered the queen\u2019s presence before she\n  said to him: \u201cWell, Mr. Assessor, have you seen my brother?\u201d\n   Swedenborg answered no, and the queen rejoined: \u201cIf you do see\n  him, greet him for me.\u201d In saying this she meant no more than a\n  pleasant jest, and had no thought whatever of asking him for\n  information about her brother. Eight days later (not twenty-four\n  as stated, nor was the audience a private one), Swedenborg again\n  came to court, but so early that the queen had not left her\n  apartment called the White Room, where she was conversing with her\n  maids-of-honor and other ladies attached to the court. Swedenborg\n  did not wait until she came forth, but entered the said room and\n  whispered something in her ear. The queen, overcome with\n  amazement, was taken ill, and it was some time before she\n  recovered herself. When she did so she said to those about her:\n  \u201cOnly God and my brother knew the thing that he has just spoken\n  of.\u201d She admitted that it related to her last correspondence with\n  the prince on a subject which was known to them alone. I cannot\n  explain how Swedenborg came to know the contents of that letter,\n  but I can affirm on my honor, that neither Count H---- (as the\n  writer of the article states) nor any other person intercepted, or\n  read, the queen\u2019s letters. The senate allowed her to write to her\n  brother in perfect security, considering the correspondence as of\n  no interest to the State. It is evident that the author of the\n  said article is ignorant of the character of Count H----. This\n  honored gentleman, who has done many important services to his\n  country, unites the qualities of a noble heart to gifts of mind,\n  and his great age has not yet weakened these precious possessions.\n  During his whole administration he added the weight of scrupulous\n  integrity to his enlightened policy and openly declared himself\n  the enemy of all secret intrigues and underhand dealings, which he\n  regarded as unworthy means to attain an end. Neither did the\n  writer of that article understand the Assessor Swedenborg. The\n  only weakness of that essentially honest man was a belief in the\n  apparition of spirits; but I knew him for many years, and I can\n  affirm that he was as fully convinced that he met and talked with\n  spirits as I am that I am writing at this moment. As a citizen and\n  as a friend his integrity was absolute; he abhorred deception and\n  led the most exemplary of lives. The version which the Chevalier\n  Baylon gave of these facts is, therefore, entirely without\n  justification; the visit stated to have been made to Swedenborg in\n  the night-time by Count H---- and Count T---- is hereby\n  contradicted. In conclusion, the writer of the letter may rest\n  assured that I am not a follower of Swedenborg. The love of truth\n  alone impels me to give this faithful account of a fact which has\n  been so often stated with details that are entirely false. I\n  certify to the truth of what I have written by adding my\n  signature.\n\n                                  Charles-Leonhard de Stahlhammer.\n\n\n\u201cThe proofs which Swedenborg gave of his mission to the royal families\nof Sweden and Prussia were no doubt the foundation of the belief in his\ndoctrines which is prevalent at the two courts,\u201d said Monsieur Becker,\nputting the gazette into the drawer. \u201cHowever,\u201d he continued, \u201cI shall\nnot tell you all the facts of his visible and material life; indeed his\nhabits prevented them from being fully known. He lived a hidden life;\nnot seeking either riches or fame. He was even noted for a sort of\nrepugnance to making proselytes; he opened his mind to few persons, and\nnever showed his external powers of second-sight to any who were not\neminent in faith, wisdom, and love. He could recognize at a glance the\nstate of the soul of every person who approached him, and those whom he\ndesired to reach with his inward language he converted into Seers. After\nthe year 1745, his disciples never saw him do a single thing from any\nhuman motive. One man alone, a Swedish priest, named Mathesius, set\nafloat a story that he went mad in London in 1744. But a eulogium on\nSwedenborg prepared with minute care as to all the known events of his\nlife, was pronounced after his death in 1772 on behalf of the Royal\nAcademy of Sciences in the Hall of the Nobles at Stockholm, by Monsieur\nSandels, counsellor of the Board of Mines. A declaration made before the\nLord Mayor of London gives the details of his last illness and death,\nin which he received the ministrations of Monsieur Ferelius a Swedish\npriest of the highest standing, and pastor of the Swedish Church in\nLondon, Mathesius being his assistant. All persons present attested that\nso far from denying the value of his writings Swedenborg firmly asserted\ntheir truth. \u2018In one hundred years,\u2019 Monsieur Ferelius quotes him as\nsaying, \u2018my doctrine will guide the _Church_.\u2019 He predicted the day\nand hour of his death. On that day, Sunday, March 29, 1772, hearing the\nclock strike, he asked what time it was. \u2018Five o\u2019clock\u2019 was the answer.\n\u2018It is well,\u2019 he answered; \u2018thank you, God bless you.\u2019 Ten minutes later\nhe tranquilly departed, breathing a gentle sigh. Simplicity, moderation,\nand solitude were the features of his life. When he had finished writing\nany of his books he sailed either for London or for Holland, where he\npublished them, and never spoke of them again. He published in this\nway twenty-seven different treatises, all written, he said, from the\ndictation of Angels. Be it true or false, few men have been strong\nenough to endure the flames of oral illumination.\n\n\u201cThere they all are,\u201d said Monsieur Becker, pointing to a second shelf\non which were some sixty volumes. \u201cThe treatises on which the Divine\nSpirit casts its most vivid gleams are seven in number, namely: \u2018Heaven\nand Hell\u2019; \u2018Angelic Wisdom concerning the Divine Love and the Divine\nWisdom\u2019; \u2018Angelic Wisdom concerning the Divine Providence\u2019; \u2018The\nApocalypse Revealed\u2019; \u2018Conjugial Love and its Chaste Delights\u2019; \u2018The\nTrue Christian Religion\u2019; and \u2018An Exposition of the Internal Sense.\u2019\nSwedenborg\u2019s explanation of the Apocalypse begins with these words,\u201d\n said Monsieur Becker, taking down and opening the volume nearest to him:\n\u201c\u2018Herein I have written nothing of mine own; I speak as I am bidden by\nthe Lord, who said, through the same angel, to John: \u201cThou shalt not\nseal the sayings of this Prophecy.\u201d\u2019 (Revelation xxii. 10.)\n\n\u201cMy dear Monsieur Wilfrid,\u201d said the old man, looking at his guest, \u201cI\noften tremble in every limb as I read, during the long winter evenings\nthe awe-inspiring works in which this man declares with perfect\nartlessness the wonders that are revealed to him. \u2018I have seen,\u2019 he\nsays, \u2018Heaven and the Angels. The spiritual man sees his spiritual\nfellows far better than the terrestrial man sees the men of earth. In\ndescribing the wonders of heaven and beneath the heavens I obey the\nLord\u2019s command. Others have the right to believe me or not as they\nchoose. I cannot put them into the state in which God has put me; it\nis not in my power to enable them to converse with Angels, nor to work\nmiracles within their understanding; they alone can be the instrument of\ntheir rise to angelic intercourse. It is now twenty-eight years since\nI have lived in the Spiritual world with angels, and on earth with men;\nfor it pleased God to open the eyes of my spirit as he did that of Paul,\nand of Daniel and Elisha.\u2019\n\n\u201cAnd yet,\u201d continued the pastor, thoughtfully, \u201ccertain persons have\nhad visions of the spiritual world through the complete detachment which\nsomnambulism produces between their external form and their inner being.\n\u2018In this state,\u2019 says Swedenborg in his treatise on Angelic Wisdom\n(No. 257) \u2018Man may rise into the region of celestial light because, his\ncorporeal senses being abolished, the influence of heaven acts without\nhindrance on his inner man.\u2019 Many persons who do not doubt that\nSwedenborg received celestial revelations think that his writings are\nnot all the result of divine inspiration. Others insist on absolute\nadherence to him; while admitting his many obscurities, they believe\nthat the imperfection of earthly language prevented the prophet from\nclearly revealing those spiritual visions whose clouds disperse to\nthe eyes of those whom faith regenerates; for, to use the words of his\ngreatest disciple, \u2018Flesh is but an external propagation.\u2019 To poets and\nto writers his presentation of the marvellous is amazing; to Seers it\nis simply reality. To some Christians his descriptions have seemed\nscandalous. Certain critics have ridiculed the celestial substance\nof his temples, his golden palaces, his splendid cities where angels\ndisport themselves; they laugh at his groves of miraculous trees, his\ngardens where the flowers speak and the air is white, and the mystical\nstones, the sard, carbuncle, chrysolite, chrysoprase, jacinth,\nchalcedony, beryl, the Urim and Thummim, are endowed with motion,\nexpress celestial truths, and reply by variations of light to questions\nput to them [\u2018True Christian Religion,\u2019 219). Many noble souls will not\nadmit his spiritual worlds where colors are heard in delightful concert,\nwhere language flames and flashes, where the Word is writ in pointed\nspiral letters [\u2018True Christian Religion,\u2019 278). Even in the North some\nwriters have laughed at the gates of pearl, and the diamonds which\nstud the floors and walls of his New Jerusalem, where the most ordinary\nutensils are made of the rarest substances of the globe. \u2018But,\u2019 say his\ndisciples, \u2018because such things are sparsely scattered on this earth\ndoes it follow that they are not abundant in other worlds? On earth\nthey are terrestrial substances, whereas in heaven they assume celestial\nforms and are in keeping with angels.\u2019 In this connection Swedenborg\nhas used the very words of Jesus Christ, who said, \u2018If I have told you\nearthly things and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you of\nheavenly things?\u2019\n\n\u201cMonsieur,\u201d continued the pastor, with an emphatic gesture, \u201cI have read\nthe whole of Swedenborg\u2019s works; and I say it with pride, because I have\ndone it and yet retained my reason. In reading him men either miss his\nmeaning or become Seers like him. Though I have evaded both extremes, I\nhave often experienced unheard-of delights, deep emotions, inward joys,\nwhich alone can reveal to us the plenitude of truth,--the evidence of\ncelestial Light. All things here below seem small indeed when the soul\nis lost in the perusal of these Treatises. It is impossible not to be\namazed when we think that in the short space of thirty years this man\nwrote and published, on the truths of the Spiritual World, twenty-five\nquarto volumes, composed in Latin, of which the shortest has five\nhundred pages, all of them printed in small type. He left, they say,\ntwenty others in London, bequeathed to his nephew, Monsieur Silverichm,\nformerly almoner to the King of Sweden. Certainly a man who, between the\nages of twenty and sixty, had already exhausted himself in publishing\na series of encyclopaedical works, must have received supernatural\nassistance in composing these later stupendous treatises, at an age,\ntoo, when human vigor is on the wane. You will find in these writings\nthousands of propositions, all numbered, none of which have been\nrefuted. Throughout we see method and precision; the presence of the\nspirit issuing and flowing down from a single fact,--the existence of\nangels. His \u2018True Christian Religion,\u2019 which sums up his whole doctrine\nand is vigorous with light, was conceived and written at the age of\neighty-three. In fact, his amazing vigor and omniscience are not denied\nby any of his critics, not even by his enemies.\n\n\u201cNevertheless,\u201d said Monsieur Becker, slowly, \u201cthough I have drunk deep\nin this torrent of divine light, God has not opened the eyes of my inner\nbeing, and I judge these writings by the reason of an unregenerated man.\nI have often felt that the _inspired_ Swedenborg must have misunderstood\nthe Angels. I have laughed over certain visions which, according to his\ndisciples, I ought to have believed with veneration. I have failed to\nimagine the spiral writing of the Angels or their golden belts, on\nwhich the gold is of great or lesser thickness. If, for example, this\nstatement, \u2018Some angels are solitary,\u2019 affected me powerfully for a\ntime, I was, on reflection, unable to reconcile this solitude with their\nmarriages. I have not understood why the Virgin Mary should continue to\nwear blue satin garments in heaven. I have even dared to ask myself why\nthose gigantic demons, Enakim and Hephilim, came so frequently to fight\nthe cherubim on the apocalyptic plains of Armageddon; and I cannot\nexplain to my own mind how Satans can argue with Angels. Monsieur le\nBaron Seraphitus assured me that those details concerned only the angels\nwho live on earth in human form. The visions of the prophet are\noften blurred with grotesque figures. One of his spiritual tales,\nor \u2018Memorable relations,\u2019 as he called them, begins thus: \u2018I see the\nspirits assembling, they have hats upon their heads.\u2019 In another of\nthese Memorabilia he receives from heaven a bit of paper, on which he\nsaw, he says, the hieroglyphics of the primitive peoples, which were\ncomposed of curved lines traced from the finger-rings that are worn in\nheaven. However, perhaps I am wrong; possibly the material absurdities\nwith which his works are strewn have spiritual significations.\nOtherwise, how shall we account for the growing influence of his\nreligion? His church numbers to-day more than seven hundred thousand\nbelievers,--as many in the United States of America as in England, where\nthere are seven thousand Swedenborgians in the city of Manchester alone.\nMany men of high rank in knowledge and in social position in Germany, in\nPrussia, and in the Northern kingdoms have publicly adopted the beliefs\nof Swedenborg; which, I may remark, are more comforting than those of\nall other Christian communions. I wish I had the power to explain to you\nclearly in succinct language the leading points of the doctrine on which\nSwedenborg founded his church; but I fear such a summary, made from\nrecollection, would be necessarily defective. I shall, therefore,\nallow myself to speak only of those \u2018Arcana\u2019 which concern the birth of\nSeraphita.\u201d\n\nHere Monsieur Becker paused, as though composing his mind to gather up\nhis ideas. Presently he continued, as follows:--\n\n\u201cAfter establishing mathematically that man lives eternally in spheres\nof either a lower or a higher grade, Swedenborg applies the term\n\u2018Spiritual Angels\u2019 to beings who in this world are prepared for heaven,\nwhere they become angels. According to him, God has not created angels;\nnone exist who have not been men upon the earth. The earth is the\nnursery-ground of heaven. The Angels are therefore not Angels as\nsuch [\u2018Angelic Wisdom,\u2019 57), they are transformed through their close\nconjunction with God; which conjunction God never refuses, because the\nessence of God is not negative, but essentially active. The spiritual\nangels pass through three natures of love, because man is only\nregenerated through successive stages [\u2018True Religion\u2019). First, the\n_love of self_: the supreme expression of this love is human genius,\nwhose works are worshipped. Next, _love of life_: this love produces\nprophets,--great men whom the world accepts as guides and proclaims\nto be divine. Lastly, _love of heaven_, and this creates the Spiritual\nAngel. These angels are, so to speak, the flowers of humanity, which\nculminates in them and works for that culmination. They must possess\neither the love of heaven or the wisdom of heaven, but always Love\nbefore Wisdom.\n\n\u201cThus the transformation of the natural man is into Love. To reach this\nfirst degree, his previous existences must have passed through Hope and\nCharity, which prepare him for Faith and Prayer. The ideas acquired\nby the exercise of these virtues are transmitted to each of the human\nenvelopes within which are hidden the metamorphoses of the _inner\nbeing_; for nothing is separate, each existence is necessary to the\nother existences. Hope cannot advance without Charity, nor Faith\nwithout Prayer; they are the four fronts of a solid square. \u2018One virtue\nmissing,\u2019 he said, \u2018and the Spiritual Angel is like a broken pearl.\u2019\nEach of these existences is therefore a circle in which revolves the\ncelestial riches of the inner being. The perfection of the Spiritual\nAngels comes from this mysterious progression in which nothing is lost\nof the high qualities that are successfully acquired to attain each\nglorious incarnation; for at each transformation they cast away\nunconsciously the flesh and its errors. When the man lives in Love he\nhas shed all evil passions: Hope, Charity, Faith, and Prayer have, in\nthe words of Isaiah, purged the dross of his inner being, which can\nnever more be polluted by earthly affections. Hence the grand saying\nof Christ quoted by Saint Matthew, \u2018Lay up for yourselves treasures\nin Heaven where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt,\u2019 and those still\ngrander words: \u2018If ye were of this world the world would love you, but I\nhave chosen you out of the world; be ye therefore perfect as your Father\nin heaven is perfect.\u2019\n\n\u201cThe second transformation of man is to Wisdom. Wisdom is the\nunderstanding of celestial things to which the Spirit is brought by\nLove. The Spirit of Love has acquired strength, the result of all\nvanquished terrestrial passions; it loves God blindly. But the Spirit of\nWisdom has risen to understanding and knows why it loves. The wings of\nthe one are spread and bear the spirit to God; the wings of the other\nare held down by the awe that comes of understanding: the spirit knows\nGod. The one longs incessantly to see God and to fly to Him; the other\nattains to Him and trembles. The union effected between the Spirit of\nLove and the Spirit of Wisdom carries the human being into a Divine\nstate during which time his soul is _woman_ and his body _man_, the last\nhuman manifestation in which the Spirit conquers Form, or Form still\nstruggles against the Spirit,--for Form, that is, the flesh, is\nignorant, rebels, and desires to continue gross. This supreme trial\ncreates untold sufferings seen by Heaven alone,--the agony of Christ in\nthe Garden of Olives.\n\n\u201cAfter death the first heaven opens to this dual and purified human\nnature. Therefore it is that man dies in despair while the Spirit\ndies in ecstasy. Thus, the _natural_, the state of beings not yet\nregenerated; the _spiritual_, the state of those who have become Angelic\nSpirits, and the _divine_, the state in which the Angel exists before\nhe breaks from his covering of flesh, are the three degrees of existence\nthrough which man enters heaven. One of Swedenborg\u2019s thoughts expressed\nin his own words will explain to you with wonderful clearness the\ndifference between the _natural_ and the _spiritual_. \u2018To the minds of\nmen,\u2019 he says, \u2018the Natural passes into the Spiritual; they regard the\nworld under its visible aspects, they perceive it only as it can be\nrealized by their senses. But to the apprehension of Angelic Spirits,\nthe Spiritual passes into the Natural; they regard the world in its\ninward essence and not in its form.\u2019 Thus human sciences are but\nanalyses of form. The man of science as the world goes is purely\nexternal like his knowledge; his inner being is only used to preserve\nhis aptitude for the perception of external truths. The Angelic Spirit\ngoes far beyond that; his knowledge is the thought of which human\nscience is but the utterance; he derives that knowledge from the Logos,\nand learns the law of _correspondences_ by which the world is placed\nin unison with heaven. The _word of God_ was wholly written by pure\nCorrespondences, and covers an esoteric or spiritual meaning, which\naccording to the science of Correspondences, cannot be understood.\n\u2018There exist,\u2019 says Swedenborg [\u2018Celestial Doctrine\u2019 26), \u2018innumerable\nArcana within the hidden meaning of the Correspondences. Thus the men\nwho scoff at the books of the Prophets where the Word is enshrined are\nas densely ignorant as those other men who know nothing of a science and\nyet ridicule its truths. To know the Correspondences which exist between\nthe things visible and ponderable in the terrestrial world and the\nthings invisible and imponderable in the spiritual world, is to hold\nheaven within our comprehension. All the objects of the manifold\ncreations having emanated from God necessarily enfold a hidden meaning;\naccording, indeed, to the grand thought of Isaiah, \u2018The earth is a\ngarment.\u2019\n\n\u201cThis mysterious link between Heaven and the smallest atoms of created\nmatter constitutes what Swedenborg calls a Celestial Arcanum, and\nhis treatise on the \u2018Celestial Arcana\u2019 in which he explains the\ncorrespondences or significances of the Natural with, and to, the\nSpiritual, giving, to use the words of Jacob Boehm, the sign and seal\nof all things, occupies not less than sixteen volumes containing thirty\nthousand propositions. \u2018This marvellous knowledge of Correspondences\nwhich the goodness of God granted to Swedenborg,\u2019 says one of his\ndisciples, \u2018is the secret of the interest which draws men to his works.\nAccording to him, all things are derived from heaven, all things lead\nback to heaven. His writings are sublime and clear; he speaks in heaven,\nand earth hears him. Take one of his sentences by itself and a volume\ncould be made of it\u2019; and the disciple quotes the following passages\ntaken from a thousand others that would answer the same purpose.\n\n\u201c\u2018The kingdom of heaven,\u2019 says Swedenborg [\u2018Celestial Arcana\u2019), \u2018is the\nkingdom of motives. _Action_ is born in heaven, thence into the world,\nand, by degrees, to the infinitely remote parts of earth. Terrestrial\neffects being thus linked to celestial causes, all things are\n_correspondent_ and _significant_. Man is the means of union between the\nNatural and the Spiritual.\u2019\n\n\u201cThe Angelic Spirits therefore know the very nature of the\nCorrespondences which link to heaven all earthly things; they know,\ntoo, the inner meaning of the prophetic words which foretell their\nevolutions. Thus to these Spirits everything here below has its\nsignificance; the tiniest flower is a thought,--a life which corresponds\nto certain lineaments of the Great Whole, of which they have a constant\nintuition. To them Adultery and the excesses spoken of in Scripture and\nby the Prophets, often garbled by self-styled scholars, mean the state\nof those souls which in this world persist in tainting themselves with\nearthly affections, thus compelling their divorce from Heaven. Clouds\nsignify the veil of the Most High. Torches, shew-bread, horses and\nhorsemen, harlots, precious stones, in short, everything named in\nScripture, has to them a clear-cut meaning, and reveals the future of\nterrestrial facts in their relation to Heaven. They penetrate the\ntruths contained in the Revelation of Saint John the divine, which human\nscience has subsequently demonstrated and proved materially; such, for\ninstance, as the following [\u2018big,\u2019 said Swedenborg, \u2018with many human\nsciences\u2019): \u2018I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven\nand the first earth were passed away\u2019 (Revelation xxi. 1). These Spirits\nknow the supper at which the flesh of kings and the flesh of all men,\nfree and bond, is eaten, to which an Angel standing in the sun has\nbidden them. They see the winged woman, clothed with the sun, and the\nmailed man. \u2018The horse of the Apocalypse,\u2019 says Swedenborg, \u2018is the\nvisible image of human intellect ridden by Death, for it bears within\nitself the elements of its own destruction.\u2019 Moreover, they can\ndistinguish beings concealed under forms which to ignorant eyes\nwould seem fantastic. When a man is disposed to receive the prophetic\nafflation of Correspondences, it rouses within him a perception of the\nWord; he comprehends that the creations are transformations only; his\nintellect is sharpened, a burning thirst takes possession of him which\nonly Heaven can quench. He conceives, according to the greater or lesser\nperfection of his inner being, the power of the Angelic Spirits; and he\nadvances, led by Desire (the least imperfect state of unregenerated man)\ntowards Hope, the gateway to the world of Spirits, whence he reaches\nPrayer, which gives him the Key of Heaven.\n\n\u201cWhat being here below would not desire to render himself worthy of\nentrance into the sphere of those who live in secret by Love and Wisdom?\nHere on earth, during their lifetime, such spirits remain pure; they\nneither see, nor think, nor speak like other men. There are two ways by\nwhich perception comes,--one internal, the other external. Man is wholly\nexternal, the Angelic Spirit wholly internal. The Spirit goes to\nthe depth of Numbers, possesses a full sense of them, knows their\nsignificances. It controls Motion, and by reason of its ubiquity it\nshares in all things. \u2018An Angel,\u2019 says Swedenborg, \u2018is ever present to\na man when desired\u2019 [\u2018Angelic Wisdom\u2019); for the Angel has the gift of\ndetaching himself from his body, and he sees into heaven as the\nprophets and as Swedenborg himself saw into it. \u2018In this state,\u2019 writes\nSwedenborg [\u2018True Religion,\u2019 136), \u2018the spirit of a man may move from\none place to another, his body remaining where it is,--a condition in\nwhich I lived for over twenty-six years.\u2019 It is thus that we should\ninterpret all Biblical statements which begin, \u2018The Spirit led me.\u2019\nAngelic Wisdom is to human wisdom what the innumerable forces of nature\nare to its action, which is one. All things live again, and move and\nhave their being in the Spirit, which is in God. Saint Paul expresses\nthis truth when he says, \u2018In Deo sumus, movemur, et vivimus,\u2019--we live,\nwe act, we are in God.\n\n\u201cEarth offers no hindrance to the Angelic Spirit, just as the Word\noffers him no obscurity. His approaching divinity enables him to see the\nthought of God veiled in the Logos, just as, living by his inner being,\nthe Spirit is in communion with the hidden meaning of all things on this\nearth. Science is the language of the Temporal world, Love is that of\nthe Spiritual world. Thus man takes note of more than he is able\nto explain, while the Angelic Spirit sees and comprehends. Science\ndepresses man; Love exalts the Angel. Science is still seeking, Love\nhas found. Man judges Nature according to his own relations to her; the\nAngelic Spirit judges it in its relation to Heaven. In short, all things\nhave a voice for the Spirit. Spirits are in the secret of the harmony of\nall creations with each other; they comprehend the spirit of sound, the\nspirit of color, the spirit of vegetable life; they can question the\nmineral, and the mineral makes answer to their thoughts. What to them\nare sciences and the treasures of the earth when they grasp all things\nby the eye at all moments, when the worlds which absorb the minds of so\nmany men are to them but the last step from which they spring to God?\nLove of heaven, or the Wisdom of heaven, is made manifest to them by a\ncircle of light which surrounds them, and is visible to the Elect.\nTheir innocence, of which that of children is a symbol, possesses,\nnevertheless, a knowledge which children have not; they are both\ninnocent and learned. \u2018And,\u2019 says Swedenborg, \u2018the innocence of Heaven\nmakes such an impression upon the soul that those whom it affects keep\na rapturous memory of it which lasts them all their lives, as I myself\nhave experienced. It is perhaps sufficient,\u2019 he goes on, \u2018to have only a\nminimum perception of it to be forever changed, to long to enter Heaven\nand the sphere of Hope.\u2019\n\n\u201cHis doctrine of Marriage can be reduced to the following words: \u2018The\nLord has taken the beauty and the grace of the life of man and bestowed\nthem upon woman. When man is not reunited to this beauty and this grace\nof his life, he is harsh, sad, and sullen; when he is reunited to them\nhe is joyful and complete.\u2019 The Angels are ever at the perfect point\nof beauty. Marriages are celebrated by wondrous ceremonies. In these\nunions, which produce no children, man contributes the _understanding_,\nwoman the _will_; they become one being, one Flesh here below, and pass\nto heaven clothed in the celestial form. On this earth, the natural\nattraction of the sexes towards enjoyment is an Effect which allures,\nfatigues and disgusts; but in the form celestial the pair, now _one_ in\nSpirit find within theirself a ceaseless source of joy. Swedenborg was\nled to see these nuptials of the Spirits, which in the words of Saint\nLuke (xx. 35) are neither marrying nor giving in marriage, and which\ninspire none but spiritual pleasures. An Angel offered to make him\nwitness of such a marriage and bore him thither on his wings (the wings\nare a symbol and not a reality). The Angel clothed him in a wedding\ngarment and when Swedenborg, finding himself thus robed in light, asked\nwhy, the answer was: \u2018For these events, our garments are illuminated;\nthey shine; they are made nuptial.\u2019 [\u2018Conjugial Love,\u2019 19, 20, 21.) Then\nhe saw the two Angels, one coming from the South, the other from the\nEast; the Angel of the South was in a chariot drawn by two white horses,\nwith reins of the color and brilliance of the dawn; but lo, when they\nwere near him in the sky, chariot and horses vanished. The Angel of the\nEast, clothed in crimson, and the Angel of the South, in purple, drew\ntogether, like breaths, and mingled: one was the Angel of Love, the\nother the Angel of Wisdom. Swedenborg\u2019s guide told him that the two\nAngels had been linked together on earth by an inward friendship and\never united though separated in life by great distances. Consent, the\nessence of all good marriage upon earth, is the habitual state of Angels\nin Heaven. Love is the light of their world. The eternal rapture of\nAngels comes from the faculty that God communicates to them to\nrender back to Him the joy they feel through Him. This reciprocity of\ninfinitude forms their life. They become infinite by participating of\nthe essence of God, who generates Himself by Himself.\n\n\u201cThe immensity of the Heavens where the Angels dwell is such that if man\nwere endowed with sight as rapid as the darting of light from the sun to\nthe earth, and if he gazed throughout eternity, his eyes could not reach\nthe horizon, nor find an end. Light alone can give an idea of the joys\nof heaven. \u2018It is,\u2019 says Swedenborg [\u2018Angelic Wisdom,\u2019 7, 25, 26, 27),\n\u2018a vapor of the virtue of God, a pure emanation of His splendor, beside\nwhich our greatest brilliance is obscurity. It can compass all; it can\nrenew all, and is never absorbed: it environs the Angel and unites him\nto God by infinite joys which multiply infinitely of themselves. This\nLight destroys whosoever is not prepared to receive it. No one here\nbelow, nor yet in Heaven can see God and live. This is the meaning of\nthe saying (Exodus xix. 12, 13, 21-23) \u201cTake heed to yourselves that ye\ngo not up into the mount--lest ye break through unto the Lord to gaze,\nand many perish.\u201d And again (Exodus xxxiv. 29-35), \u201cWhen Moses came down\nfrom Mount Sinai with the two Tables of testimony in his hand, his face\nshone, so that he put a veil upon it when he spake with the people, lest\nany of them die.\u201d The Transfiguration of Jesus Christ likewise revealed\nthe light surrounding the Messengers from on high and the ineffable joys\nof the Angels who are forever imbued with it. \u201cHis face,\u201d says Saint\nMatthew (xvii. 1-5), \u201cdid shine as the sun and his raiment was white as\nthe light--and a bright cloud overshadowed them.\u201d\u2019\n\n\u201cWhen a planet contains only those beings who reject the Lord, when his\nword is ignored, then the Angelic Spirits are gathered together by the\nfour winds, and God sends forth an Exterminating Angel to change the\nface of the refractory earth, which in the immensity of this universe is\nto Him what an unfruitful seed is to Nature. Approaching the globe, this\nExterminating Angel, borne by a comet, causes the planet to turn upon\nits axis, and the lands lately covered by the seas reappear, adorned in\nfreshness and obedient to the laws proclaimed in Genesis; the Word of\nGod is once more powerful on this new earth, which everywhere exhibits\nthe effects of terrestrial waters and celestial flames. The light\nbrought by the Angel from On High, causes the sun to pale. \u2018Then,\u2019 says\nIsaiah, (xix. 20) \u2018men will hide in the clefts of the rock and roll\nthemselves in the dust of the earth.\u2019 \u2018They will cry to the mountains\u2019\n(Revelation), \u2018Fall on us! and to the seas, Swallow us up! Hide us from\nthe face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the\nLamb!\u2019 The Lamb is the great figure and hope of the Angels misjudged and\npersecuted here below. Christ himself has said, \u2018Blessed are those who\nmourn! Blessed are the simple-hearted! Blessed are they that love!\u2019--All\nSwedenborg is there! Suffer, Believe, Love. To love truly must we not\nsuffer? must we not believe? Love begets Strength, Strength bestows\nWisdom, thence Intelligence; for Strength and Wisdom demand Will. To\nbe intelligent, is not that to Know, to Wish, and to Will,--the three\nattributes of the Angelic Spirit? \u2018If the universe has a meaning,\u2019\nMonsieur Saint-Martin said to me when I met him during a journey which\nhe made in Sweden, \u2018surely this is the one most worthy of God.\u2019\n\n\u201cBut, Monsieur,\u201d continued the pastor after a thoughtful pause, \u201cof what\navail to you are these shreds of thoughts taken here and there from\nthe vast extent of a work of which no true idea can be given except\nby comparing it to a river of light, to billows of flame? When a man\nplunges into it he is carried away as by an awful current. Dante\u2019s poem\nseems but a speck to the reader submerged in the almost Biblical\nverses with which Swedenborg renders palpable the Celestial Worlds,\nas Beethoven built his palaces of harmony with thousands of notes, as\narchitects have reared cathedrals with millions of stones. We roll in\nsoundless depths, where our minds will not always sustain us. Ah, surely\na great and powerful intellect is needed to bring us back, safe and\nsound, to our own social beliefs.\n\n\u201cSwedenborg,\u201d resumed the pastor, \u201cwas particularly attached to the\nBaron de Seraphitz, whose name, according to an old Swedish custom, had\ntaken from time immemorial the Latin termination of \u2018us.\u2019 The baron was\nan ardent disciple of the Swedish prophet, who had opened the eyes of\nhis Inner-Man and brought him to a life in conformity with the decrees\nfrom On-High. He sought for an Angelic Spirit among women; Swedenborg\nfound her for him in a vision. His bride was the daughter of a London\nshoemaker, in whom, said Swedenborg, the life of Heaven shone, she\nhaving passed through all anterior trials. After the death, that is, the\ntransformation of the prophet, the baron came to Jarvis to accomplish\nhis celestial nuptials with the observances of Prayer. As for me, who\nam not a Seer, I have only known the terrestrial works of this couple.\nTheir lives were those of saints whose virtues are the glory of the\nRoman Church. They ameliorated the condition of our people; they\nsupplied them all with means in return for work,--little, perhaps,\nbut enough for all their wants. Those who lived with them in constant\nintercourse never saw them show a sign of anger or impatience; they were\nconstantly beneficent and gentle, full of courtesy and loving-kindness;\ntheir marriage was the harmony of two souls indissolubly united. Two\neiders winging the same flight, the sound in the echo, the thought in\nthe word,--these, perhaps, are true images of their union. Every one\nhere in Jarvis loved them with an affection which I can compare only\nto the love of a plant for the sun. The wife was simple in her manners,\nbeautiful in form, lovely in face, with a dignity of bearing like that\nof august personages. In 1783, being then twenty-six years old, she\nconceived a child; her pregnancy was to the pair a solemn joy. They\nprepared to bid the earth farewell; for they told me they should be\ntransformed when their child had passed the state of infancy which\nneeded their fostering care until the strength to exist alone should be\ngiven to her.\n\n\u201cTheir child was born,--the Seraphita we are now concerned with. From\nthe moment of her conception father and mother lived a still more\nsolitary life than in the past, lifting themselves up to heaven by\nPrayer. They hoped to see Swedenborg, and faith realized their hope.\nThe day on which Seraphita came into the world Swedenborg appeared in\nJarvis, and filled the room of the new-born child with light. I was told\nthat he said, \u2018The work is accomplished; the Heavens rejoice!\u2019 Sounds of\nunknown melodies were heard throughout the house, seeming to come\nfrom the four points of heaven on the wings of the wind. The spirit of\nSwedenborg led the father forth to the shores of the fiord and there\nquitted him. Certain inhabitants of Jarvis, having approached Monsieur\nSeraphitus as he stood on the shore, heard him repeat those blissful\nwords of Scripture: \u2018How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of Him\nwho is sent of God!\u2019\n\n\u201cI had left the parsonage on my way to baptize the infant and name\nit, and perform the other duties required by law, when I met the baron\nreturning to the house. \u2018Your ministrations are superfluous,\u2019 he said;\n\u2018our child is to be without name on this earth. You must not baptize in\nthe waters of an earthly Church one who has just been immersed in the\nfires of Heaven. This child will remain a blossom, it will not grow old;\nyou will see it pass away. You exist, but our child has life; you have\noutward senses, the child has none, its being is always inward.\u2019 These\nwords were uttered in so strange and supernatural a voice that I was\nmore affected by them than by the shining of his face, from which light\nappeared to exude. His appearance realized the phantasmal ideas which we\nform of inspired beings as we read the prophesies of the Bible. But such\neffects are not rare among our mountains, where the nitre of perpetual\nsnows produces extraordinary phenomena in the human organization.\n\n\u201cI asked him the cause of his emotion. \u2018Swedenborg came to us; he has\njust left me; I have breathed the air of heaven,\u2019 he replied. \u2018Under\nwhat form did he appear?\u2019 I said. \u2018Under his earthly form; dressed as\nhe was the last time I saw him in London, at the house of Richard\nShearsmith, Coldbath-fields, in July, 1771. He wore his brown frieze\ncoat with steel buttons, his waistcoat buttoned to the throat, a white\ncravat, and the same magisterial wig rolled and powdered at the sides\nand raised high in front, showing his vast and luminous brow, in keeping\nwith the noble square face, where all is power and tranquillity. I\nrecognized the large nose with its fiery nostril, the mouth that\never smiled,--angelic mouth from which these words, the pledge of my\nhappiness, have just issued, \u201cWe shall meet soon.\u201d\u2019\n\n\u201cThe conviction that shone on the baron\u2019s face forbade all discussion; I\nlistened in silence. His voice had a contagious heat which made my bosom\nburn within me; his fanaticism stirred my heart as the anger of another\nmakes our nerves vibrate. I followed him in silence to his house, where\nI saw the nameless child lying mysteriously folded to its mother\u2019s\nbreast. The babe heard my step and turned its head toward me; its\neyes were not those of an ordinary child. To give you an idea of the\nimpression I received, I must say that already they saw and thought. The\nchildhood of this predestined being was attended by circumstances quite\nextraordinary in our climate. For nine years our winters were milder\nand our summers longer than usual. This phenomenon gave rise to several\ndiscussions among scientific men; but none of their explanations seemed\nsufficient to academicians, and the baron smiled when I told him of\nthem. The child was never seen in its nudity as other children are; it\nwas never touched by man or woman, but lived a sacred thing upon the\nmother\u2019s breast, and it never cried. If you question old David he will\nconfirm these facts about his mistress, for whom he feels an adoration\nlike that of Louis IX. for the saint whose name he bore.\n\n\u201cAt nine years of age the child began to pray; prayer is her life. You\nsaw her in the church at Christmas, the only day on which she comes\nthere; she is separated from the other worshippers by a visible space.\nIf that space does not exist between herself and men she suffers. That\nis why she passes nearly all her time alone in the chateau. The events\nof her life are unknown; she is seldom seen; her days are spent in the\nstate of mystical contemplation which was, so Catholic writers tell us,\nhabitual with the early Christian solitaries, in whom the oral tradition\nof Christ\u2019s own words still remained. Her mind, her soul, her body, all\nwithin her is virgin as the snow on those mountains. At ten years of\nage she was just what you see her now. When she was nine her father and\nmother expired together, without pain or visible malady, after naming\nthe day and hour at which they would cease to be. Standing at their\nfeet she looked at them with a calm eye, not showing either sadness, or\ngrief, or joy, or curiosity. When we approached to remove the two bodies\nshe said, \u2018Carry them away!\u2019 \u2018Seraphita,\u2019 I said, for so we called her,\n\u2018are you not affected by the death of your father and your mother\nwho loved you so much?\u2019 \u2018Dead?\u2019 she answered, \u2018no, they live in me\nforever--That is nothing,\u2019 she pointed without emotion to the bodies\nthey were bearing away. I then saw her for the third time only since her\nbirth. In church it is difficult to distinguish her; she stands near\na column which, seen from the pulpit, is in shadow, so that I cannot\nobserve her features.\n\n\u201cOf all the servants of the household there remained after the death of\nthe master and mistress only old David, who, in spite of his eighty-two\nyears, suffices to wait on his mistress. Some of our Jarvis people tell\nwonderful tales about her. These have a certain weight in a land so\nessentially conducive to mystery as ours; and I am now studying the\ntreatise on Incantations by Jean Wier and other works relating to\ndemonology, where pretended supernatural events are recorded, hoping to\nfind facts analogous to those which are attributed to her.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen you do not believe in her?\u201d said Wilfrid.\n\n\u201cOh yes, I do,\u201d said the pastor, genially, \u201cI think her a very\ncapricious girl; a little spoilt by her parents, who turned her head\nwith the religious ideas I have just revealed to you.\u201d\n\nMinna shook her head in a way that gently expressed contradiction.\n\n\u201cPoor girl!\u201d continued the old man, \u201cher parents bequeathed to her that\nfatal exaltation of soul which misleads mystics and renders them all\nmore or less mad. She subjects herself to fasts which horrify poor\nDavid. The good old man is like a sensitive plant which quivers at the\nslightest breeze, and glows under the first sun-ray. His mistress, whose\nincomprehensible language has become his, is the breeze and the sun-ray\nto him; in his eyes her feet are diamonds and her brow is strewn with\nstars; she walks environed with a white and luminous atmosphere; her\nvoice is accompanied by music; she has the gift of rendering herself\ninvisible. If you ask to see her, he will tell you she has gone to the\n_astral regions_. It is difficult to believe such a story, is it not?\nYou know all miracles bear more or less resemblance to the story of the\nGolden Tooth. We have our golden tooth in Jarvis, that is all. Duncker\nthe fisherman asserts that he has seen her plunge into the fiord and\ncome up in the shape of an eider-duck, at other times walking on the\nbillows of a storm. Fergus, who leads the flocks to the saeters, says\nthat in rainy weather a circle of clear sky can be seen over the Swedish\ncastle; and that the heavens are always blue above Seraphita\u2019s head when\nshe is on the mountain. Many women hear the tones of a mighty organ when\nSeraphita enters the church, and ask their neighbors earnestly if they\ntoo do not hear them. But my daughter, for whom during the last two\nyears Seraphita has shown much affection, has never heard this music,\nand has never perceived the heavenly perfumes which, they say, make the\nair fragrant about her when she moves. Minna, to be sure, has often on\nreturning from their walks together expressed to me the delight of a\nyoung girl in the beauties of our spring-time, in the spicy odors of\nbudding larches and pines and the earliest flowers; but after our long\nwinters what can be more natural than such pleasure? The companionship\nof this so-called spirit has nothing so very extraordinary in it, has\nit, my child?\u201d\n\n\u201cThe secrets of that spirit are not mine,\u201d said Minna. \u201cNear it I know\nall, away from it I know nothing; near that exquisite life I am no\nlonger myself, far from it I forget all. The time we pass together is\na dream which my memory scarcely retains. I may have heard yet not\nremember the music which the women tell of; in that presence, I may have\nbreathed celestial perfumes, seen the glory of the heavens, and yet be\nunable to recollect them here.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat astonishes me most,\u201d resumed the pastor, addressing Wilfrid, \u201cis\nto notice that you suffer from being near her.\u201d\n\n\u201cNear her!\u201d exclaimed the stranger, \u201cshe has never so much as let\nme touch her hand. When she saw me for the first time her glance\nintimidated me; she said: \u2018You are welcome here, for you were to come.\u2019\nI fancied that she knew me. I trembled. It is fear that forces me to\nbelieve in her.\u201d\n\n\u201cWith me it is love,\u201d said Minna, without a blush.\n\n\u201cAre you making fun of me?\u201d said Monsieur Becker, laughing\ngood-humoredly; \u201cyou my daughter, in calling yourself a Spirit of Love,\nand you, Monsieur Wilfrid, in pretending to be a Spirit of Wisdom?\u201d\n\nHe drank a glass of beer and so did not see the singular look which\nWilfrid cast upon Minna.\n\n\u201cJesting apart,\u201d resumed the old gentleman, \u201cI have been much astonished\nto hear that these two mad-caps ascended to the summit of the Falberg;\nit must be a girlish exaggeration; they probably went to the crest of a\nledge. It is impossible to reach the peaks of the Falberg.\u201d\n\n\u201cIf so, father,\u201d said Minna, in an agitated voice, \u201cI must have been\nunder the power of a spirit; for indeed we reached the summit of the\nIce-Cap.\u201d\n\n\u201cThis is really serious,\u201d said Monsieur Becker. \u201cMinna is always\ntruthful.\u201d\n\n\u201cMonsieur Becker,\u201d said Wilfrid, \u201cI swear to you that Seraphita\nexercises such extraordinary power over me that I know no language in\nwhich I can give you the least idea of it. She has revealed to me things\nknown to myself alone.\u201d\n\n\u201cSomnambulism!\u201d said the old man. \u201cA great many such effects are related\nby Jean Wier as phenomena easily explained and formerly observed in\nEgypt.\u201d\n\n\u201cLend me Swedenborg\u2019s theosophical works,\u201d said Wilfrid, \u201cand let me\nplunge into those gulfs of light,--you have given me a thirst for them.\u201d\n\nMonsieur Becker took down a volume and gave it to his guest, who\ninstantly began to read it. It was about nine o\u2019clock in the evening.\nThe serving-woman brought in the supper. Minna made tea. The repast\nover, each turned silently to his or her occupation; the pastor read the\nIncantations; Wilfrid pursued the spirit of Swedenborg; and the young\ngirl continued to sew, her mind absorbed in recollections. It was a true\nNorwegian evening--peaceful, studious, and domestic; full of thoughts,\nflowers blooming beneath the snow. Wilfrid, as he devoured the pages of\nthe prophet, lived by his inner senses only; the pastor, looking up at\ntimes from his book, called Minna\u2019s attention to the absorption of\ntheir guest with an air that was half-serious, half-jesting. To Minna\u2019s\nthoughts the face of Seraphitus smiled upon her as it hovered above the\nclouds of smoke which enveloped them. The clock struck twelve. Suddenly\nthe outer door was opened violently. Heavy but hurried steps, the steps\nof a terrified old man, were heard in the narrow vestibule between the\ntwo doors; then David burst into the parlor.\n\n\u201cDanger, danger!\u201d he cried. \u201cCome! come, all! The evil spirits are\nunchained! Fiery mitres are on their heads! Demons, Vertumni, Sirens!\nthey tempt her as Jesus was tempted on the mountain! Come, come! and\ndrive them away.\u201d\n\n\u201cDo you not recognize the language of Swedenborg?\u201d said the pastor,\nlaughing, to Wilfrid. \u201cHere it is; pure from the source.\u201d\n\nBut Wilfrid and Minna were gazing in terror at old David, who, with hair\nerect, and eyes distraught, his legs trembling and covered with snow,\nfor he had come without snow-shoes, stood swaying from side to side, as\nif some boisterous wind were shaking him.\n\n\u201cIs he harmed?\u201d cried Minna.\n\n\u201cThe devils hope and try to conquer her,\u201d replied the old man.\n\nThe words made Wilfrid\u2019s pulses throb.\n\n\u201cFor the last five hours she has stood erect, her eyes raised to heaven\nand her arms extended; she suffers, she cries to God. I cannot cross the\nbarrier; Hell has posted the Vertumni as sentinels. They have set up an\niron wall between her and her old David. She wants me, but what can I\ndo? Oh, help me! help me! Come and pray!\u201d\n\nThe old man\u2019s despair was terrible to see.\n\n\u201cThe Light of God is defending her,\u201d he went on, with infectious faith,\n\u201cbut oh! she might yield to violence.\u201d\n\n\u201cSilence, David! you are raving. This is a matter to be verified. We\nwill go with you,\u201d said the pastor, \u201cand you shall see that there are no\nVertumni, nor Satans, nor Sirens, in that house.\u201d\n\n\u201cYour father is blind,\u201d whispered David to Minna.\n\nWilfrid, on whom the reading of Swedenborg\u2019s first treatise, which he\nhad rapidly gone through, had produced a powerful effect, was already in\nthe corridor putting on his skees; Minna was ready in a few moments, and\nboth left the old men far behind as they darted forward to the Swedish\ncastle.\n\n\u201cDo you hear that cracking sound?\u201d said Wilfrid.\n\n\u201cThe ice of the fiord stirs,\u201d answered Minna; \u201cthe spring is coming.\u201d\n\nWilfrid was silent. When the two reached the courtyard they were\nconscious that they had neither the faculty nor the strength to enter\nthe house.\n\n\u201cWhat think you of her?\u201d asked Wilfrid.\n\n\u201cSee that radiance!\u201d cried Minna, going towards the window of the salon.\n\u201cHe is there! How beautiful! O my Seraphitus, take me!\u201d\n\nThe exclamation was uttered inwardly. She saw Seraphitus standing erect,\nlightly swathed in an opal-tinted mist that disappeared at a little\ndistance from the body, which seemed almost phosphorescent.\n\n\u201cHow beautiful she is!\u201d cried Wilfrid, mentally.\n\nJust then Monsieur Becker arrived, followed by David; he saw his\ndaughter and guest standing before the window; going up to them, he\nlooked into the salon and said quietly, \u201cWell, my good David, she is\nonly saying her prayers.\u201d\n\n\u201cAh, but try to enter, Monsieur.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy disturb those who pray?\u201d answered the pastor.\n\nAt this instant the moon, rising above the Falberg, cast its rays upon\nthe window. All three turned round, attracted by this natural effect\nwhich made them quiver; when they turned back to again look at Seraphita\nshe had disappeared.\n\n\u201cHow strange!\u201d exclaimed Wilfrid.\n\n\u201cI hear delightful sounds,\u201d said Minna.\n\n\u201cWell,\u201d said the pastor, \u201cit is all plain enough; she is going to bed.\u201d\n\nDavid had entered the house. The others took their way back in silence;\nnone of them interpreted the vision in the same manner,--Monsieur Becker\ndoubted, Minna adored, Wilfrid longed.\n\nWilfrid was a man about thirty-six years of age. His figure, though\nbroadly developed, was not wanting in symmetry. Like most men who\ndistinguish themselves above their fellows, he was of medium height; his\nchest and shoulders were broad, and his neck short,--a characteristic of\nthose whose hearts are near their heads; his hair was black, thick, and\nfine; his eyes, of a yellow brown, had, as it were, a solar brilliancy,\nwhich proclaimed with what avidity his nature aspired to Light. Though\nthese strong and virile features were defective through the absence\nof an inward peace,--granted only to a life without storms or\nconflicts,--they plainly showed the inexhaustible resources of impetuous\nsenses and the appetites of instinct; just as every motion revealed\nthe perfection of the man\u2019s physical apparatus, the flexibility of\nhis senses, and their fidelity when brought into play. This man might\ncontend with savages, and hear, as they do, the tread of enemies in\ndistant forests; he could follow a scent in the air, a trail on the\nground, or see on the horizon the signal of a friend. His sleep was\nlight, like that of all creatures who will not allow themselves to be\nsurprised. His body came quickly into harmony with the climate of any\ncountry where his tempestuous life conducted him. Art and science would\nhave admired his organization in the light of a human model. Everything\nabout him was symmetrical and well-balanced,--action and heart,\nintelligence and will. At first sight he might be classed among purely\ninstinctive beings, who give themselves blindly up to the material wants\nof life; but in the very morning of his days he had flung himself into\na higher social world, with which his feelings harmonized; study had\nwidened his mind, reflection had sharpened his power of thought, and the\nsciences had enlarged his understanding. He had studied human laws,--the\nworking of self-interests brought into conflict by the passions, and he\nseemed to have early familiarized himself with the abstractions on which\nsocieties rest. He had pored over books,--those deeds of dead humanity;\nhe had spent whole nights of pleasure in every European capital; he had\nslept on fields of battle the night before the combat and the night that\nfollowed victory. His stormy youth may have flung him on the deck of\nsome corsair and sent him among the contrasting regions of the globe;\nthus it was that he knew the actions of a living humanity. He knew the\npresent and the past,--a double history; that of to-day, that of other\ndays. Many men have been, like Wilfrid, equally powerful by the Hand, by\nthe Heart, by the Head; like him, the majority have abused their triple\npower. But though this man still held by certain outward liens to the\nslimy side of humanity, he belonged also and positively to the sphere\nwhere force is intelligent. In spite of the many veils which enveloped\nhis soul, there were certain ineffable symptoms of this fact which were\nvisible to pure spirits, to the eyes of the child whose innocence has\nknown no breath of evil passions, to the eyes of the old man who has\nlived to regain his purity.\n\nThese signs revealed a Cain for whom there was still hope,--one who\nseemed as though he were seeking absolution from the ends of the\nearth. Minna suspected the galley-slave of glory in the man; Seraphita\nrecognized him. Both admired and both pitied him. Whence came their\nprescience? Nothing could be more simple nor yet more extraordinary.\nAs soon as we seek to penetrate the secrets of Nature, where nothing\nis secret, and where it is only necessary to have the eyes to see, we\nperceive that the simple produces the marvellous.\n\n\u201cSeraphitus,\u201d said Minna one evening a few days after Wilfrid\u2019s arrival\nin Jarvis, \u201cyou read the soul of this stranger while I have only vague\nimpressions of it. He chills me or else he excites me; but you seem to\nknow the cause of this cold and of this heat; tell me what it means, for\nyou know all about him.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, I have seen the causes,\u201d said Seraphitus, lowing his large\neyelids.\n\n\u201cBy what power?\u201d asked the curious Minna.\n\n\u201cI have the gift of Specialism,\u201d he answered. \u201cSpecialism is an inward\nsight which can penetrate all things; you will only understand its full\nmeaning through a comparison. In the great cities of Europe where works\nare produced by which the human Hand seeks to represent the effects of\nthe moral nature was well as those of the physical nature, there are\nglorious men who express ideas in marble. The sculptor acts on the\nstone; he fashions it; he puts a realm of ideas into it. There\nare statues which the hand of man has endowed with the faculty of\nrepresenting the noble side of humanity, or the whole evil side; most\nmen see in such marbles a human figure and nothing more; a few other\nmen, a little higher in the scale of being, perceive a fraction of the\nthoughts expressed in the statue; but the Initiates in the secrets of\nart are of the same intellect as the sculptor; they see in his work\nthe whole universe of his thought. Such persons are in themselves the\nprinciples of art; they bear within them a mirror which reflects nature\nin her slightest manifestations. Well! so it is with me; I have within\nme a mirror before which the moral nature, with its causes and effects,\nappears and is reflected. Entering thus into the consciousness of others\nI am able to divine both the future and the past. How? do you still ask\nhow? Imagine that the marble statue is the body of a man, a piece of\nstatuary in which we see the emotion, sentiment, passion, vice or crime,\nvirtue or repentance which the creating hand has put into it, and\nyou will then comprehend how it is that I read the soul of this\nforeigner--though what I have said does not explain the gift of\nSpecialism; for to conceive the nature of that gift we must possess it.\u201d\n\nThough Wilfrid belonged to the two first divisions of humanity, the men\nof force and the men of thought, yet his excesses, his tumultuous life,\nand his misdeeds had often turned him towards Faith; for doubt has two\nsides; a side to the light and a side to the darkness. Wilfrid had too\nclosely clasped the world under its forms of Matter and of Mind not to\nhave acquired that thirst for the unknown, that longing to _go beyond_\nwhich lay their grasp upon the men who know, and wish, and will.\nBut neither his knowledge, nor his actions, nor his will, had found\ndirection. He had fled from social life from necessity; as a great\ncriminal seeks the cloister. Remorse, that virtue of weak beings,\ndid not touch him. Remorse is impotence, impotence which sins again.\nRepentance alone is powerful; it ends all. But in traversing the world,\nwhich he made his cloister, Wilfrid had found no balm for his wounds; he\nsaw nothing in nature to which he could attach himself. In him, despair\nhad dried the sources of desire. He was one of those beings who, having\ngone through all passions and come out victorious, have nothing more to\nraise in their hot-beds, and who, lacking opportunity to put themselves\nat the head of their fellow-men to trample under iron heel entire\npopulations, buy, at the price of a horrible martyrdom, the faculty of\nruining themselves in some belief,--rocks sublime, which await the touch\nof a wand that comes not to bring the waters gushing from their far-off\nspring.\n\nLed by a scheme of his restless, inquiring life to the shores of Norway,\nthe sudden arrival of winter had detained the wanderer at Jarvis. The\nday on which, for the first time, he saw Seraphita, the whole past of\nhis life faded from his mind. The young girl excited emotions which he\nhad thought could never be revived. The ashes gave forth a lingering\nflame at the first murmurings of that voice. Who has ever felt himself\nreturn to youth and purity after growing cold and numb with age and\nsoiled with impurity? Suddenly, Wilfrid loved as he had never loved; he\nloved secretly, with faith, with fear, with inward madness. His life was\nstirred to the very source of his being at the mere thought of seeing\nSeraphita. As he listened to her he was transported into unknown worlds;\nhe was mute before her, she magnetized him. There, beneath the snows,\namong the glaciers, bloomed the celestial flower to which his hopes, so\nlong betrayed, aspired; the sight of which awakened ideas of freshness,\npurity, and faith which grouped about his soul and lifted it to higher\nregions,--as Angels bear to heaven the Elect in those symbolic pictures\ninspired by the guardian spirit of a great master. Celestial perfumes\nsoftened the granite hardness of the rocky scene; light endowed with\nspeech shed its divine melodies on the path of him who looked to heaven.\nAfter emptying the cup of terrestrial love which his teeth had bitten as\nhe drank it, he saw before him the chalice of salvation where the limpid\nwaters sparkled, making thirsty for ineffable delights whoever dare\napply his lips burning with a faith so strong that the crystal shall not\nbe shattered.\n\nBut Wilfrid now encountered the wall of brass for which he had been\nseeking up and down the earth. He went impetuously to Seraphita, meaning\nto express the whole force and bearing of a passion under which he\nbounded like the fabled horse beneath the iron horseman, firm in his\nsaddle, whom nothing moves while the efforts of the fiery animal only\nmade the rider heavier and more solid. He sought her to relate his\nlife,--to prove the grandeur of his soul by the grandeur of his faults,\nto show the ruins of his desert. But no sooner had he crossed\nher threshold, and found himself within the zone of those eyes of\nscintillating azure, that met no limits forward and left none behind,\nthan he grew calm and submissive, as a lion, springing on his prey in\nthe plains of Africa, receives from the wings of the wind a message\nof love, and stops his bound. A gulf opened before him, into which his\nfrenzied words fell and disappeared, and from which uprose a voice which\nchanged his being; he became as a child, a child of sixteen, timid and\nfrightened before this maiden with serene brow, this white figure whose\ninalterable calm was like the cruel impassibility of human justice. The\ncombat between them had never ceased until this evening, when with a\nglance she brought him down, as a falcon making his dizzy spirals in\nthe air around his prey causes it to fall stupefied to earth, before\ncarrying it to his eyrie.\n\nWe may note within ourselves many a long struggle the end of which is\none of our own actions,--struggles which are, as it were, the reverse\nside of humanity. This reverse side belongs to God; the obverse side to\nmen. More than once Seraphita had proved to Wilfrid that she knew this\nhidden and ever varied side, which is to the majority of men a second\nbeing. Often she said to him in her dove-like voice: \u201cWhy all this\nvehemence?\u201d when on his way to her he had sworn she should be his.\nWilfrid was, however, strong enough to raise the cry of revolt to which\nhe had given utterance in Monsieur Becker\u2019s study. The narrative of\nthe old pastor had calmed him. Sceptical and derisive as he was, he saw\nbelief like a sidereal brilliance dawning on his life. He asked himself\nif Seraphita were not an exile from the higher spheres seeking the\nhomeward way. The fanciful deifications of all ordinary lovers he could\nnot give to this lily of Norway in whose divinity he believed. Why lived\nshe here beside this fiord? What did she? Questions that received no\nanswer filled his mind. Above all, what was about to happen between\nthem? What fate had brought him there? To him, Seraphita was the\nmotionless marble, light nevertheless as a vapor, which Minna had seen\nthat day poised above the precipices of the Falberg. Could she thus\nstand on the edge of all gulfs without danger, without a tremor of the\narching eyebrows, or a quiver of the light of the eye? If his love was\nto be without hope, it was not without curiosity.\n\nFrom the moment when Wilfrid suspected the ethereal nature of the\nenchantress who had told him the secrets of his life in melodious\nutterance, he had longed to try to subject her, to keep her to himself,\nto tear her from the heaven where, perhaps, she was awaited. Earth and\nHumanity seized their prey; he would imitate them. His pride, the only\nsentiment through which man can long be exalted, would make him happy in\nthis triumph for the rest of his life. The idea sent the blood boiling\nthrough his veins, and his heart swelled. If he did not succeed, he\nwould destroy her,--it is so natural to destroy that which we cannot\npossess, to deny what we cannot comprehend, to insult that which we\nenvy.\n\nOn the morrow, Wilfrid, laden with ideas which the extraordinary events\nof the previous night naturally awakened in his mind, resolved to\nquestion David, and went to find him on the pretext of asking after\nSeraphita\u2019s health. Though Monsieur Becker spoke of the old servant as\nfalling into dotage, Wilfrid relied on his own perspicacity to discover\nscraps of truth in the torrent of the old man\u2019s rambling talk.\n\nDavid had the immovable, undecided, physiognomy of an octogenarian.\nUnder his white hair lay a forehead lined with wrinkles like the stone\ncourses of a ruined wall; and his face was furrowed like the bed of a\ndried-up torrent. His life seemed to have retreated wholly to the eyes,\nwhere light still shone, though its gleams were obscured by a mistiness\nwhich seemed to indicate either an active mental alienation or the\nstupid stare of drunkenness. His slow and heavy movements betrayed the\nglacial weight of age, and communicated an icy influence to whoever\nallowed themselves to look long at him,--for he possessed the magnetic\nforce of torpor. His limited intelligence was only roused by the sight,\nthe hearing, or the recollection of his mistress. She was the soul of\nthis wholly material fragment of an existence. Any one seeing David\nalone by himself would have thought him a corpse; let Seraphita enter,\nlet her voice be heard, or a mention of her be made, and the dead came\nforth from his grave and recovered speech and motion. The dry bones\nwere not more truly awakened by the divine breath in the valley of\nJehoshaphat, and never was that apocalyptic vision better realized than\nin this Lazarus issuing from the sepulchre into life at the voice of\na young girl. His language, which was always figurative and often\nincomprehensible, prevented the inhabitants of the village from talking\nwith him; but they respected a mind that deviated so utterly from common\nways,--a thing which the masses instinctively admire.\n\nWilfrid found him in the antechamber, apparently asleep beside the\nstove. Like a dog who recognizes a friend of the family, the old man\nraised his eyes, saw the foreigner, and did not stir.\n\n\u201cWhere is she?\u201d inquired Wilfrid, sitting down beside him.\n\nDavid fluttered his fingers in the air as if to express the flight of a\nbird.\n\n\u201cDoes she still suffer?\u201d asked Wilfrid.\n\n\u201cBeings vowed to Heaven are able so to suffer that suffering does not\nlessen their love; this is the mark of the true faith,\u201d answered the old\nman, solemnly, like an instrument which, on being touched, gives forth\nan accidental note.\n\n\u201cWho taught you those words?\u201d\n\n\u201cThe Spirit.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat happened to her last night? Did you force your way past the\nVertumni standing sentinel? did you evade the Mammons?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes\u201d; answered David, as though awaking from a dream.\n\nThe misty gleam of his eyes melted into a ray that came direct from\nthe soul and made it by degrees brilliant as that of an eagle, as\nintelligent as that of a poet.\n\n\u201cWhat did you see?\u201d asked Wilfrid, astonished at this sudden change.\n\n\u201cI saw Species and Shapes; I heard the Spirit of all things; I beheld\nthe revolt of the Evil Ones; I listened to the words of the Good. Seven\ndevils came, and seven archangels descended from on high. The archangels\nstood apart and looked on through veils. The devils were close by; they\nshone, they acted. Mammon came on his pearly shell in the shape of a\nbeautiful naked woman; her snowy body dazzled the eye, no human form\never equalled it; and he said, \u2018I am Pleasure; thou shalt possess me!\u2019\nLucifer, prince of serpents, was there in sovereign robes; his Manhood\nwas glorious as the beauty of an angel, and he said, \u2018Humanity shall be\nat thy feet!\u2019 The Queen of misers,--she who gives back naught that she\nhas ever received,--the Sea, came wrapped in her virent mantle; she\nopened her bosom, she showed her gems, she brought forth her treasures\nand offered them; waves of sapphire and of emerald came at her bidding;\nher hidden wonders stirred, they rose to the surface of her breast, they\nspoke; the rarest pearl of Ocean spread its iridescent wings and gave\nvoice to its marine melodies, saying, \u2018Twin daughter of suffering, we\nare sisters! await me; let us go together; all I need is to become a\nWoman.\u2019 The Bird with the wings of an eagle and the paws of a lion, the\nhead of a woman and the body of a horse, the Animal, fell down before\nher and licked her feet, and promised seven hundred years of plenty to\nher best-beloved daughter. Then came the most formidable of all, the\nChild, weeping at her knees, and saying, \u2018Wilt thou leave me, feeble\nand suffering as I am? oh, my mother, stay!\u2019 and he played with her,\nand shed languor on the air, and the Heavens themselves had pity for\nhis wail. The Virgin of pure song brought forth her choirs to relax the\nsoul. The Kings of the East came with their slaves, their armies, and\ntheir women; the Wounded asked her for succor, the Sorrowful stretched\nforth their hands: \u2018Do not leave us! do not leave us!\u2019 they cried. I,\ntoo, I cried, \u2018Do not leave us! we adore thee! stay!\u2019 Flowers, bursting\nfrom the seed, bathed her in their fragrance which uttered, \u2018Stay!\u2019 The\ngiant Enakim came forth from Jupiter, leading Gold and its friends and\nall the Spirits of the Astral Regions which are joined with him, and\nthey said, \u2018We are thine for seven hundred years.\u2019 At last came Death on\nhis pale horse, crying, \u2018I will obey thee!\u2019 One and all fell prostrate\nbefore her. Could you but have seen them! They covered as it were a vast\nplain, and they cried aloud to her, \u2018We have nurtured thee, thou art our\nchild; do not abandon us!\u2019 At length Life issued from her Ruby Waters,\nand said, \u2018I will not leave thee!\u2019 then, finding Seraphita silent, she\nflamed upon her as the sun, crying out, \u2018I am light!\u2019 \u2018_The light_\nis there!\u2019 cried Seraphita, pointing to the clouds where stood the\narchangels; but she was wearied out; Desire had wrung her nerves, she\ncould only cry, \u2018My God! my God!\u2019 Ah! many an Angelic Spirit, scaling\nthe mountain and nigh to the summit, has set his foot upon a rolling\nstone which plunged him back into the abyss! All these lost Spirits\nadored her constancy; they stood around her,--a choir without a\nsong,--weeping and whispering, \u2018Courage!\u2019 At last she conquered;\nDesire--let loose upon her in every Shape and every Species--was\nvanquished. She stood in prayer, and when at last her eyes were lifted\nshe saw the feet of Angels circling in the Heavens.\u201d\n\n\u201cShe saw the feet of Angels?\u201d repeated Wilfrid.\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d said the old man.\n\n\u201cWas it a dream that she told you?\u201d asked Wilfrid.\n\n\u201cA dream as real as your life,\u201d answered David; \u201cI was there.\u201d\n\nThe calm assurance of the old servant affected Wilfrid powerfully.\nHe went away asking himself whether these visions were any less\nextraordinary than those he had read of in Swedenborg the night before.\n\n\u201cIf Spirits exist, they must act,\u201d he was saying to himself as he\nentered the parsonage, where he found Monsieur Becker alone.\n\n\u201cDear pastor,\u201d he said, \u201cSeraphita is connected with us in form only,\nand even that form is inexplicable. Do not think me a madman or a lover;\na profound conviction cannot be argued with. Convert my belief into\nscientific theories, and let us try to enlighten each other. To-morrow\nevening we shall both be with her.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat then?\u201d said Monsieur Becker.\n\n\u201cIf her eye ignores space,\u201d replied Wilfrid, \u201cif her thought is an\nintelligent sight which enables her to perceive all things in their\nessence, and to connect them with the general evolution of the universe,\nif, in a word, she sees and knows all, let us seat the Pythoness on her\ntripod, let us force this pitiless eagle by threats to spread its wings!\nHelp me! I breathe a fire which burns my vitals; I must quench it or it\nwill consume me. I have found a prey at last, and it shall be mine!\u201d\n\n\u201cThe conquest will be difficult,\u201d said the pastor, \u201cbecause this girl\nis--\u201d\n\n\u201cIs what?\u201d cried Wilfrid.\n\n\u201cMad,\u201d said the old man.\n\n\u201cI will not dispute her madness, but neither must you dispute her\nwonderful powers. Dear Monsieur Becker, she has often confounded me with\nher learning. Has she travelled?\u201d\n\n\u201cFrom her house to the fiord, no further.\u201d\n\n\u201cNever left this place!\u201d exclaimed Wilfrid. \u201cThen she must have read\nimmensely.\u201d\n\n\u201cNot a page, not one iota! I am the only person who possesses any books\nin Jarvis. The works of Swedenborg--the only books that were in the\nchateau--you see before you. She has never looked into a single one of\nthem.\u201d\n\n\u201cHave you tried to talk with her?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat good would that do?\u201d\n\n\u201cDoes no one live with her in that house?\u201d\n\n\u201cShe has no friends but you and Minna, nor any servant except old\nDavid.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt cannot be that she knows nothing of science nor of art.\u201d\n\n\u201cWho should teach her?\u201d said the pastor.\n\n\u201cBut if she can discuss such matters pertinently, as she has often done\nwith me, what do you make of it?\u201d\n\n\u201cThe girl may have acquired through years of silence the faculties\nenjoyed by Apollonius of Tyana and other pretended sorcerers burned\nby the Inquisition, which did not choose to admit the fact of\nsecond-sight.\u201d\n\n\u201cIf she can speak Arabic, what would you say to that?\u201d\n\n\u201cThe history of medical science gives many authentic instances of girls\nwho have spoken languages entirely unknown to them.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat can I do?\u201d exclaimed Wilfrid. \u201cShe knows of secrets in my past\nlife known only to me.\u201d\n\n\u201cI shall be curious if she can tell me thoughts that I have confided to\nno living person,\u201d said Monsieur Becker.\n\nMinna entered the room.\n\n\u201cWell, my daughter, and how is your familiar spirit?\u201d\n\n\u201cHe suffers, father,\u201d she answered, bowing to Wilfrid. \u201cHuman passions,\nclothed in their false riches, surrounded him all night, and showed him\nall the glories of the world. But you think these things mere tales.\u201d\n\n\u201cTales as beautiful to those who read them in their brains as the\n\u2018Arabian Nights\u2019 to common minds,\u201d said the pastor, smiling.\n\n\u201cDid not Satan carry our Savior to the pinnacle of the Temple, and show\nhim all the kingdoms of the world?\u201d she said.\n\n\u201cThe Evangelists,\u201d replied her father, \u201cdid not correct their copies\nvery carefully, and several versions are in existence.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou believe in the reality of these visions?\u201d said Wilfrid to Minna.\n\n\u201cWho can doubt when he relates them.\u201d\n\n\u201cHe?\u201d demanded Wilfrid. \u201cWho?\u201d\n\n\u201cHe who is there,\u201d replied Minna, motioning towards the chateau.\n\n\u201cAre you speaking of Seraphita?\u201d he said.\n\nThe young girl bent her head, and looked at him with an expression of\ngentle mischief.\n\n\u201cYou too!\u201d exclaimed Wilfrid, \u201cyou take pleasure in confounding me. Who\nand what is she? What do you think of her?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat I feel is inexplicable,\u201d said Minna, blushing.\n\n\u201cYou are all crazy!\u201d cried the pastor.\n\n\u201cFarewell, until to-morrow evening,\u201d said Wilfrid.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV. THE CLOUDS OF THE SANCTUARY\n\n\nThere are pageants in which all the material splendors that man arrays\nco-operate. Nations of slaves and divers have searched the sands of\nocean and the bowels of earth for the pearls and diamonds which adorn\nthe spectators. Transmitted as heirlooms from generation to generation,\nthese treasures have shone on consecrated brows and could be the most\nfaithful of historians had they speech. They know the joys and sorrows\nof the great and those of the small. Everywhere do they go; they are\nworn with pride at festivals, carried in despair to usurers, borne off\nin triumph amid blood and pillage, enshrined in masterpieces conceived\nby art for their protection. None, except the pearl of Cleopatra,\nhas been lost. The Great and the Fortunate assemble to witness the\ncoronation of some king, whose trappings are the work of men\u2019s hands,\nbut the purple of whose raiment is less glorious than that of the\nflowers of the field. These festivals, splendid in light, bathed in\nmusic which the hand of man creates, aye, all the triumphs of that hand\nare subdued by a thought, crushed by a sentiment. The Mind can illumine\nin a man and round a man a light more vivid, can open his ear to more\nmelodious harmonies, can seat him on clouds of shining constellations\nand teach him to question them. The Heart can do still greater things.\nMan may come into the presence of one sole being and find in a single\nword, a single look, an influence so weighty to bear, of so luminous a\nlight, so penetrating a sound, that he succumbs and kneels before it.\nThe most real of all splendors are not in outward things, they are\nwithin us. A single secret of science is a realm of wonders to the man\nof learning. Do the trumpets of Power, the jewels of Wealth, the music\nof Joy, or a vast concourse of people attend his mental festival? No, he\nfinds his glory in some dim retreat where, perchance, a pallid suffering\nman whispers a single word into his ear; that word, like a torch lighted\nin a mine, reveals to him a Science. All human ideas, arrayed in every\nattractive form which Mystery can invent surrounded a blind man seated\nin a wayside ditch. Three worlds, the Natural, the Spiritual, the\nDivine, with all their spheres, opened their portals to a Florentine\nexile; he walked attended by the Happy and the Unhappy; by those who\nprayed and those who moaned; by angels and by souls in hell. When the\nSent of God, who knew and could accomplish all things, appeared to three\nof his disciples it was at eventide, at the common table of the humblest\nof inns; and then and there the Light broke forth, shattering Material\nForms, illuminating the Spiritual Faculties, so that they saw him in his\nglory, and the earth lay at their feet like a cast-off sandal.\n\nMonsieur Becker, Wilfrid, and Minna were all under the influence of fear\nas they took their way to meet the extraordinary being whom each desired\nto question. To them, in their several ways, the Swedish castle had\ngrown to mean some gigantic representation, some spectacle like those\nwhose colors and masses are skilfully and harmoniously marshalled by the\npoets, and whose personages, imaginary actors to men, are real to\nthose who begin to penetrate the Spiritual World. On the tiers of this\nColiseum Monsieur Becker seated the gray legions of Doubt, the stern\nideas, the specious formulas of Dispute. He convoked the various\nantagonistic worlds of philosophy and religion, and they all appeared,\nin the guise of a fleshless shape, like that in which art embodies\nTime,--an old man bearing in one hand a scythe, in the other a broken\nglobe, the human universe.\n\nWilfrid had bidden to the scene his earliest illusions and his latest\nhopes, human destiny and its conflicts, religion and its conquering\npowers.\n\nMinna saw heaven confusedly by glimpses; love raised a curtain wrought\nwith mysterious images, and the melodious sounds which met her ear\nredoubled her curiosity.\n\nTo all three, therefore, this evening was to be what that other evening\nhad been for the pilgrims to Emmaus, what a vision was to Dante, an\ninspiration to Homer,--to them, three aspects of the world revealed,\nveils rent away, doubts dissipated, darkness illumined. Humanity in all\nits moods expecting light could not be better represented than here by\nthis young girl, this man in the vigor of his age, and these old men,\nof whom one was learned enough to doubt, the other ignorant enough\nto believe. Never was any scene more simple in appearance, nor more\nportentous in reality.\n\nWhen they entered the room, ushered in by old David, they found\nSeraphita standing by a table on which were served the various dishes\nwhich compose a \u201ctea\u201d; a form of collation which in the North takes the\nplace of wine and its pleasures,--reserved more exclusively for Southern\nclimes. Certainly nothing proclaimed in her, or in him, a being with the\nstrange power of appearing under two distinct forms; nothing about her\nbetrayed the manifold powers which she wielded. Like a careful housewife\nattending to the comfort of her guests, she ordered David to put more\nwood into the stove.\n\n\u201cGood evening, my neighbors,\u201d she said. \u201cDear Monsieur Becker, you do\nright to come; you see me living for the last time, perhaps. This winter\nhas killed me. Will you sit there?\u201d she said to Wilfrid. \u201cAnd you,\nMinna, here?\u201d pointing to a chair beside her. \u201cI see you have brought\nyour embroidery. Did you invent that stitch? the design is very pretty.\nFor whom is it,--your father, or monsieur?\u201d she added, turning to\nWilfrid. \u201cSurely we ought to give him, before we part, a remembrance of\nthe daughters of Norway.\u201d\n\n\u201cDid you suffer much yesterday?\u201d asked Wilfrid.\n\n\u201cIt was nothing,\u201d she answered; \u201cthe suffering gladdened me; it was\nnecessary, to enable me to leave this life.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen death does not alarm you?\u201d said Monsieur Becker, smiling, for he\ndid not think her ill.\n\n\u201cNo, dear pastor; there are two ways of dying: to some, death is\nvictory, to others, defeat.\u201d\n\n\u201cDo you think that you have conquered?\u201d asked Minna.\n\n\u201cI do not know,\u201d she said, \u201cperhaps I have only taken a step in the\npath.\u201d\n\nThe lustrous splendor of her brow grew dim, her eyes were veiled beneath\nslow-dropping lids; a simple movement which affected the prying guests\nand kept them silent. Monsieur Becker was the first to recover courage.\n\n\u201cDear child,\u201d he said, \u201cyou are truth itself, and you are ever kind.\nI would ask of you to-night something other than the dainties of your\ntea-table. If we may believe certain persons, you know amazing things;\nif this be true, would it not be charitable in you to solve a few of our\ndoubts?\u201d\n\n\u201cAh!\u201d she said smiling, \u201cI walk on the clouds. I visit the depths of\nthe fiord; the sea is my steed and I bridle it; I know where the singing\nflower grows, and the talking light descends, and fragrant colors shine!\nI wear the seal of Solomon; I am a fairy; I cast my orders to the wind\nwhich, like an abject slave, fulfils them; my eyes can pierce the earth\nand behold its treasures; for lo! am I not the virgin to whom the pearls\ndart from their ocean depths and--\u201d\n\n\u201c--who led me safely to the summit of the Falberg?\u201d said Minna,\ninterrupting her.\n\n\u201cThou! thou too!\u201d exclaimed the strange being, with a luminous glance\nat the young girl which filled her soul with trouble. \u201cHad I not the\nfaculty of reading through your foreheads the desires which have brought\nyou here, should I be what you think I am?\u201d she said, encircling all\nthree with her controlling glance, to David\u2019s great satisfaction. The\nold man rubbed his hands with pleasure as he left the room.\n\n\u201cAh!\u201d she resumed after a pause, \u201cyou have come, all of you, with the\ncuriosity of children. You, my poor Monsieur Becker, have asked yourself\nhow it was possible that a girl of seventeen should know even a single\none of those secrets which men of science seek with their noses to the\nearth,--instead of raising their eyes to heaven. Were I to tell you how\nand at what point the plant merges into the animal you would begin\nto doubt your doubts. You have plotted to question me; you will admit\nthat?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, dear Seraphita,\u201d answered Wilfrid; \u201cbut the desire is a natural\none to men, is it not?\u201d\n\n\u201cYou will bore this dear child with such topics,\u201d she said, passing her\nhand lightly over Minna\u2019s hair with a caressing gesture.\n\nThe young girl raised her eyes and seemed as though she longed to lose\nherself in him.\n\n\u201cSpeech is the endowment of us all,\u201d resumed the mysterious creature,\ngravely. \u201cWoe to him who keeps silence, even in a desert, believing\nthat no one hears him; all voices speak and all ears listen here below.\nSpeech moves the universe. Monsieur Becker, I desire to say nothing\nunnecessarily. I know the difficulties that beset your mind; would you\nnot think it a miracle if I were now to lay bare the past history of\nyour consciousness? Well, the miracle shall be accomplished. You have\nnever admitted to yourself the full extent of your doubts. I alone,\nimmovable in my faith, I can show it to you; I can terrify you with\nyourself.\n\n\u201cYou stand on the darkest side of Doubt. You do not believe in\nGod,--although you know it not,--and all things here below are secondary\nto him who rejects the first principle of things. Let us leave aside the\nfruitless discussions of false philosophy. The spiritualist generations\nmade as many and as vain efforts to deny Matter as the materialist\ngenerations have made to deny Spirit. Why such discussions? Does not man\nhimself offer irrefragable proof of both systems? Do we not find in him\nmaterial things and spiritual things? None but a madman can refuse to\nsee in the human body a fragment of Matter; your natural sciences, when\nthey decompose it, find little difference between its elements and those\nof other animals. On the other hand, the idea produced in man by the\ncomparison of many objects has never seemed to any one to belong to the\ndomain of Matter. As to this, I offer no opinion. I am now concerned\nwith your doubts, not with my certainties. To you, as to the majority of\nthinkers, the relations between things, the reality of which is proved\nto you by your sensations and which you possess the faculty to discover,\ndo not seem Material. The Natural universe of things and beings ends, in\nman, with the Spiritual universe of similarities or differences which\nhe perceives among the innumerable forms of Nature,--relations so\nmultiplied as to seem infinite; for if, up to the present time, no one\nhas been able to enumerate the separate terrestrial creations, who\ncan reckon their correlations? Is not the fraction which you know, in\nrelation to their totality, what a single number is to infinity? Here,\nthen, you fall into a perception of the infinite which undoubtedly\nobliges you to conceive of a purely Spiritual world.\n\n\u201cThus man himself offers sufficient proof of the two orders,--Matter\nand Spirit. In him culminates a visible finite universe; in him begins a\nuniverse invisible and infinite,--two worlds unknown to each other. Have\nthe pebbles of the fiord a perception of their combined being? have they\na consciousness of the colors they present to the eye of man? do they\nhear the music of the waves that lap them? Let us therefore spring over\nand not attempt to sound the abysmal depths presented to our minds in\nthe union of a Material universe and a Spiritual universe,--a creation\nvisible, ponderable, tangible, terminating in a creation invisible,\nimponderable, intangible; completely dissimilar, separated by the void,\nyet united by indisputable bonds and meeting in a being who derives\nequally from the one and from the other! Let us mingle in one world\nthese two worlds, absolutely irreconcilable to your philosophies, but\nconjoined by fact. However abstract man may suppose the relation which\nbinds two things together, the line of junction is perceptible. How?\nWhere? We are not now in search of the vanishing point where Matter\nsubtilizes. If such were the question, I cannot see why He who has, by\nphysical relations, studded with stars at immeasurable distances the\nheavens which veil Him, may not have created solid substances, nor why\nyou deny Him the faculty of giving a body to thought.\n\n\u201cThus your invisible moral universe and your visible physical universe\nare one and the same matter. We will not separate properties from\nsubstances, nor objects from effects. All that exists, all that presses\nupon us and overwhelms us from above or from below, before us or in\nus, all that which our eyes and our minds perceive, all these named and\nunnamed things compose--in order to fit the problem of Creation to the\nmeasure of your logic--a block of finite Matter; but were it infinite,\nGod would still not be its master. Now, reasoning with your views, dear\npastor, no matter in what way God the infinite is concerned with this\nblock of finite Matter, He cannot exist and retain the attributes with\nwhich man invests Him. Seek Him in facts, and He is not; spiritually and\nmaterially, you have made God impossible. Listen to the Word of human\nReason forced to its ultimate conclusions.\n\n\u201cIn bringing God face to face with the Great Whole, we see that only\ntwo states are possible between them,--either God and Matter are\ncontemporaneous, or God existed alone before Matter. Were\nReason--the light that has guided the human race from the dawn of its\nexistence--accumulated in one brain, even that mighty brain could not\ninvent a third mode of being without suppressing both Matter and God.\nLet human philosophies pile mountain upon mountain of words and of\nideas, let religions accumulate images and beliefs, revelations and\nmysteries, you must face at last this terrible dilemma and choose\nbetween the two propositions which compose it; you have no option, and\none as much as the other leads human reason to Doubt.\n\n\u201cThe problem thus established, what signifies Spirit or Matter? Why\ntrouble about the march of the worlds in one direction or in another,\nsince the Being who guides them is shown to be an absurdity? Why\ncontinue to ask whether man is approaching heaven or receding from it,\nwhether creation is rising towards Spirit or descending towards Matter,\nif the questioned universe gives no reply? What signifies theogonies and\ntheir armies, theologies and their dogmas, since whichever side of the\nproblem is man\u2019s choice, his God exists not? Let us for a moment take up\nthe first proposition, and suppose God contemporaneous with Matter.\nIs subjection to the action or the co-existence of an alien substance\nconsistent with being God at all? In such a system, would not God become\na secondary agent compelled to organize Matter? If so, who compelled\nHim? Between His material gross companion and Himself, who was the\narbiter? Who paid the wages of the six days\u2019 labor imputed to the great\nDesigner? Has any determining force been found which was neither God nor\nMatter? God being regarded as the manufacturer of the machinery of the\nworlds, is it not as ridiculous to call Him God as to call the slave who\nturns the grindstone a Roman citizen? Besides, another difficulty, as\ninsoluble to this supreme human reason as it is to God, presents itself.\n\n\u201cIf we carry the problem higher, shall we not be like the Hindus, who\nput the world upon a tortoise, the tortoise on an elephant, and do not\nknow on what the feet of their elephant may rest? This supreme will,\nissuing from the contest between God and Matter, this God, this more\nthan God, can He have existed throughout eternity without willing what\nHe afterwards willed,--admitting that Eternity can be divided into two\neras. No matter where God is, what becomes of His intuitive intelligence\nif He did not know His ultimate thought? Which, then, is the true\nEternity,--the created Eternity or the uncreated? But if God throughout\nall time did will the world such as it is, this new necessity, which\nharmonizes with the idea of sovereign intelligence, implies the\nco-eternity of Matter. Whether Matter be co-eternal by a divine will\nnecessarily accordant with itself from the beginning, or whether\nMatter be co-eternal of its own being, the power of God, which must be\nabsolute, perishes if His will is circumscribed; for in that case God\nwould find within Him a determining force which would control Him. Can\nHe be God if He can no more separate Himself from His creation in a past\neternity than in the coming eternity?\n\n\u201cThis face of the problem is insoluble in its cause. Let us now inquire\ninto its effects. If a God compelled to have created the world from all\neternity seems inexplicable, He is quite as unintelligible in perpetual\ncohesion with His work. God, constrained to live eternally united to His\ncreation is held down to His first position as workman. Can you conceive\nof a God who shall be neither independent of nor dependent on His work?\nCould He destroy that work without challenging Himself? Ask yourself,\nand decide! Whether He destroys it some day, or whether He never\ndestroys it, either way is fatal to the attributes without which God\ncannot exist. Is the world an experiment? is it a perishable form to\nwhich destruction must come? If it is, is not God inconsistent and\nimpotent? inconsistent, because He ought to have seen the result before\nthe attempt,--moreover why should He delay to destroy that which He is\nto destroy?--impotent, for how else could He have created an imperfect\nman?\n\n\u201cIf an imperfect creation contradicts the faculties which man attributes\nto God we are forced back upon the question, Is creation perfect? The\nidea is in harmony with that of a God supremely intelligent who could\nmake no mistakes; but then, what means the degradation of His work,\nand its regeneration? Moreover, a perfect world is, necessarily,\nindestructible; its forms would not perish, it could neither advance nor\nrecede, it would revolve in the everlasting circumference from which it\nwould never issue. In that case God would be dependent on His work;\nit would be co-eternal with Him; and so we fall back into one of the\npropositions most antagonistic to God. If the world is imperfect, it\ncan progress; if perfect, it is stationary. On the other hand, if it\nbe impossible to admit of a progressive God ignorant through a past\neternity of the results of His creative work, can there be a stationary\nGod? would not that imply the triumph of Matter? would it not be the\ngreatest of all negations? Under the first hypothesis God perishes\nthrough weakness; under the second through the Force of his inertia.\n\n\u201cTherefore, to all sincere minds the supposition that Matter, in the\nconception and execution of the worlds, is contemporaneous with God, is\nto deny God. Forced to choose, in order to govern the nations, between\nthe two alternatives of the problem, whole generations have preferred\nthis solution of it. Hence the doctrine of the two principles of\nMagianism, brought from Asia and adopted in Europe under the form of\nSatan warring with the Eternal Father. But this religious formula and\nthe innumerable aspects of divinity that have sprung from it are surely\ncrimes against the Majesty Divine. What other term can we apply to\nthe belief which sets up as a rival to God a personification of Evil,\nstriving eternally against the Omnipotent Mind without the possibility\nof ultimate triumph? Your statics declare that two Forces thus pitted\nagainst each other are reciprocally rendered null.\n\n\u201cDo you turn back, therefore, to the other side of the problem, and say\nthat God pre-existed, original, alone?\n\n\u201cI will not go over the preceding arguments (which here return in full\nforce) as to the severance of Eternity into two parts; nor the questions\nraised by the progression or the immobility of the worlds; let us\nlook only at the difficulties inherent to this second theory. If God\npre-existed alone, the world must have emanated from Him; Matter was\ntherefore drawn from His essence; consequently Matter in itself is\nnon-existent; all forms are veils to cover the Divine Spirit. If this\nbe so, the World is Eternal, and also it must be God. Is not this\nproposition even more fatal than the former to the attributes conferred\non God by human reason? How can the actual condition of Matter be\nexplained if we suppose it to issue from the bosom of God and to be\never united with Him? Is it possible to believe that the All-Powerful,\nsupremely good in His essence and in His faculties, has engendered\nthings dissimilar to Himself. Must He not in all things and through all\nthings be like unto Himself? Can there be in God certain evil parts\nof which at some future day he may rid Himself?--a conjecture less\noffensive and absurd than terrible, for the reason that it drags back\ninto Him the two principles which the preceding theory proved to be\ninadmissible. God must be ONE; He cannot be divided without renouncing\nthe most important condition of His existence. It is therefore\nimpossible to admit of a fraction of God which yet is not God. This\nhypothesis seemed so criminal to the Roman Church that she has made the\nomnipresence of God in the least particles of the Eucharist an article\nof faith.\n\n\u201cBut how then can we imagine an omnipotent mind which does not triumph?\nHow associate it unless in triumph with Nature? But Nature is not\ntriumphant; she seeks, combines, remodels, dies, and is born again; she\nis even more convulsed when creating than when all was fusion; Nature\nsuffers, groans, is ignorant, degenerates, does evil; deceives herself,\nannihilates herself, disappears, and begins again. If God is associated\nwith Nature, how can we explain the inoperative indifference of the\ndivine principle? Wherefore death? How came it that Evil, king of\nthe earth, was born of a God supremely good in His essence and in His\nfaculties, who can produce nothing that is not made in His own image?\n\n\u201cBut if, from this relentless conclusion which leads at once to\nabsurdity, we pass to details, what end are we to assign to the world?\nIf all is God, all is reciprocally cause and effect; all is _One_ as God\nis _One_, and we can perceive neither points of likeness nor points of\ndifference. Can the real end be a rotation of Matter which subtilizes\nand disappears? In whatever sense it were done, would not this\nmechanical trick of Matter issuing from God and returning to God seem\na sort of child\u2019s play? Why should God make himself gross with Matter?\nUnder which form is he most God? Which has the ascendant, Matter or\nSpirit, when neither can in any way do wrong? Who can comprehend the\nDeity engaged in this perpetual business, by which he divides Himself\ninto two Natures, one of which knows nothing, while the other knows all?\nCan you conceive of God amusing Himself in the form of man, laughing at\nHis own efforts, dying Friday, to be born again Sunday, and continuing\nthis play from age to age, knowing the end from all eternity, and\ntelling nothing to Himself, the Creature, of what He the Creator, does?\nThe God of the preceding hypothesis, a God so nugatory by the very power\nof His inertia, seems the more possible of the two if we are compelled\nto choose between the impossibilities with which this God, so dull a\njester, fusillades Himself when two sections of humanity argue face to\nface, weapons in hand.\n\n\u201cHowever absurd this outcome of the second problem may seem, it\nwas adopted by half the human race in the sunny lands where smiling\nmythologies were created. Those amorous nations were consistent;\nwith them all was God, even Fear and its dastardy, even crime and its\nbacchanals. If we accept pantheism,--the religion of many a great human\ngenius,--who shall say where the greater reason lies? Is it with the\nsavage, free in the desert, clothed in his nudity, listening to the sun,\ntalking to the sea, sublime and always true in his deeds whatever they\nmay be; or shall we find it in civilized man, who derives his chief\nenjoyments through lies; who wrings Nature and all her resources to put\na musket on his shoulder; who employs his intellect to hasten the hour\nof his death and to create diseases out of pleasures? When the rake of\npestilence and the ploughshare of war and the demon of desolation have\npassed over a corner of the globe and obliterated all things, who will\nbe found to have the greater reason,--the Nubian savage or the patrician\nof Thebes? Your doubts descend the scale, they go from heights to\ndepths, they embrace all, the end as well as the means.\n\n\u201cBut if the physical world seems inexplicable, the moral world presents\nstill stronger arguments against God. Where, then, is progress? If all\nthings are indeed moving toward perfection why do we die young? why do\nnot nations perpetuate themselves? The world having issued from God and\nbeing contained in God can it be stationary? Do we live once, or do\nwe live always? If we live once, hurried onward by the march of the\nGreat-Whole, a knowledge of which has not been given to us, let us act\nas we please. If we are eternal, let things take their course. Is the\ncreated being guilty if he exists at the instant of the transitions? If\nhe sins at the moment of a great transformation will he be punished for\nit after being its victim? What becomes of the Divine goodness if we are\nnot transferred to the regions of the blest--should any such exist?\nWhat becomes of God\u2019s prescience if He is ignorant of the results of the\ntrials to which He subjects us? What is this alternative offered to man\nby all religions,--either to boil in some eternal cauldron or to walk\nin white robes, a palm in his hand and a halo round his head? Can it\nbe that this pagan invention is the final word of God? Where is the\ngenerous soul who does not feel that the calculating virtue which seeks\nthe eternity of pleasure offered by all religions to whoever fulfils\nat stray moments certain fanciful and often unnatural conditions, is\nunworthy of man and of God? Is it not a mockery to give to man impetuous\nsenses and forbid him to satisfy them? Besides, what mean these ascetic\nobjections if Good and Evil are equally abolished? Does Evil exist?\nIf substance in all its forms is God, then Evil is God. The faculty of\nreasoning as well as the faculty of feeling having been given to man\nto use, nothing can be more excusable in him than to seek to know the\nmeaning of human suffering and the prospects of the future.\n\n\u201cIf these rigid and rigorous arguments lead to such conclusions\nconfusion must reign. The world would have no fixedness; nothing\nwould advance, nothing would pause, all would change, nothing would be\ndestroyed, all would reappear after self-renovation; for if your mind\ndoes not clearly demonstrate to you an end, it is equally impossible to\ndemonstrate the destruction of the smallest particle of Matter; Matter\ncan transform but not annihilate itself.\n\n\u201cThough blind force may provide arguments for the atheist, intelligent\nforce is inexplicable; for if it emanates from God, why should it meet\nwith obstacles? ought not its triumph to be immediate? Where is God?\nIf the living cannot perceive Him, can the dead find Him? Crumble,\nye idolatries and ye religions! Fall, feeble keystones of all social\narches, powerless to retard the decay, the death, the oblivion that\nhave overtaken all nations however firmly founded! Fall, morality and\njustice! our crimes are purely relative; they are divine effects whose\ncauses we are not allowed to know. All is God. Either we are God or God\nis not!--Child of a century whose every year has laid upon your brow,\nold man, the ice of its unbelief, here, here is the summing up of your\nlifetime of thought, of your science and your reflections! Dear Monsieur\nBecker, you have laid your head upon the pillow of Doubt, because it is\nthe easiest of solutions; acting in this respect with the majority\nof mankind, who say in their hearts: \u2018Let us think no more of these\nproblems, since God has not vouchsafed to grant us the algebraic\ndemonstrations that could solve them, while He has given us so many\nother ways to get from earth to heaven.\u2019\n\n\u201cTell me, dear pastor, are not these your secret thoughts? Have I evaded\nthe point of any? nay, rather, have I not clearly stated all? First, in\nthe dogma of two principles,--an antagonism in which God perishes for\nthe reason that being All-Powerful He chose to combat. Secondly, in the\nabsurd pantheism where, all being God, God exists no longer. These two\nsources, from which have flowed all the religions for whose triumph\nEarth has toiled and prayed, are equally pernicious. Behold in them the\ndouble-bladed axe with which you decapitate the white old man whom you\nenthrone among your painted clouds! And now, to me the axe, I wield it!\u201d\n\nMonsieur Becker and Wilfrid gazed at the young girl with something like\nterror.\n\n\u201cTo believe,\u201d continued Seraphita, in her Woman\u2019s voice, for the Man\nhad finished speaking, \u201cto believe is a gift. To believe is to feel.\nTo believe in God we must feel God. This feeling is a possession slowly\nacquired by the human being, just as other astonishing powers which you\nadmire in great men, warriors, artists, scholars, those who know and\nthose who act, are acquired. Thought, that budget of the relations which\nyou perceive among created things, is an intellectual language which can\nbe learned, is it not? Belief, the budget of celestial truths, is also a\nlanguage as superior to thought as thought is to instinct. This language\nalso can be learned. The Believer answers with a single cry, a single\ngesture; Faith puts within his hand a flaming sword with which he\npierces and illumines all. The Seer attains to heaven and descends not.\nBut there are beings who believe and see, who know and will, who love\nand pray and wait. Submissive, yet aspiring to the kingdom of light,\nthey have neither the aloofness of the Believer nor the silence of the\nSeer; they listen and reply. To them the doubt of the twilight ages\nis not a murderous weapon, but a divining rod; they accept the contest\nunder every form; they train their tongues to every language; they are\nnever angered, though they groan; the acrimony of the aggressor is not\nin them, but rather the softness and tenuity of light, which penetrates\nand warms and illumines. To their eyes Doubt is neither an impiety, nor\na blasphemy, nor a crime, but a transition through which men return upon\ntheir steps in the Darkness, or advance into the Light. This being so,\ndear pastor, let us reason together.\n\n\u201cYou do not believe in God? Why? God, to your thinking, is\nincomprehensible, inexplicable. Agreed. I will not reply that to\ncomprehend God in His entirety would be to be God; nor will I tell you\nthat you deny what seems to you inexplicable so as to give me the right\nto affirm that which to me is believable. There is, for you, one\nevident fact, which lies within yourself. In you, Matter has ended in\nintelligence; can you therefore think that human intelligence will\nend in darkness, doubt, and nothingness? God may seem to you\nincomprehensible and inexplicable, but you must admit Him to be, in all\nthings purely physical, a splendid and consistent workman. Why should\nHis craft stop short at man, His most finished creation?\n\n\u201cIf that question is not convincing, at least it compels meditation.\nHappily, although you deny God, you are obliged, in order to establish\nyour doubts, to admit those double-bladed facts, which kill your\narguments as much as your arguments kill God. We have also admitted that\nMatter and Spirit are two creations which do not comprehend each other;\nthat the spiritual world is formed of infinite relations to which the\nfinite material world has given rise; that if no one on earth is able\nto identify himself by the power of his spirit with the great-whole of\nterrestrial creations, still less is he able to rise to the knowledge of\nthe relations which the spirit perceives between these creations.\n\n\u201cWe might end the argument here in one word, by denying you the faculty\nof comprehending God, just as you deny to the pebbles of the fiord the\nfaculties of counting and of seeing each other. How do you know that the\nstones themselves do not deny the existence of man, though man makes\nuse of them to build his houses? There is one fact that appals\nyou,--the Infinite; if you feel it within, why will you not admit its\nconsequences? Can the finite have a perfect knowledge of the infinite?\nIf you cannot perceive those relations which, according to your own\nadmission, are infinite, how can you grasp a sense of the far-off end to\nwhich they are converging? Order, the revelation of which is one of your\nneeds, being infinite, can your limited reason apprehend it? Do not ask\nwhy man does not comprehend that which he is able to perceive, for he is\nequally able to perceive that which he does not comprehend. If I prove\nto you that your mind ignores that which lies within its compass, will\nyou grant that it is impossible for it to conceive whatever is beyond\nit? This being so, am I not justified in saying to you: \u2018One of the two\npropositions under which God is annihilated before the tribunal of our\nreason must be true, the other is false. Inasmuch as creation exists,\nyou feel the necessity of an end, and that end should be good, should it\nnot? Now, if Matter terminates in man by intelligence, why are you not\nsatisfied to believe that the end of human intelligence is the Light of\nthe higher spheres, where alone an intuition of that God who seems so\ninsoluble a problem is obtained? The species which are beneath you have\nno conception of the universe, and you have; why should there not be\nother species above you more intelligent than your own? Man ought to be\nbetter informed than he is about himself before he spends his strength\nin measuring God. Before attacking the stars that light us, and the\nhigher certainties, ought he not to understand the certainties which are\nactually about him?\u2019\n\n\u201cBut no! to the negations of doubt I ought rather to reply by negations.\nTherefore I ask you whether there is anything here below so evident\nthat I can put faith in it? I will show you in a moment that you believe\nfirmly in things which act, and yet are not beings; in things which\nengender thought, and yet are not spirits; in living abstractions which\nthe understanding cannot grasp in any shape, which are in fact nowhere,\nbut which you perceive everywhere; which have, and can have, on name,\nbut which, nevertheless, you have named; and which, like the God\nof flesh upon whom you figure to yourself, remain inexplicable,\nincomprehensible, and absurd. I shall also ask you why, after admitting\nthe existence of these incomprehensible things, you reserve your doubts\nfor God?\n\n\u201cYou believe, for instance, in Number,--a base on which you have built\nthe edifice of sciences which you call \u2018exact.\u2019 Without Number, what\nwould become of mathematics? Well, what mysterious being endowed with\nthe faculty of living forever could utter, and what language would be\ncompact to word the Number which contains the infinite numbers whose\nexistence is revealed to you by thought? Ask it of the loftiest human\ngenius; he might ponder it for a thousand years and what would be his\nanswer? You know neither where Number begins, nor where it pauses, nor\nwhere it ends. Here you call it Time, there you call it Space. Nothing\nexists except by Number. Without it, all would be one and the same\nsubstance; for Number alone differentiates and qualifies substance.\nNumber is to your Spirit what it is to Matter, an incomprehensible\nagent. Will you make a Deity of it? Is it a being? Is it a breath\nemanating from God to organize the material universe where nothing\nobtains form except by the Divinity which is an effect of Number? The\nleast as well as the greatest of creations are distinguishable from\neach other by quantities, qualities, dimensions, forces,--all attributes\ncreated by Number. The infinitude of Numbers is a fact proved to your\nsoul, but of which no material proof can be given. The mathematician\nhimself tells you that the infinite of numbers exists, but cannot be\nproved.\n\n\u201cGod, dear pastor, is a Number endowed with motion,--felt, but not seen,\nthe Believer will tell you. Like the Unit, He begins Number, with which\nHe has nothing in common. The existence of Number depends on the Unit,\nwhich without being a number engenders Number. God, dear pastor is a\nglorious Unit who has nothing in common with His creations but who,\nnevertheless, engenders them. Will you not therefore agree with me that\nyou are just as ignorant of where Number begins and ends as you are of\nwhere created Eternity begins and ends?\n\n\u201cWhy, then, if you believe in Number, do you deny God? Is not Creation\ninterposed between the Infinite of unorganized substances and the\nInfinite of the divine spheres, just as the Unit stands between the\nCipher of the fractions you have lately named Decimals, and the Infinite\nof Numbers which you call Wholes? Man alone on earth comprehends Number,\nthat first step of the peristyle which leads to God, and yet his reason\nstumbles on it! What! you can neither measure nor grasp the first\nabstraction which God delivers to you, and yet you try to subject His\nends to your own tape-line! Suppose that I plunge you into the abyss of\nMotion, the force that organizes Number. If I tell you that the Universe\nis naught else than Number and Motion, you would see at once that we\nspeak two different languages. I understand them both; you understand\nneither.\n\n\u201cSuppose I add that Motion and Number are engendered by the Word, namely\nthe supreme Reason of Seers and Prophets who in the olden time heard the\nBreath of God beneath which Saul fell to the earth. That Word, you\nscoff at it, you men, although you well know that all visible works,\nsocieties, monuments, deeds, passions, proceed from the breath of your\nown feeble word, and that without that word you would resemble the\nAfrican gorilla, the nearest approach to man, the Negro. You believe\nfirmly in Number and in Motion, a force and a result both inexplicable,\nincomprehensible, to the existence of which I may apply the logical\ndilemma which, as we have seen, prevents you from believing in God.\nPowerful reasoner that you are, you do not need that I should prove to\nyou that the Infinite must everywhere be like unto Itself, and that,\nnecessarily, it is One. God alone is Infinite, for surely there cannot\nbe two Infinities, two Ones. If, to make use of human terms, anything\ndemonstrated to you here below seems to you infinite, be sure that\nwithin it you will find some one aspect of God. But to continue.\n\n\u201cYou have appropriated to yourself a place in the Infinite of Number;\nyou have fitted it to your own proportions by creating (if indeed you\ndid create) arithmetic, the basis on which all things rest, even your\nsocieties. Just as Number--the only thing in which your self-styled\natheists believe--organized physical creations, so arithmetic, in the\nemploy of Number, organized the moral world. This numeration must\nbe absolute, like all else that is true in itself; but it is purely\nrelative, it does not exist absolutely, and no proof can be given of its\nreality. In the first place, though Numeration is able to take account\nof organized substances, it is powerless in relation to unorganized\nforces, the ones being finite and the others infinite. The man who can\nconceive the Infinite by his intelligence cannot deal with it in its\nentirety; if he could, he would be God. Your Numeration, applying to\nthings finite and not to the Infinite, is therefore true in relation to\nthe details which you are able to perceive, and false in relation to\nthe Whole, which you are unable to perceive. Though Nature is like unto\nherself in the organizing force or in her principles which are infinite,\nshe is not so in her finite effects. Thus you will never find in Nature\ntwo objects identically alike. In the Natural Order two and two never\nmake four; to do so, four exactly similar units must be had, and you\nknow how impossible it is to find two leaves alike on the same tree,\nor two trees alike of the same species. This axiom of your numeration,\nfalse in visible nature, is equally false in the invisible universe of\nyour abstractions, where the same variance takes place in your ideas,\nwhich are the things of the visible world extended by means of their\nrelations; so that the variations here are even more marked than\nelsewhere. In fact, all being relative to the temperament, strength,\nhabits, and customs of individuals, who never resemble each other, the\nsmallest objects take the color of personal feelings. For instance, man\nhas been able to create units and to give an equal weight and value to\nbits of gold. Well, take the ducat of the rich man and the ducat of the\npoor man to a money-changer and they are rated exactly equal, but to\nthe mind of the thinker one is of greater importance than the other; one\nrepresents a month of comfort, the other an ephemeral caprice. Two and\ntwo, therefore, only make four through a false conception.\n\n\u201cAgain: fraction does not exist in Nature, where what you call a\nfragment is a finished whole. Does it not often happen (have you not\nmany proofs of it?) that the hundredth part of a substance is stronger\nthan what you term the whole of it? If fraction does not exist in the\nNatural Order, still less shall we find it in the Moral Order, where\nideas and sentiments may be as varied as the species of the Vegetable\nkingdom and yet be always whole. The theory of fractions is therefore\nanother signal instance of the servility of your mind.\n\n\u201cThus Number, with its infinite minuteness and its infinite expansion,\nis a power whose weakest side is known to you, but whose real import\nescapes your perception. You have built yourself a hut in the Infinite\nof numbers, you have adorned it with hieroglyphics scientifically\narranged and painted, and you cry out, \u2018All is here!\u2019\n\n\u201cLet us pass from pure, unmingled Number to corporate Number. Your\ngeometry establishes that a straight line is the shortest way from one\npoint to another, but your astronomy proves that God has proceeded\nby curves. Here, then, we find two truths equally proved by the\nsame science,--one by the testimony of your senses reinforced by the\ntelescope, the other by the testimony of your mind; and yet the one\ncontradicts the other. Man, liable to err, affirms one, and the Maker\nof the worlds, whom, so far, you have not detected in error, contradicts\nit. Who shall decide between rectalinear and curvilinear geometry?\nbetween the theory of the straight line and that of the curve? If, in\nHis vast work, the mysterious Artificer, who knows how to reach His ends\nmiraculously fast, never employs a straight line except to cut off an\nangle and so obtain a curve, neither does man himself always rely upon\nit. The bullet which he aims direct proceeds by a curve, and when you\nwish to strike a certain point in space, you impel your bombshell along\nits cruel parabola. None of your men of science have drawn from this\nfact the simple deduction that the Curve is the law of the material\nworlds and the Straight line that of the Spiritual worlds; one is the\ntheory of finite creations, the other the theory of the infinite. Man,\nwho alone in the world has a knowledge of the Infinite, can alone know\nthe straight line; he alone has the sense of verticality placed in a\nspecial organ. A fondness for the creations of the curve would seem to\nbe in certain men an indication of the impurity of their nature still\nconjoined to the material substances which engender us; and the love of\ngreat souls for the straight line seems to show in them an intuition of\nheaven. Between these two lines there is a gulf fixed like that between\nthe finite and the infinite, between matter and spirit, between man and\nthe idea, between motion and the object moved, between the creature and\nGod. Ask Love the Divine to grant you his wings and you can cross that\ngulf. Beyond it begins the revelation of the Word.\n\n\u201cNo part of those things which you call material is without its own\nmeaning; lines are the boundaries of solid parts and imply a force\nof action which you suppress in your formulas,--thus rendering those\nformulas false in relation to substances taken as a whole. Hence the\nconstant destruction of the monuments of human labor, which you supply,\nunknown to yourselves, with acting properties. Nature has substances;\nyour science combines only their appearances. At every step Nature\ngives the lie to all your laws. Can you find a single one that is not\ndisproved by a fact? Your Static laws are at the mercy of a thousand\naccidents; a fluid can overthrow a solid mountain and prove that the\nheaviest substances may be lifted by one that is imponderable.\n\n\u201cYour laws on Acoustics and Optics are defied by the sounds which you\nhear within yourselves in sleep, and by the light of an electric sun\nwhose rays often overcome you. You know no more how light makes itself\nseen within you, than you know the simple and natural process which\nchanges it on the throats of tropic birds to rubies, sapphires,\nemeralds, and opals, or keeps it gray and brown on the breasts of the\nsame birds under the cloudy skies of Europe, or whitens it here in the\nbosom of our polar Nature. You know not how to decide whether color is a\nfaculty with which all substances are endowed, or an effect produced by\nan effluence of light. You admit the saltness of the sea without\nbeing able to prove that the water is salt at its greatest depth. You\nrecognize the existence of various substances which span what you think\nto be the void,--substances which are not tangible under any of the\nforms assumed by Matter, although they put themselves in harmony with\nMatter in spite of every obstacle.\n\n\u201cAll this being so, you believe in the results of Chemistry, although\nthat science still knows no way of gauging the changes produced by the\nflux and reflux of substances which come and go across your crystals and\nyour instruments on the impalpable filaments of heat or light conducted\nand projected by the affinities of metal or vitrified flint. You obtain\nnone but dead substances, from which you have driven the unknown force\nthat holds in check the decomposition of all things here below, and of\nwhich cohesion, attraction, vibration, and polarity are but phenomena.\nLife is the thought of substances; bodies are only the means of\nfixing life and holding it to its way. If bodies were beings living of\nthemselves they would be Cause itself, and could not die.\n\n\u201cWhen a man discovers the results of the general movement, which is\nshared by all creations according to their faculty of absorption, you\nproclaim him mighty in science, as though genius consisted in explaining\na thing that is! Genius ought to cast its eyes beyond effects. Your men\nof science would laugh if you said to them: \u2018There exist such positive\nrelations between two human beings, one of whom may be here, and\nthe other in Java, that they can at the same instant feel the same\nsensation, and be conscious of so doing; they can question each other\nand reply without mistake\u2019; and yet there are mineral substances which\nexhibit sympathies as far off from each other as those of which I speak.\nYou believe in the power of the electricity which you find in the magnet\nand you deny that which emanates from the soul! According to you, the\nmoon, whose influence upon the tides you think fixed, has none whatever\nupon the winds, nor upon navigation, nor upon men; she moves the sea,\nbut she must not affect the sick folk; she has undeniable relations\nwith one half of humanity, and nothing at all to do with the other half.\nThese are your vaunted certainties!\n\n\u201cLet us go a step further. You believe in physics. But your physics\nbegin, like the Catholic religion, with an _act of faith_. Do they not\npre-suppose some external force distinct from substance to which it\ncommunicates motion? You see its effects, but what is it? where is it?\nwhat is the essence of its nature, its life? has it any limits?--and\nyet, you deny God!\n\n\u201cThus, the majority of your scientific axioms, true to their relation to\nman, are false in relation to the Great Whole. Science is One, but you\nhave divided it. To know the real meaning of the laws of phenomena must\nwe not know the correlations which exist between phenomena and the law\nof the Whole? There is, in all things, an appearance which strikes\nyour senses; under that appearance stirs a soul; a body is there and a\nfaculty is there. Where do you teach the study of the relations which\nbind things to each other? Nowhere. Consequently you have nothing\npositive. Your strongest certainties rest upon the analysis of material\nforms whose essence you persistently ignore.\n\n\u201cThere is a Higher Knowledge of which, too late, some men obtain a\nglimpse, though they dare not avow it. Such men comprehend the necessity\nof considering substances not merely in their mathematical properties\nbut also in their entirety, in their occult relations and affinities.\nThe greatest man among you divined, in his latter days, that all was\nreciprocally cause and effect; that the visible worlds were co-ordinated\namong themselves and subject to worlds invisible. He groaned at the\nrecollection of having tried to establish fixed precepts. Counting up\nhis worlds, like grape-seeds scattered through ether, he had explained\ntheir coherence by the laws of planetary and molecular attraction.\nYou bowed before that man of science--well! I tell you that he died in\ndespair. By supposing that the centrifugal and centripetal forces,\nwhich he had invented to explain to himself the universe, were equal, he\nstopped the universe; yet he admitted motion in an indeterminate\nsense; but supposing those forces unequal, then utter confusion of the\nplanetary system ensued. His laws therefore were not absolute; some\nhigher problem existed than the principle on which his false glory\nrested. The connection of the stars with one another and the centripetal\naction of their internal motion did not deter him from seeking the\nparent stalk on which his clusters hung. Alas, poor man! the more he\nwidened space the heavier his burden grew. He told you how there came\nto be equilibrium among the parts, but whither went the whole? His mind\ncontemplated the vast extent, illimitable to human eyes, filled with\nthose groups of worlds a mere fraction of which is all our telescopes\ncan reach, but whose immensity is revealed by the rapidity of light.\nThis sublime contemplation enabled him to perceive myriads of worlds,\nplanted in space like flowers in a field, which are born like infants,\ngrow like men, die as the aged die, and live by assimilating from their\natmosphere the substances suitable for their nourishment,--having\na centre and a principal of life, guaranteeing to each other their\ncircuits, absorbed and absorbing like plants, and forming a vast Whole\nendowed with life and possessing a destiny.\n\n\u201cAt that sight your man of science trembled! He knew that life is\nproduced by the union of the thing and its principle, that death or\ninertia or gravity is produced by a rupture between a thing and the\nmovement which appertains to it. Then it was that he foresaw the\ncrumbling of the worlds and their destruction if God should withdraw the\nBreath of His Word. He searched the Apocalypse for the traces of that\nWord. You thought him mad. Understand him better! He was seeking pardon\nfor the work of his genius.\n\n\u201cWilfrid, you have come here hoping to make me solve equations, or rise\nupon a rain-cloud, or plunge into the fiord and reappear a swan. If\nscience or miracles were the end and object of humanity, Moses would\nhave bequeathed to you the law of fluxions; Jesus Christ would have\nlightened the darkness of your sciences; his apostles would have told\nyou whence come those vast trains of gas and melted metals, attached\nto cores which revolve and solidify as they dart through ether, or\nviolently enter some system and combine with a star, jostling and\ndisplacing it by the shock, or destroying it by the infiltration of\ntheir deadly gases; Saint Paul, instead of telling you to live in God,\nwould have explained why food is the secret bond among all creations and\nthe evident tie between all living Species. In these days the greatest\nmiracle of all would be the discovery of the squaring of the circle,--a\nproblem which you hold to be insoluble, but which is doubtless solved in\nthe march of worlds by the intersection of some mathematical lines whose\ncourse is visible to the eye of spirits who have reached the higher\nspheres. Believe me, miracles are in us, not without us. Here natural\nfacts occur which men call supernatural. God would have been strangely\nunjust had he confined the testimony of his power to certain generations\nand peoples and denied them to others. The brazen rod belongs to all.\nNeither Moses, nor Jacob, nor Zoroaster, nor Paul, nor Pythagoras, nor\nSwedenborg, not the humblest Messenger nor the loftiest Prophet of the\nMost High are greater than you are capable of being. Only, there come to\nnations as to men certain periods when Faith is theirs.\n\n\u201cIf material sciences be the end and object of human effort, tell\nme, both of you, would societies,--those great centres where men\ncongregate,--would they perpetually be dispersed? If civilization were\nthe object of our Species, would intelligence perish? would it continue\npurely individual? The grandeur of all nations that were truly great was\nbased on exceptions; when the exception ceased their power died. If such\nwere the End-all, Prophets, Seers, and Messengers of God would have lent\ntheir hand to Science rather than have given it to Belief. Surely they\nwould have quickened your brains sooner than have touched your hearts!\nBut no; one and all they came to lead the nations back to God; they\nproclaimed the sacred Path in simple words that showed the way to\nheaven; all were wrapped in love and faith, all were inspired by that\n_word_ which hovers above the inhabitants of earth, enfolding them,\ninspiriting them, uplifting them; none were prompted by any human\ninterest. Your great geniuses, your poets, your kings, your learned men\nare engulfed with their cities; while the names of these good pastors of\nhumanity, ever blessed, have survived all cataclysms.\n\n\u201cAlas! we cannot understand each other on any point. We are separated by\nan abyss. You are on the side of darkness, while I--I live in the light,\nthe true Light! Is this the word that you ask of me? I say it with joy;\nit may change you. Know this: there are sciences of matter and sciences\nof spirit. There, where you see substances, I see forces that stretch\none toward another with generating power. To me, the character of bodies\nis the indication of their principles and the sign of their properties.\nThose principles beget affinities which escape your knowledge, and\nwhich are linked to centres. The different species among which life is\ndistributed are unfailing streams which correspond unfailingly among\nthemselves. Each has his own vocation. Man is effect and cause. He is\nfed, but he feeds in turn. When you call God a Creator, you dwarf Him.\nHe did not create, as you think He did, plants or animals or stars.\nCould He proceed by a variety of means? Must He not act by unity\nof composition? Moreover, He gave forth principles to be developed,\naccording to His universal law, at the will of the surroundings in which\nthey were placed. Hence a single substance and motion, a single plant, a\nsingle animal, but correlations everywhere. In fact, all affinities are\nlinked together by contiguous similitudes; the life of the worlds is\ndrawn toward the centres by famished aspiration, as you are drawn by\nhunger to seek food.\n\n\u201cTo give you an example of affinities linked to similitudes (a secondary\nlaw on which the creations of your thought are based), music, that\ncelestial art, is the working out of this principle; for is it not a\ncomplement of sounds harmonized by number? Is not sound a modification\nof air, compressed, dilated, echoed? You know the composition of\nair,--oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon. As you cannot obtain sound from\nthe void, it is plain that music and the human voice are the result of\norganized chemical substances, which put themselves in unison with the\nsame substances prepared within you by your thought, co-ordinated\nby means of light, the great nourisher of your globe. Have you ever\nmeditated on the masses of nitre deposited by the snow, have you ever\nobserved a thunderstorm and seen the plants breathing in from the air\nabout them the metal it contains, without concluding that the sun has\nfused and distributed the subtle essence which nourishes all things here\nbelow? Swedenborg has said, \u2018The earth is a man.\u2019\n\n\u201cYour Science, which makes you great in your own eyes, is paltry indeed\nbeside the light which bathes a Seer. Cease, cease to question me; our\nlanguages are different. For a moment I have used yours to cast, if it\nbe possible, a ray of faith into your soul; to give you, as it were, the\nhem of my garment and draw you up into the regions of Prayer. Can God\nabase Himself to you? Is it not for you to rise to Him? If human reason\nfinds the ladder of its own strength too weak to bring God down to it,\nis it not evident that you must find some other path to reach Him? That\nPath is in ourselves. The Seer and the Believer find eyes within their\nsouls more piercing far than eyes that probe the things of earth,--they\nsee the Dawn. Hear this truth: Your science, let it be never so exact,\nyour meditations, however bold, your noblest lights are Clouds. Above,\nabove is the Sanctuary whence the true Light flows.\u201d\n\nShe sat down and remained silent; her calm face bore no sign of the\nagitation which orators betray after their least fervid improvisations.\n\nWilfrid bent toward Monsieur Becker and said in a low voice, \u201cWho taught\nher that?\u201d\n\n\u201cI do not know,\u201d he answered.\n\n\u201cHe was gentler on the Falberg,\u201d Minna whispered to herself.\n\nSeraphita passed her hand across her eyes and then she said, smiling:--\n\n\u201cYou are very thoughtful to-night, gentlemen. You treat Minna and me as\nthough we were men to whom you must talk politics or commerce; whereas\nwe are young girls, and you ought to tell us tales while you drink\nyour tea. That is what we do, Monsieur Wilfrid, in our long Norwegian\nevenings. Come, dear pastor, tell me some Saga that I have not\nheard,--that of Frithiof, the chronicle that you believe and have so\noften promised me. Tell us the story of the peasant lad who owned the\nship that talked and had a soul. Come! I dream of the frigate Ellida,\nthe fairy with the sails young girls should navigate!\u201d\n\n\u201cSince we have returned to the regions of Jarvis,\u201d said Wilfrid, whose\neyes were fastened on Seraphita as those of a robber, lurking in the\ndarkness, fasten on the spot where he knows the jewels lie, \u201ctell me why\nyou do not marry?\u201d\n\n\u201cYou are all born widows and widowers,\u201d she replied; \u201cbut my marriage\nwas arranged at my birth. I am betrothed.\u201d\n\n\u201cTo whom?\u201d they cried.\n\n\u201cAsk not my secret,\u201d she said; \u201cI will promise, if our father permits\nit, to invite you to these mysterious nuptials.\u201d\n\n\u201cWill they be soon?\u201d\n\n\u201cI think so.\u201d\n\nA long silence followed these words.\n\n\u201cThe spring has come!\u201d said Seraphita, suddenly. \u201cThe noise of the\nwaters and the breaking of the ice begins. Come, let us welcome the\nfirst spring of the new century.\u201d\n\nShe rose, followed by Wilfrid, and together they went to a window which\nDavid had opened. After the long silence of winter, the waters stirred\nbeneath the ice and resounded through the fiord like music,--for there\nare sounds which space refines, so that they reach the ear in waves of\nlight and freshness.\n\n\u201cWilfrid, cease to nourish evil thoughts whose triumph would be hard to\nbear. Your desires are easily read in the fire of your eyes. Be kind;\ntake one step forward in well-doing. Advance beyond the love of man and\nsacrifice yourself completely to the happiness of her you love. Obey me;\nI will lead you in a path where you shall obtain the distinctions which\nyou crave, and where Love is infinite indeed.\u201d\n\nShe left him thoughtful.\n\n\u201cThat soft creature!\u201d he said within himself; \u201cis she indeed the\nprophetess whose eyes have just flashed lightnings, whose voice has\nrung through worlds, whose hand has wielded the axe of doubt against our\nsciences? Have we been dreaming? Am I awake?\u201d\n\n\u201cMinna,\u201d said Seraphita, returning to the young girl, \u201cthe eagle swoops\nwhere the carrion lies, but the dove seeks the mountain spring beneath\nthe peaceful greenery of the glades. The eagle soars to heaven, the dove\ndescends from it. Cease to venture into regions where thou canst find\nno spring of waters, no umbrageous shade. If on the Falberg thou couldst\nnot gaze into the abyss and live, keep all thy strength for him who will\nlove thee. Go, poor girl; thou knowest, I am betrothed.\u201d\n\nMinna rose and followed Seraphita to the window where Wilfrid stood. All\nthree listened to the Sieg bounding out the rush of the upper waters,\nwhich brought down trees uprooted by the ice; the fiord had regained\nits voice; all illusions were dispelled! They rejoiced in Nature as she\nburst her bonds and seemed to answer with sublime accord to the Spirit\nwhose breath had wakened her.\n\nWhen the three guests of this mysterious being left the house, they were\nfilled with the vague sensation which is neither sleep, nor torpor,\nnor astonishment, but partakes of the nature of each,--a state that is\nneither dusk nor dawn, but which creates a thirst for light. All three\nwere thinking.\n\n\u201cI begin to believe that she is indeed a Spirit hidden in human form,\u201d\n said Monsieur Becker.\n\nWilfrid, re-entering his own apartments, calm and convinced, was unable\nto struggle against that influence so divinely majestic.\n\nMinna said in her heart, \u201cWhy will he not let me love him!\u201d\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V. FAREWELL\n\n\nThere is in man an almost hopeless phenomenon for thoughtful minds who\nseek a meaning in the march of civilization, and who endeavor to give\nlaws of progression to the movement of intelligence. However portentous\na fact may be, or even supernatural,--if such facts exist,--however\nsolemnly a miracle may be done in sight of all, the lightning of that\nfact, the thunderbolt of that miracle is quickly swallowed up in the\nocean of life, whose surface, scarcely stirred by the brief convulsion,\nreturns to the level of its habitual flow.\n\nA Voice is heard from the jaws of an Animal; a Hand writes on the wall\nbefore a feasting Court; an Eye gleams in the slumber of a king, and a\nProphet explains the dream; Death, evoked, rises on the confines of the\nluminous sphere were faculties revive; Spirit annihilates Matter at the\nfoot of that mystic ladder of the Seven Spiritual Worlds, one resting\nupon another in space and revealing themselves in shining waves that\nbreak in light upon the steps of the celestial Tabernacle. But however\nsolemn the inward Revelation, however clear the visible outward Sign,\nbe sure that on the morrow Balaam doubts both himself and his ass,\nBelshazzar and Pharoah call Moses and Daniel to qualify the Word. The\nSpirit, descending, bears man above this earth, opens the seas and lets\nhim see their depths, shows him lost species, wakens dry bones whose\ndust is the soil of valleys; the Apostle writes the Apocalypse, and\ntwenty centuries later human science ratifies his words and turns his\nvisions into maxims. And what comes of it all? Why this,--that the\npeoples live as they have ever lived, as they lived in the first\nOlympiad, as they lived on the morrow of Creation, and on the eve of the\ngreat cataclysm. The waves of Doubt have covered all things. The same\nfloods surge with the same measured motion on the human granite which\nserves as a boundary to the ocean of intelligence. When man has inquired\nof himself whether he has seen that which he has seen, whether he has\nheard the words that entered his ears, whether the facts were facts and\nthe idea is indeed an idea, then he resumes his wonted bearing, thinks\nof his worldly interests, obeys some envoy of death and of oblivion\nwhose dusky mantle covers like a pall an ancient Humanity of which\nthe moderns retain no memory. Man never pauses; he goes his round,\nhe vegetates until the appointed day when his Axe falls. If this wave\nforce, this pressure of bitter waters prevents all progress, no doubt it\nalso warns of death. Spirits prepared by faith among the higher souls of\nearth can alone perceive the mystic ladder of Jacob.\n\nAfter listening to Seraphita\u2019s answer in which (being earnestly\nquestioned) she unrolled before their eyes a Divine Perspective,--as an\norgan fills a church with sonorous sound and reveals a musical universe,\nits solemn tones rising to the loftiest arches and playing, like light,\nupon their foliated capitals,--Wilfrid returned to his own room, awed\nby the sight of a world in ruins, and on those ruins the brilliance of\nmysterious lights poured forth in torrents by the hand of a young girl.\nOn the morrow he still thought of these things, but his awe was gone; he\nfelt he was neither destroyed nor changed; his passions, his ideas awoke\nin full force, fresh and vigorous. He went to breakfast with Monsieur\nBecker and found the old man absorbed in the \u201cTreatise on Incantations,\u201d\n which he had searched since early morning to convince his guest that\nthere was nothing unprecedented in all that they had seen and heard at\nthe Swedish castle. With the childlike trustfulness of a true scholar\nhe had folded down the pages in which Jean Wier related authentic facts\nwhich proved the possibility of the events that had happened the night\nbefore,--for to learned men an idea is a event, just as the greatest\nevents often present no idea at all to them. By the time they had\nswallowed their fifth cup of tea, these philosophers had come to think\nthe mysterious scene of the preceding evening wholly natural. The\ncelestial truths to which they had listened were arguments susceptible\nof examination; Seraphita was a girl, more or less eloquent; allowance\nmust be made for the charms of her voice, her seductive beauty, her\nfascinating motions, in short, for all those oratorical arts by which an\nactor puts a world of sentiment and thought into phrases which are often\ncommonplace.\n\n\u201cBah!\u201d said the worthy pastor, making a philosophical grimace as he\nspread a layer of salt butter on his slice of bread, \u201cthe final word of\nall these fine enigmas is six feet under ground.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut,\u201d said Wilfrid, sugaring his tea, \u201cI cannot image how a young girl\nof seventeen can know so much; what she said was certainly a compact\nargument.\u201d\n\n\u201cRead the account of that Italian woman,\u201d said Monsieur Becker, \u201cwho at\nthe age of twelve spoke forty-two languages, ancient and modern; also\nthe history of that monk who could guess thought by smell. I can give\nyou a thousand such cases from Jean Wier and other writers.\u201d\n\n\u201cI admit all that, dear pastor; but to my thinking, Seraphita would make\na perfect wife.\u201d\n\n\u201cShe is all mind,\u201d said Monsieur Becker, dubiously.\n\nSeveral days went by, during which the snow in the valleys melted\ngradually away; the green of the forests and of the grass began to show;\nNorwegian Nature made ready her wedding garments for her brief bridal\nof a day. During this period, when the softened air invited every one\nto leave the house, Seraphita remained at home in solitude. When at last\nshe admitted Minna the latter saw at once the ravages of inward fever;\nSeraphita\u2019s voice was hollow, her skin pallid; hitherto a poet might\nhave compared her lustre to that of diamonds,--now it was that of a\ntopaz.\n\n\u201cHave you seen her?\u201d asked Wilfrid, who had wandered around the Swedish\ndwelling waiting for Minna\u2019s return.\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d answered the young girl, weeping; \u201cWe must lose him!\u201d\n\n\u201cMademoiselle,\u201d cried Wilfrid, endeavoring to repress the loud tones of\nhis angry voice, \u201cdo not jest with me. You can love Seraphita only\nas one young girl can love another, and not with the love which she\ninspires in me. You do not know your danger if my jealousy were really\naroused. Why can I not go to her? Is it you who stand in my way?\u201d\n\n\u201cI do not know by what right you probe my heart,\u201d said Minna, calm\nin appearance, but inwardly terrified. \u201cYes, I love him,\u201d she said,\nrecovering the courage of her convictions, that she might, for once,\nconfess the religion of her heart. \u201cBut my jealousy, natural as it is\nin love, fears no one here below. Alas! I am jealous of a secret feeling\nthat absorbs him. Between him and me there is a great gulf fixed which\nI cannot cross. Would that I knew who loves him best, the stars or I!\nwhich of us would sacrifice our being most eagerly for his happiness!\nWhy should I not be free to avow my love? In the presence of death we\nmay declare our feelings,--and Seraphitus is about to die.\u201d\n\n\u201cMinna, you are mistaken; the siren I so love and long for, she, whom\nI have seen, feeble and languid, on her couch of furs, is not a young\nman.\u201d\n\n\u201cMonsieur,\u201d answered Minna, distressfully, \u201cthe being whose powerful\nhand guided me on the Falberg, who led me to the saeter sheltered\nbeneath the Ice-Cap, there--\u201d she said, pointing to the peak, \u201cis not\na feeble girl. Ah, had you but heard him prophesying! His poem was the\nmusic of thought. A young girl never uttered those solemn tones of a\nvoice which stirred my soul.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat certainty have you?\u201d said Wilfrid.\n\n\u201cNone but that of the heart,\u201d answered Minna.\n\n\u201cAnd I,\u201d cried Wilfrid, casting on his companion the terrible glance of\nthe earthly desire that kills, \u201cI, too, know how powerful is her empire\nover me, and I will undeceive you.\u201d\n\nAt this moment, while the words were rushing from Wilfrid\u2019s lips as\nrapidly as the thoughts surged in his brain, they saw Seraphita coming\ntowards them from the house, followed by David. The apparition calmed\nthe man\u2019s excitement.\n\n\u201cLook,\u201d he said, \u201ccould any but a woman move with that grace and\nlangor?\u201d\n\n\u201cHe suffers; he comes forth for the last time,\u201d said Minna.\n\nDavid went back at a sign from his mistress, who advanced towards\nWilfrid and Minna.\n\n\u201cLet us go to the falls of the Sieg,\u201d she said, expressing one of those\ndesires which suddenly possess the sick and which the well hasten to\nobey.\n\nA thin white mist covered the valleys around the fiord and the sides\nof the mountains, whose icy summits, sparkling like stars, pierced the\nvapor and gave it the appearance of a moving milky way. The sun was\nvisible through the haze like a globe of red fire. Though winter still\nlingered, puffs of warm air laden with the scent of the birch-trees,\nalready adorned with their rosy efflorescence, and of the larches,\nwhose silken tassels were beginning to appear,--breezes tempered by the\nincense and the sighs of earth,--gave token of the glorious Northern\nspring, the rapid, fleeting joy of that most melancholy of Natures.\nThe wind was beginning to lift the veil of mist which half-obscured the\ngulf. The birds sang. The bark of the trees where the sun had not yet\ndried the clinging hoar-frost shone gayly to the eye in its fantastic\nwreathings which trickled away in murmuring rivulets as the warmth\nreached them. The three friends walked in silence along the shore.\nWilfrid and Minna alone noticed the magic transformation that was taking\nplace in the monotonous picture of the winter landscape. Their companion\nwalked in thought, as though a voice were sounding to her ears in this\nconcert of Nature.\n\nPresently they reached the ledge of rocks through which the Sieg had\nforced its way, after escaping from the long avenue cut by its waters\nin an undulating line through the forest,--a fluvial pathway flanked\nby aged firs and roofed with strong-ribbed arches like those of a\ncathedral. Looking back from that vantage-ground, the whole extent of\nthe fiord could be seen at a glance, with the open sea sparkling on the\nhorizon beyond it like a burnished blade.\n\nAt this moment the mist, rolling away, left the sky blue and clear.\nAmong the valleys and around the trees flitted the shining fragments,--a\ndiamond dust swept by the freshening breeze. The torrent rolled on\ntoward them; along its length a vapor rose, tinted by the sun with every\ncolor of his light; the decomposing rays flashing prismatic fires along\nthe many-tinted scarf of waters. The rugged ledge on which they stood\nwas carpeted by several kinds of lichen, forming a noble mat variegated\nby moisture and lustrous like the sheen of a silken fabric. Shrubs,\nalready in bloom, crowned the rocks with garlands. Their waving foliage,\neager for the freshness of the water, drooped its tresses above the\nstream; the larches shook their light fringes and played with the pines,\nstiff and motionless as aged men. This luxuriant beauty was foiled by\nthe solemn colonnades of the forest-trees, rising in terraces upon the\nmountains, and by the calm sheet of the fiord, lying below, where the\ntorrent buried its fury and was still. Beyond, the sea hemmed in this\npage of Nature, written by the greatest of poets, Chance; to whom the\nwild luxuriance of creation when apparently abandoned to itself is\nowing.\n\nThe village of Jarvis was a lost point in the landscape, in this\nimmensity of Nature, sublime at this moment like all things else of\nephemeral life which present a fleeting image of perfection; for, by a\nlaw fatal to no eyes but our own, creations which appear complete--the\nlove of our heart and the desire of our eyes--have but one spring-tide\nhere below. Standing on this breast-work of rock these three persons\nmight well suppose themselves alone in the universe.\n\n\u201cWhat beauty!\u201d cried Wilfrid.\n\n\u201cNature sings hymns,\u201d said Seraphita. \u201cIs not her music exquisite? Tell\nme, Wilfrid, could any of the women you once knew create such a glorious\nretreat for herself as this? I am conscious here of a feeling seldom\ninspired by the sight of cities, a longing to lie down amid this\nquickening verdure. Here, with eyes to heaven and an open heart, lost in\nthe bosom of immensity, I could hear the sighings of the flower, scarce\nbudded, which longs for wings, or the cry of the eider grieving that it\ncan only fly, and remember the desires of man who, issuing from all,\nis none the less ever longing. But that, Wilfrid, is only a woman\u2019s\nthought. You find seductive fancies in the wreathing mists, the\nlight embroidered veils which Nature dons like a coy maiden, in this\natmosphere where she perfumes for her spousals the greenery of her\ntresses. You seek the naiad\u2019s form amid the gauzy vapors, and to your\nthinking my ears should listen only to the virile voice of the Torrent.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut Love is there, like the bee in the calyx of the flower,\u201d replied\nWilfrid, perceiving for the first time a trace of earthly sentiment in\nher words, and fancying the moment favorable for an expression of his\npassionate tenderness.\n\n\u201cAlways there?\u201d said Seraphita, smiling. Minna had left them for a\nmoment to gather the blue saxifrages growing on a rock above.\n\n\u201cAlways,\u201d repeated Wilfrid. \u201cHear me,\u201d he said, with a masterful glance\nwhich was foiled as by a diamond breast-plate. \u201cYou know not what I am,\nnor what I can be, nor what I will. Do not reject my last entreaty.\nBe mine for the good of that world whose happiness you bear upon your\nheart. Be mine that my conscience may be pure; that a voice divine\nmay sound in my ears and infuse Good into the great enterprise I have\nundertaken prompted by my hatred to the nations, but which I swear to\naccomplish for their benefit if you will walk beside me. What higher\nmission can you ask for love? what nobler part can woman aspire to? I\ncame to Norway to meditate a grand design.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd you will sacrifice its grandeur,\u201d she said, \u201cto an innocent girl\nwho loves you, and who will lead you in the paths of peace.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat matters sacrifice,\u201d he cried, \u201cif I have you? Hear my secret. I\nhave gone from end to end of the North,--that great smithy from whose\nanvils new races have spread over the earth, like human tides appointed\nto refresh the wornout civilizations. I wished to begin my work at some\nNorthern point, to win the empire which force and intellect must ever\ngive over a primitive people; to form that people for battle, to drive\nthem to wars which should ravage Europe like a conflagration, crying\nliberty to some, pillage to others, glory here, pleasure there!--I,\nmyself, remaining an image of Destiny, cruel, implacable, advancing like\nthe whirlwind, which sucks from the atmosphere the particles that make\nthe thunderbolt, and falls like a devouring scourge upon the nations.\nEurope is at an epoch when she awaits the new Messiah who shall destroy\nsociety and remake it. She can no longer believe except in him who\ncrushes her under foot. The day is at hand when poets and historians\nwill justify me, exalt me, and borrow my ideas, mine! And all the while\nmy triumph will be a jest, written in blood, the jest of my vengeance!\nBut not here, Seraphita; what I see in the North disgusts me. Hers is\na mere blind force; I thirst for the Indies! I would rather fight a\nselfish, cowardly, mercantile government. Besides, it is easier to stir\nthe imagination of the peoples at the feet of the Caucasus than to argue\nwith the intellect of the icy lands which here surround me. Therefore am\nI tempted to cross the Russian steps and pour my triumphant human tide\nthrough Asia to the Ganges, and overthrow the British rule. Seven men\nhave done this thing before me in other epochs of the world. I will\nemulate them. I will spread Art like the Saracens, hurled by Mohammed\nupon Europe. Mine shall be no paltry sovereignty like those that govern\nto-day the ancient provinces of the Roman empire, disputing with their\nsubjects about a customs right! No, nothing can bar my way! Like Genghis\nKhan, my feet shall tread a third of the globe, my hand shall grasp\nthe throat of Asia like Aurung-Zeb. Be my companion! Let me seat thee,\nbeautiful and noble being, on a throne! I do not doubt success, but live\nwithin my heart and I am sure of it.\u201d\n\n\u201cI have already reigned,\u201d said Seraphita, coldly.\n\nThe words fell as the axe of a skilful woodman falls at the root of a\nyoung tree and brings it down at a single blow. Men alone can comprehend\nthe rage that a woman excites in the soul of a man when, after showing\nher his strength, his power, his wisdom, his superiority, the capricious\ncreature bends her head and says, \u201cAll that is nothing\u201d; when, unmoved,\nshe smiles and says, \u201cSuch things are known to me,\u201d as though his power\nwere nought.\n\n\u201cWhat!\u201d cried Wilfrid, in despair, \u201ccan the riches of art, the riches of\nworlds, the splendors of a court--\u201d\n\nShe stopped him by a single inflexion of her lips, and said, \u201cBeings\nmore powerful than you have offered me far more.\u201d\n\n\u201cThou hast no soul,\u201d he cried,--\u201cno soul, if thou art not persuaded by\nthe thought of comforting a great man, who is willing now to sacrifice\nall things to live beside thee in a little house on the shores of a\nlake.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut,\u201d she said, \u201cI am loved with a boundless love.\u201d\n\n\u201cBy whom?\u201d cried Wilfrid, approaching Seraphita with a frenzied\nmovement, as if to fling her into the foaming basin of the Sieg.\n\nShe looked at him and slowly extended her arm, pointing to Minna, who\nnow sprang towards her, fair and glowing and lovely as the flowers she\nheld in her hand.\n\n\u201cChild!\u201d said Seraphitus, advancing to meet her.\n\nWilfrid remained where she left him, motionless as the rock on which he\nstood, lost in thought, longing to let himself go into the torrent\nof the Sieg, like the fallen trees which hurried past his eyes and\ndisappeared in the bosom of the gulf.\n\n\u201cI gathered them for you,\u201d said Minna, offering the bunch of saxifrages\nto the being she adored. \u201cOne of them, see, this one,\u201d she added,\nselecting a flower, \u201cis like that you found on the Falberg.\u201d\n\nSeraphitus looked alternately at the flower and at Minna.\n\n\u201cWhy question me? Dost thou doubt me?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo,\u201d said the young girl, \u201cmy trust in you is infinite. You are\nmore beautiful to look upon than this glorious nature, but your mind\nsurpasses in intellect that of all humanity. When I have been with you I\nseem to have prayed to God. I long--\u201d\n\n\u201cFor what?\u201d said Seraphitus, with a glance that revealed to the young\ngirl the vast distance which separated them.\n\n\u201cTo suffer in your stead.\u201d\n\n\u201cAh, dangerous being!\u201d cried Seraphitus in his heart. \u201cIs it wrong, oh\nmy God! to desire to offer her to Thee? Dost thou remember, Minna,\nwhat I said to thee up there?\u201d he added, pointing to the summit of the\nIce-Cap.\n\n\u201cHe is terrible again,\u201d thought Minna, trembling with fear.\n\nThe voice of the Sieg accompanied the thoughts of the three beings\nunited on this platform of projecting rock, but separated in soul by the\nabysses of the Spiritual World.\n\n\u201cSeraphitus! teach me,\u201d said Minna in a silvery voice, soft as the\nmotion of a sensitive plant, \u201cteach me how to cease to love you. Who\ncould fail to admire you; love is an admiration that never wearies.\u201d\n\n\u201cPoor child!\u201d said Seraphitus, turning pale; \u201cthere is but one whom thou\ncanst love in that way.\u201d\n\n\u201cWho?\u201d asked Minna.\n\n\u201cThou shalt know hereafter,\u201d he said, in the feeble voice of a man who\nlies down to die.\n\n\u201cHelp, help! he is dying!\u201d cried Minna.\n\nWilfrid ran towards them. Seeing Seraphita as she lay on a fragment of\ngneiss, where time had cast its velvet mantle of lustrous lichen and\ntawny mosses now burnished in the sunlight, he whispered softly, \u201cHow\nbeautiful she is!\u201d\n\n\u201cOne other look! the last that I shall ever cast upon this nature in\ntravail,\u201d said Seraphitus, rallying her strength and rising to her feet.\n\nShe advanced to the edge of the rocky platform, whence her eyes took in\nthe scenery of that grand and glorious landscape, so verdant, flowery,\nand animated, yet so lately buried in its winding-sheet of snow.\n\n\u201cFarewell,\u201d she said, \u201cfarewell, home of Earth, warmed by the fires of\nLove; where all things press with ardent force from the centre to the\nextremities; where the extremities are gathered up, like a woman\u2019s hair,\nto weave the mysterious braid which binds us in that invisible ether to\nthe Thought Divine!\n\n\u201cBehold the man bending above that furrow moistened with his tears,\nwho lifts his head for an instant to question Heaven; behold the woman\ngathering her children that she may feed them with her milk; see him\nwho lashes the ropes in the height of the gale; see her who sits in the\nhollow of the rocks, awaiting the father! Behold all they who stretch\ntheir hands in want after a lifetime spent in thankless toil. To all\npeace and courage, and to all farewell!\n\n\u201cHear you the cry of the soldier, dying nameless and unknown? the wail\nof the man deceived who weeps in the desert? To them peace and courage;\nto all farewell!\n\n\u201cFarewell, you who die for the kings of the earth! Farewell, ye people\nwithout a country and ye countries without a people, each, with a mutual\nwant. Above all, farewell to Thee who knew not where to lay Thy head,\nExile divine! Farewell, mothers beside your dying sons! Farewell, ye\nLittle Ones, ye Feeble, ye Suffering, you whose sorrows I have so often\nborne! Farewell, all ye who have descended into the sphere of Instinct\nthat you may suffer there for others!\n\n\u201cFarewell, ye mariners who seek the Orient through the thick darkness of\nyour abstractions, vast as principles! Farewell, martyrs of thought,\nled by thought into the presence of the True Light. Farewell, regions\nof study where mine ears can hear the plaint of genius neglected and\ninsulted, the sigh of the patient scholar to whom enlightenment comes\ntoo late!\n\n\u201cI see the angelic choir, the wafting of perfumes, the incense of the\nheart of those who go their way consoling, praying, imparting celestial\nbalm and living light to suffering souls! Courage, ye choir of Love!\nyou to whom the peoples cry, \u2018Comfort us, comfort us, defend us!\u2019 To you\ncourage! and farewell!\n\n\u201cFarewell, ye granite rocks that shall bloom a flower; farewell, flower\nthat becomes a dove; farewell, dove that shalt be woman; farewell,\nwoman, who art Suffering, man, who art Belief! Farewell, you who shall\nbe all love, all prayer!\u201d\n\nBroken with fatigue, this inexplicable being leaned for the first time\non Wilfrid and on Minna to be taken home. Wilfrid and Minna felt\nthe shock of a mysterious contact in and through the being who thus\nconnected them. They had scarcely advanced a few steps when David\nmet them, weeping. \u201cShe will die,\u201d he said, \u201cwhy have you brought her\nhither?\u201d\n\nThe old man raised her in his arms with the vigor of youth and bore her\nto the gate of the Swedish castle like an eagle bearing a white lamb to\nhis mountain eyrie.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI. THE PATH TO HEAVEN\n\n\nThe day succeeding that on which Seraphita foresaw her death and bade\nfarewell to Earth, as a prisoner looks round his dungeon before leaving\nit forever, she suffered pains which obliged her to remain in the\nhelpless immobility of those whose pangs are great. Wilfrid and Minna\nwent to see her, and found her lying on her couch of furs. Still veiled\nin flesh, her soul shone through that veil, which grew more and more\ntransparent day by day. The progress of the Spirit, piercing the last\nobstacle between itself and the Infinite, was called an illness, the\nhour of Life went by the name of death. David wept as he watched\nher sufferings; unreasonable as a child, he would not listen to his\nmistress\u2019s consolations. Monsieur Becker wished Seraphita to try\nremedies; but all were useless.\n\nOne morning she sent for the two beings whom she loved, telling them\nthat this would be the last of her bad days. Wilfrid and Minna came in\nterror, knowing well that they were about to lose her. Seraphita smiled\nto them as one departing to a better world; her head drooped like a\nflower heavy with dew, which opens its calyx for the last time to waft\nits fragrance on the breeze. She looked at these friends with a sadness\nthat was for them, not for herself; she thought no longer of herself,\nand they felt this with a grief mingled with gratitude which they were\nunable to express. Wilfrid stood silent and motionless, lost in thoughts\nexcited by events whose vast bearings enabled him to conceive of some\nillimitable immensity.\n\nEmboldened by the weakness of the being lately so powerful, or perhaps\nby the fear of losing him forever, Minna bent down over the couch and\nsaid, \u201cSeraphitus, let me follow thee!\u201d\n\n\u201cCan I forbid thee?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy will thou not love me enough to stay with me?\u201d\n\n\u201cI can love nothing here.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat canst thou love?\u201d\n\n\u201cHeaven.\u201d\n\n\u201cIs it worthy of heaven to despise the creatures of God?\u201d\n\n\u201cMinna, can we love two beings at once? Would our beloved be indeed our\nbeloved if he did not fill our hearts? Must he not be the first, the\nlast, the only one? She who is all love, must she not leave the world\nfor her beloved? Human ties are but a memory, she has no ties except to\nhim! Her soul is hers no longer; it is his. If she keeps within her\nsoul anything that is not his, does she love? No, she loves not. To\nlove feebly, is that to love at all? The voice of her beloved makes her\njoyful; it flows through her veins in a crimson tide more glowing far\nthan blood; his glance is the light that penetrates her; her being melts\ninto his being. He is warm to her soul. He is the light that lightens;\nnear to him there is neither cold nor darkness. He is never absent, he\nis always with us; we think in him, to him, by him! Minna, that is how I\nlove him.\u201d\n\n\u201cLove whom?\u201d said Minna, tortured with sudden jealousy.\n\n\u201cGod,\u201d replied Seraphitus, his voice glowing in their souls like fires\nof liberty from peak to peak upon the mountains,--\u201cGod, who does not\nbetray us! God, who will never abandon us! who crowns our wishes; who\nsatisfies His creatures with joy--joy unalloyed and infinite! God,\nwho never wearies but ever smiles! God, who pours into the soul fresh\ntreasures day by day; who purifies and leaves no bitterness; who is all\nharmony, all flame! God, who has placed Himself within our hearts to\nblossom there; who hearkens to our prayers; who does not stand aloof\nwhen we are His, but gives His presence absolutely! He who revives us,\nmagnifies us, and multiplies us in Himself; _God_! Minna, I love thee\nbecause thou mayst be His! I love thee because if thou come to Him thou\nwilt be mine.\u201d\n\n\u201cLead me to Him,\u201d cried Minna, kneeling down; \u201ctake me by the hand; I\nwill not leave thee!\u201d\n\n\u201cLead us, Seraphita!\u201d cried Wilfrid, coming to Minna\u2019s side with an\nimpetuous movement. \u201cYes, thou hast given me a thirst for Light, a\nthirst for the Word. I am parched with the Love thou hast put into my\nheart; I desire to keep thy soul in mine; thy will is mine; I will do\nwhatsoever thou biddest me. Since I cannot obtain thee, I will keep thy\nwill and all the thoughts that thou hast given me. If I may not unite\nmyself with thee except by the power of my spirit, I will cling to thee\nin soul as the flame to what it laps. Speak!\u201d\n\n\u201cAngel!\u201d exclaimed the mysterious being, enfolding them both in\none glance, as it were with an azure mantle, \u201cHeaven shall by thine\nheritage!\u201d\n\nSilence fell among them after these words, which sounded in the souls of\nthe man and of the woman like the first notes of some celestial harmony.\n\n\u201cIf you would teach your feet to tread the Path to heaven, know that\nthe way is hard at first,\u201d said the weary sufferer; \u201cGod wills that you\nshall seek Him for Himself. In that sense, He is jealous; He demands\nyour whole self. But when you have given Him yourself, never, never will\nHe abandon you. I leave with you the keys of the kingdom of His Light,\nwhere evermore you shall dwell in the bosom of the Father, in the heart\nof the Bridegroom. No sentinels guard the approaches, you may enter\nwhere you will; His palaces, His treasures, His sceptre, all are\nfree. \u2018Take them!\u2019 He says. But--you must _will_ to go there. Like\none preparing for a journey, a man must leave his home, renounce his\nprojects, bid farewell to friends, to father, mother, sister, even\nto the helpless brother who cries after him,--yes, farewell to them\neternally; you will no more return than did the martyrs on their way to\nthe stake. You must strip yourself of every sentiment, of everything to\nwhich man clings. Unless you do this you are but half-hearted in your\nenterprise.\n\n\u201cDo for God what you do for your ambitious projects, what you do in\nconsecrating yourself to Art, what you have done when you loved a human\ncreature or sought some secret of human science. Is not God the whole\nof science, the all of love, the source of poetry? Surely His riches\nare worthy of being coveted! His treasure is inexhaustible, His poem\ninfinite, His love immutable, His science sure and darkened by no\nmysteries. Be anxious for nothing, He will give you all. Yes, in His\nheart are treasures with which the petty joys you lose on earth are not\nto be compared. What I tell you is true; you shall possess His power;\nyou may use it as you would use the gifts of lover or mistress. Alas!\nmen doubt, they lack faith, and will, and persistence. If some set their\nfeet in the path, they look behind them and presently turn back. Few\ndecide between the two extremes,--to go or stay, heaven or the mire. All\nhesitate. Weakness leads astray, passion allures into dangerous paths,\nvice becomes habitual, man flounders in the mud and makes no progress\ntowards a better state.\n\n\u201cAll human beings go through a previous life in the sphere of Instinct,\nwhere they are brought to see the worthlessness of earthly treasures,\nto amass which they gave themselves such untold pains! Who can tell how\nmany times the human being lives in the sphere of Instinct before he\nis prepared to enter the sphere of Abstractions, where thought expends\nitself on erring science, where mind wearies at last of human language?\nfor, when Matter is exhausted, Spirit enters. Who knows how many fleshly\nforms the heir of heaven occupies before he can be brought to understand\nthe value of that silence and solitude whose starry plains are but the\nvestibule of Spiritual Worlds? He feels his way amid the void, makes\ntrial of nothingness, and then at last his eyes revert upon the Path.\nThen follow other existences,--all to be lived to reach the place\nwhere Light effulgent shines. Death is the post-house of the journey. A\nlifetime may be needed merely to gain the virtues which annul the\nerrors of man\u2019s preceding life. First comes the life of suffering, whose\ntortures create a thirst for love. Next the life of love and devotion\nto the creature, teaching devotion to the Creator,--a life where the\nvirtues of love, its martyrdoms, its joys followed by sorrows, its\nangelic hopes, its patience, its resignation, excite an appetite for\nthings divine. Then follows the life which seeks in silence the traces\nof the Word; in which the soul grows humble and charitable. Next the\nlife of longing; and lastly, the life of prayer. In that is the noonday\nsun; there are the flowers, there the harvest!\n\n\u201cThe virtues we acquire, which develop slowly within us, are\nthe invisible links that bind each one of our existences to the\nothers,--existences which the spirit alone remembers, for Matter has no\nmemory for spiritual things. Thought alone holds the tradition of the\nbygone life. The endless legacy of the past to the present is the secret\nsource of human genius. Some receive the gift of form, some the gift\nof numbers, others the gift of harmony. All these gifts are steps of\nprogress in the Path of Light. Yes, he who possesses a single one of\nthem touches at that point the Infinite. Earth has divided the Word--of\nwhich I here reveal some syllables--into particles, she has reduced it\nto dust and has scattered it through her works, her dogmas, her poems.\nIf some impalpable grain shines like a diamond in a human work, men cry:\n\u2018How grand! how true! how glorious!\u2019 That fragment vibrates in their\nsouls and wakes a presentiment of heaven: to some, a melody that\nweans from earth; to others, the solitude that draws to God. To all,\nwhatsoever sends us back upon ourselves, whatsoever strikes us down and\ncrushes us, lifts or abases us,--_that_ is but a syllable of the Divine\nWord.\n\n\u201cWhen a human soul draws its first furrow straight, the rest will follow\nsurely. One thought borne inward, one prayer uplifted, one suffering\nendured, one echo of the Word within us, and our souls are forever\nchanged. All ends in God; and many are the ways to find Him by walking\nstraight before us. When the happy day arrives in which you set your\nfeet upon the Path and begin your pilgrimage, the world will know\nnothing of it; earth no longer understands you; you no longer understand\neach other. Men who attain a knowledge of these things, who lisp a few\nsyllables of the Word, often have not where to lay their head; hunted\nlike beasts they perish on the scaffold, to the joy of assembled\npeoples, while Angels open to them the gates of heaven. Therefore, your\ndestiny is a secret between yourself and God, just as love is a secret\nbetween two hearts. You may be the buried treasure, trodden under the\nfeet of men thirsting for gold yet all-unknowing that you are there\nbeneath them.\n\n\u201cHenceforth your existence becomes a thing of ceaseless activity; each\nact has a meaning which connects you with God, just as in love your\nactions and your thoughts are filled with the loved one. But love and\nits joys, love and its pleasures limited by the senses, are but the\nimperfect image of the love which unites you to your celestial Spouse.\nAll earthly joy is mixed with anguish, with discontent. If love ought\nnot to pall then death should end it while its flame is high, so that\nwe see no ashes. But in God our wretchedness becomes delight, joy lives\nupon itself and multiplies, and grows, and has no limit. In the Earthly\nlife our fleeting love is ended by tribulation; in the Spiritual life\nthe tribulations of a day end in joys unending. The soul is ceaselessly\njoyful. We feel God with us, in us; He gives a sacred savor to all\nthings; He shines in the soul; He imparts to us His sweetness; He stills\nour interest in the world viewed for ourselves; He quickens our interest\nin it viewed for His sake, and grants us the exercise of His power upon\nit. In His name we do the works which He inspires, we act for Him, we\nhave no self except in Him, we love His creatures with undying love, we\ndry their tears and long to bring them unto Him, as a loving woman longs\nto see the inhabitants of earth obey her well-beloved.\n\n\u201cThe final life, the fruition of all other lives, to which the powers\nof the soul have tended, and whose merits open the Sacred Portals to\nperfected man, is the life of Prayer. Who can make you comprehend the\ngrandeur, the majesty, the might of Prayer? May my voice, these words of\nmine, ring in your hearts and change them. Be now, here, what you may\nbe after cruel trial! There are privileged beings, Prophets, Seers,\nMessengers, and Martyrs, all those who suffer for the Word and who\nproclaim it; such souls spring at a bound across the human sphere and\nrise at once to Prayer. So, too, with those whose souls receive the fire\nof Faith. Be one of those brave souls! God welcomes boldness. He loves\nto be taken by violence; He will never reject those who force their way\nto Him. Know this! desire, the torrent of your will, is so all-powerful\nthat a single emission of it, made with force, can obtain all; a single\ncry, uttered under the pressure of Faith, suffices. Be one of such\nbeings, full of force, of will, of love! Be conquerors on the earth! Let\nthe hunger and thirst of God possess you. Fly to Him as the hart panting\nfor the water-brooks. Desire shall lend you its wings; tears, those\nblossoms of repentance, shall be the celestial baptism from which your\nnature will issue purified. Cast yourself on the breast of the stream in\nPrayer! Silence and meditation are the means of following the Way. God\nreveals Himself, unfailingly, to the solitary, thoughtful seeker.\n\n\u201cIt is thus that the separation takes place between Matter, which so\nlong has wrapped its darkness round you, and Spirit, which was in you\nfrom the beginning, the light which lighted you and now brings noon-day\nto your soul. Yes, your broken heart shall receive the light; the light\nshall bathe it. Then you will no longer feel convictions, they will\nhave changed to certainties. The Poet utters; the Thinker meditates; the\nRighteous acts; but he who stands upon the borders of the Divine World\nprays; and his prayer is word, thought, action, in one! Yes, prayer\nincludes all, contains all; it completes nature, for it reveals to you\nthe mind within it and its progression. White and shining virgin of all\nhuman virtues, ark of the covenant between earth and heaven, tender and\nstrong companion partaking of the lion and of the lamb, Prayer! Prayer\nwill give you the key of heaven! Bold and pure as innocence, strong,\nlike all that is single and simple, this glorious, invincible Queen\nrests, nevertheless, on the material world; she takes possession of it;\nlike the sun, she clasps it in a circle of light. The universe belongs\nto him who wills, who knows, who prays; but he must will, he must know,\nhe must pray; in a word, he must possess force, wisdom, and faith.\n\n\u201cTherefore Prayer, issuing from so many trials, is the consummation\nof all truths, all powers, all feelings. Fruit of the laborious,\nprogressive, continued development of natural properties and faculties\nvitalized anew by the divine breath of the Word, Prayer has occult\nactivity; it is the final worship--not the material worship of images,\nnor the spiritual worship of formulas, but the worship of the Divine\nWorld. We say no prayers,--prayer forms within us; it is a faculty which\nacts of itself; it has attained a way of action which lifts it outside\nof forms; it links the soul to God, with whom we unite as the root of\nthe tree unites with the soil; our veins draw life from the principle of\nlife, and we live by the life of the universe. Prayer bestows external\nconviction by making us penetrate the Material World through the\ncohesion of all our faculties with the elementary substances; it bestows\ninternal conviction by developing our essence and mingling it with that\nof the Spiritual Worlds. To be able to pray thus, you must attain to an\nutter abandonment of flesh; you must acquire through the fires of the\nfurnace the purity of the diamond; for this complete communion with the\nDivine is obtained only in absolute repose, where storms and conflicts\nare at rest.\n\n\u201cYes, Prayer--the aspiration of the soul freed absolutely from the\nbody--bears all forces within it, and applies them to the constant and\nperseverant union of the Visible and the Invisible. When you possess\nthe faculty of praying without weariness, with love, with force, with\ncertainty, with intelligence, your spiritualized nature will presently\nbe invested with power. Like a rushing wind, like a thunderbolt, it cuts\nits way through all things and shares the power of God. The quickness\nof the Spirit becomes yours; in an instant you may pass from region to\nregion; like the Word itself, you are transported from the ends of the\nworld to other worlds. Harmony exists, and you are part of it! Light is\nthere and your eyes possess it! Melody is heard and you echo it! Under\nsuch conditions, you feel your perceptions developing, widening; the\neyes of your mind reach to vast distances. There is, in truth, neither\ntime nor place to the Spirit; space and duration are proportions created\nfor Matter; spirit and matter have naught in common.\n\n\u201cThough these things take place in stillness, in silence, without\nagitation, without external movement, yet Prayer is all action; but it\nis spiritual action, stripped of substantiality, and reduced, like\nthe motion of the worlds, to an invisible pure force. It penetrates\neverywhere like light; it gives vitality to souls that come beneath its\nrays, as Nature beneath the sun. It resuscitates virtue, purifies and\nsanctifies all actions, peoples solitude, and gives a foretaste of\neternal joys. When you have once felt the delights of the divine\nintoxication which comes of this internal travail, then all is yours!\nonce take the lute on which we sing to God within your hands, and you\nwill never part with it. Hence the solitude in which Angelic Spirits\nlive; hence their disdain of human joys. They are withdrawn from those\nwho must die to live; they hear the language of such beings, but they no\nlonger understand their ideas; they wonder at their movements, at\nwhat the world terms policies, material laws, societies. For them all\nmysteries are over; truth, and truth alone, is theirs. They who have\nreached the point where their eyes discern the Sacred Portals, who, not\nlooking back, not uttering one regret, contemplate worlds and comprehend\ntheir destinies, such as they keep silence, wait, and bear their final\nstruggles. The worst of all those struggles is the last; at the zenith\nof all virtue is Resignation,--to be an exile and not lament, no longer\nto delight in earthly things and yet to smile, to belong to God and yet\nto stay with men! You hear the voice that cries to you, \u2018Advance!\u2019 Often\ncelestial visions of descending Angels compass you about with songs\nof praise; then, tearless, uncomplaining, must you watch them as they\nreascent the skies! To murmur is to forfeit all. Resignation is a fruit\nthat ripens at the gates of heaven. How powerful, how glorious the calm\nsmile, the pure brow of the resigned human creature. Radiant is the\nlight of that brow. They who live in its atmosphere grow purer. That\ncalm glance penetrates and softens. More eloquent by silence than the\nprophet by speech, such beings triumph by their simple presence. Their\nears are quick to hear as a faithful dog listening for his master.\nBrighter than hope, stronger than love, higher than faith, that creature\nof resignation is the virgin standing on the earth, who holds for a\nmoment the conquered palm, then, rising heavenward, leaves behind her\nthe imprint of her white, pure feet. When she has passed away men flock\naround and cry, \u2018See! See!\u2019 Sometimes God holds her still in sight,--a\nfigure to whose feet creep Forms and Species of Animality to be shown\ntheir way. She wafts the light exhaling from her hair, and they see; she\nspeaks, and they hear. \u2018A miracle!\u2019 they cry. Often she triumphs in the\nname of God; frightened men deny her and put her to death; smiling, she\nlays down her sword and goes to the stake, having saved the Peoples.\nHow many a pardoned Angel has passed from martyrdom to heaven! Sinai,\nGolgotha are not in this place nor in that; Angels are crucified\nin every place, in every sphere. Sighs pierce to God from the whole\nuniverse. This earth on which we live is but a single sheaf of the great\nharvest; humanity is but a species in the vast garden where the flowers\nof heaven are cultivated. Everywhere God is like unto Himself, and\neverywhere, by prayer, it is easy to reach Him.\u201d\n\nWith these words, which fell from the lips of another Hagar in the\nwilderness, burning the souls of the hearers as the live coal of the\nword inflamed Isaiah, this mysterious being paused as though to gather\nsome remaining strength. Wilfrid and Minna dared not speak. Suddenly HE\nlifted himself up to die:--\n\n\u201cSoul of all things, oh my God, thou whom I love for Thyself! Thou,\nJudge and Father, receive a love which has no limit. Give me of thine\nessence and thy faculties that I be wholly thine! Take me, that I no\nlonger be myself! Am I not purified? then cast me back into the furnace!\nIf I be not yet proved in the fire, make me some nurturing ploughshare,\nor the Sword of victory! Grant me a glorious martyrdom in which to\nproclaim thy Word! Rejected, I will bless thy justice. But if excess\nof love may win in a moment that which hard and patient labor cannot\nattain, then bear me upward in thy chariot of fire! Grant me triumph, or\nfurther trial, still will I bless thee! To suffer for thee, is not that\nto triumph? Take me, seize me, bear me away! nay, if thou wilt, reject\nme! Thou art He who can do no evil. Ah!\u201d he cried, after a pause, \u201cthe\nbonds are breaking.\n\n\u201cSpirits of the pure, ye sacred flock, come forth from the hidden\nplaces, come on the surface of the luminous waves! The hour now is;\ncome, assemble! Let us sing at the gates of the Sanctuary; our songs\nshall drive away the final clouds. With one accord let us hail the Dawn\nof the Eternal Day. Behold the rising of the one True Light! Ah, why may\nI not take with me these my friends! Farewell, poor earth, Farewell!\u201d\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII. THE ASSUMPTION\n\n\nThe last psalm was uttered neither by word, look, nor gesture, nor by\nany of those signs which men employ to communicate their thoughts, but\nas the soul speaks to itself; for at the moment when Seraphita revealed\nherself in her true nature, her thoughts were no longer enslaved by\nhuman words. The violence of that last prayer had burst her bonds. Her\nsoul, like a white dove, remained for an instant poised above the body\nwhose exhausted substances were about to be annihilated.\n\nThe aspiration of the Soul toward heaven was so contagious that Wilfrid\nand Minna, beholding those radiant scintillations of Life, perceived not\nDeath.\n\nThey had fallen on their knees when _he_ had turned toward his Orient,\nand they shared his ecstasy.\n\nThe fear of the Lord, which creates man a second time, purging away his\ndross, mastered their hearts.\n\nTheir eyes, veiled to the things of Earth, were opened to the Brightness\nof Heaven.\n\nThough, like the Seers of old called Prophets by men, they were filled\nwith the terror of the Most High, yet like them they continued firm\nwhen they found themselves within the radiance where the Glory of the\n_Spirit_ shone.\n\nThe veil of flesh, which, until now, had hidden that glory from their\neyes, dissolved imperceptibly away, and left them free to behold the\nDivine substance.\n\nThey stood in the twilight of the Coming Dawn, whose feeble rays\nprepared them to look upon the True Light, to hear the Living Word, and\nyet not die.\n\nIn this state they began to perceive the immeasurable differences which\nseparate the things of earth from the things of Heaven.\n\n_Life_, on the borders of which they stood, leaning upon each other,\ntrembling and illuminated, like two children standing under shelter\nin presence of a conflagration, That Life offered no lodgment to the\nsenses.\n\nThe ideas they used to interpret their vision to themselves were to\nthe things seen what the visible senses of a man are to his soul, the\nmaterial covering of a divine essence.\n\nThe departing _spirit_ was above them, shedding incense without odor,\nmelody without sound. About them, where they stood, were neither\nsurfaces, nor angles, nor atmosphere.\n\nThey dared neither question him nor contemplate him; they stood in the\nshadow of that Presence as beneath the burning rays of a tropical sun,\nfearing to raise their eyes lest the light should blast them.\n\nThey knew they were beside him, without being able to perceive how it\nwas that they stood, as in a dream, on the confines of the Visible and\nthe Invisible, nor how they had lost sight of the Visible and how they\nbeheld the Invisible.\n\nTo each other they said: \u201cIf he touches us, we can die!\u201d But the\n_spirit_ was now within the Infinite, and they knew not that neither\ntime, nor space, nor death, existed there, and that a great gulf lay\nbetween them, although they thought themselves beside him.\n\nTheir souls were not prepared to receive in its fulness a knowledge\nof the faculties of that Life; they could have only faint and confused\nperceptions of it, suited to their weakness.\n\nWere it not so, the thunder of the _Living Word_, whose far-off tones\nnow reached their ears, and whose meaning entered their souls as life\nunites with body,--one echo of that Word would have consumed their being\nas a whirlwind of fire laps up a fragile straw.\n\nTherefore they saw only that which their nature, sustained by the\nstrength of the _spirit_, permitted them to see; they heard that only\nwhich they were able to hear.\n\nAnd yet, though thus protected, they shuddered when the Voice of the\nanguished soul broke forth above them--the prayer of the _Spirit_\nawaiting Life and imploring it with a cry.\n\nThat cry froze them to the very marrow of their bones.\n\nThe _Spirit_ knocked at the _sacred portal_. \u201cWhat wilt thou?\u201d answered\na _choir_, whose question echoed among the worlds. \u201cTo go to God.\u201d \u201cHast\nthou conquered?\u201d \u201cI have conquered the flesh through abstinence, I\nhave conquered false knowledge by humility, I have conquered pride by\ncharity, I have conquered the earth by love; I have paid my dues by\nsuffering, I am purified in the fires of faith, I have longed for Life\nby prayer: I wait in adoration, and I am resigned.\u201d\n\nNo answer came.\n\n\u201cGod\u2019s will be done!\u201d answered the _Spirit_, believing that he was about\nto be rejected.\n\nHis tears flowed and fell like dew upon the heads of the two kneeling\nwitnesses, who trembled before the justice of God.\n\nSuddenly the trumpets sounded,--the last trumpets of Victory won by the\n_Angel_ in this last trial. The reverberation passed through space\nas sound through its echo, filling it, and shaking the universe which\nWilfrid and Minna felt like an atom beneath their feet. They trembled\nunder an anguish caused by the dread of the mystery about to be\naccomplished.\n\nA great movement took place, as though the Eternal Legions, putting\nthemselves in motion, were passing upward in spiral columns. The worlds\nrevolved like clouds driven by a furious wind. It was all rapid.\n\nSuddenly the veils were rent away. They saw on high as it were a star,\nincomparably more lustrous than the most luminous of material stars,\nwhich detached itself, and fell like a thunderbolt, dazzling as\nlightning. Its passage paled the faces of the pair, who thought it to be\n_the Light_ Itself.\n\nIt was the Messenger of good tidings, the plume of whose helmet was a\nflame of Life.\n\nBehind him lay the swath of his way gleaming with a flood of the lights\nthrough which he passed.\n\nHe bore a palm and a sword. He touched the _Spirit_ with the palm, and\nthe _Spirit_ was transfigured. Its white wings noiselessly unfolded.\n\nThis communication of _the Light_, changing the _Spirit_ into a _Seraph_\nand clothing it with a glorious form, a celestial armor, poured down\nsuch effulgent rays that the two Seers were paralyzed.\n\nLike the three apostles to whom Jesus showed himself, they felt the\ndead weight of their bodies which denied them a complete and cloudless\nintuition of _the Word_ and _the True Life_.\n\nThey comprehended the nakedness of their souls; they were able\nto measure the poverty of their light by comparing it--a humbling\ntask--with the halo of the _Seraph_.\n\nA passionate desire to plunge back into the mire of earth and suffer\ntrial took possession of them,--trial through which they might\nvictoriously utter at the _sacred gates_ the words of that radiant\n_Seraph_.\n\nThe _Seraph_ knelt before the _Sanctuary_, beholding it, at last, face\nto face; and he said, raising his hands thitherward, \u201cGrant that these\ntwo may have further sight; they will love the Lord and proclaim His\nword.\u201d\n\nAt this prayer a veil fell. Whether it were that the hidden force which\nheld the Seers had momentarily annihilated their physical bodies, or\nthat it raised their spirits above those bodies, certain it is that they\nfelt within them a rending of the pure from the impure.\n\nThe tears of the _Seraph_ rose about them like a vapor, which hid the\nlower worlds from their knowledge, held them in its folds, bore them\nupwards, gave them forgetfulness of earthly meanings and the power of\ncomprehending the meanings of things divine.\n\nThe True Light shone; it illumined the Creations, which seemed to them\nbarren when they saw the source from which all worlds--Terrestrial,\nSpiritual, and Divine-derived their Motion.\n\nEach world possessed a centre to which converged all points of its\ncircumference. These worlds were themselves the points which moved\ntoward the centre of their system. Each system had its centre in great\ncelestial regions which communicated with the flaming and quenchless\n_motor of all that is_.\n\nThus, from the greatest to the smallest of the worlds, and from the\nsmallest of the worlds to the smallest portion of the beings who compose\nit, all was individual, and all was, nevertheless, One and indivisible.\n\nWhat was the design of the Being, fixed in His essence and in His\nfaculties, who transmitted that essence and those faculties without\nlosing them? who manifested them outside of Himself without separating\nthem from Himself? who rendered his creations outside of Himself fixed\nin their essence and mutable in their form? The pair thus called to the\ncelestial festival could only see the order and arrangement of created\nbeings and admire the immediate result. The Angels alone see more. They\nknow the means; they comprehend the final end.\n\nBut what the two Elect were granted power to contemplate, what they were\nable to bring back as a testimony which enlightened their minds forever\nafter, was the proof of the action of the Worlds and of Beings; the\nconsciousness of the effort with which they all converge to the Result.\n\nThey heard the divers parts of the Infinite forming one living\nmelody; and each time that the accord made itself felt like a mighty\nrespiration, the Worlds drawn by the concordant movement inclined\nthemselves toward the Supreme Being who, from His impenetrable centre,\nissued all things and recalled all things to Himself.\n\nThis ceaseless alternation of voices and silence seemed the rhythm of\nthe sacred hymn which resounds and prolongs its sound from age to age.\n\nWilfrid and Minna were enabled to understand some of the mysterious\nsayings of Him who had appeared on earth in the form which to each of\nthem had rendered him comprehensible,--to one Seraphitus, to the other\nSeraphita,--for they saw that all was homogeneous in the sphere where he\nnow was.\n\nLight gave birth to melody, melody gave birth to light; colors were\nlight and melody; motion was a Number endowed with Utterance; all\nthings were at once sonorous, diaphanous, and mobile; so that each\ninterpenetrated the other, the whole vast area was unobstructed and the\nAngels could survey it from the depths of the Infinite.\n\nThey perceived the puerility of human sciences, of which he had spoken\nto them.\n\nThe scene was to them a prospect without horizon, a boundless space into\nwhich an all-consuming desire prompted them to plunge. But, fastened to\ntheir miserable bodies, they had the desire without the power to fulfil\nit.\n\nThe _Seraph_, preparing for his flight, no longer looked towards them;\nhe had nothing now in common with Earth.\n\nUpward he rose; the shadow of his luminous presence covered the two\nSeers like a merciful veil, enabling them to raise their eyes and see\nhim, rising in his glory to Heaven in company with the glad Archangel.\n\nHe rose as the sun from the bosom of the Eastern waves; but, more\nmajestic than the orb and vowed to higher destinies, he could not be\nenchained like inferior creations in the spiral movement of the worlds;\nhe followed the line of the Infinite, pointing without deviation to the\nOne Centre, there to enter his eternal life,--to receive there, in his\nfaculties and in his essence, the power to enjoy through Love, and the\ngift of comprehending through Wisdom.\n\nThe scene which suddenly unveiled itself to the eyes of the two Seers\ncrushed them with a sense of its vastness; they felt like atoms, whose\nminuteness was not to be compared even to the smallest particle which\nthe infinite of divisibility enabled the mind of man to imagine, brought\ninto the presence of the infinite of Numbers, which God alone can\ncomprehend as He alone can comprehend Himself.\n\nStrength and Love! what heights, what depths in those two entities, whom\nthe _Seraph\u2019s_ first prayer placed like two links, as it were, to unite\nthe immensities of the lower worlds with the immensity of the higher\nuniverse!\n\nThey comprehended the invisible ties by which the material worlds are\nbound to the spiritual worlds. Remembering the sublime efforts of human\ngenius, they were able to perceive the principle of all melody in the\nsongs of heaven which gave sensations of color, of perfume, of thought,\nwhich recalled the innumerable details of all creations, as the songs of\nearth revive the infinite memories of love.\n\nBrought by the exaltation of their faculties to a point that cannot\nbe described in any language, they were able to cast their eyes for an\ninstant into the Divine World. There all was Rejoicing.\n\nMyriads of angels were flocking together, without confusion; all alike\nyet all dissimilar, simple as the flower of the fields, majestic as the\nuniverse.\n\nWilfrid and Minna saw neither their coming nor their going; they\nappeared suddenly in the Infinite and filled it with their presence, as\nthe stars shine in the invisible ether.\n\nThe scintillations of their united diadems illumined space like the\nfires of the sky at dawn upon the mountains. Waves of light flowed from\ntheir hair, and their movements created tremulous undulations in space\nlike the billows of a phosphorescent sea.\n\nThe two Seers beheld the _Seraph_ dimly in the midst of the immortal\nlegions. Suddenly, as though all the arrows of a quiver had darted\ntogether, the Spirits swept away with a breath the last vestiges of the\nhuman form; as the _Seraph_ rose he became yet purer; soon he seemed\nto them but a faint outline of what he had been at the moment of his\ntransfiguration,--lines of fire without shadow.\n\nHigher he rose, receiving from circle to circle some new gift, while the\nsign of his election was transmitted to each sphere into which, more and\nmore purified, he entered.\n\nNo voice was silent; the hymn diffused and multiplied itself in all its\nmodulations:--\n\n\u201cHail to him who enters living! Come, flower of the Worlds! diamond from\nthe fires of suffering! pearl without spot, desire without flesh, new\nlink of earth and heaven, be Light! Conquering spirit, Queen of the\nworld, come for thy crown! Victor of earth, receive thy diadem! Thou art\nof us!\u201d\n\nThe virtues of the _Seraph_ shone forth in all their beauty.\n\nHis earliest desire for heaven re-appeared, tender as childhood.\nThe deeds of his life, like constellations, adorned him with their\nbrightness. His acts of faith shone like the Jacinth of heaven, the\ncolor of sidereal fires. The pearls of Charity were upon him,--a chaplet\nof garnered tears! Love divine surrounded him with roses; and the\nwhiteness of his Resignation obliterated all earthly trace.\n\nSoon, to the eyes of the Seers, he was but a point of flame, growing\nbrighter and brighter as its motion was lost in the melodious\nacclamations which welcomed his entrance into heaven.\n\nThe celestial accents made the two exiles weep.\n\nSuddenly a silence as of death spread like a mourning veil from the\nfirst to the highest sphere, throwing Wilfrid and Minna into a state of\nintolerable expectation.\n\nAt this moment the _Seraph_ was lost to sight within the _sanctuary_,\nreceiving there the gift of Life Eternal.\n\nA movement of adoration made by the Host of heaven filled the two Seers\nwith ecstasy mingled with terror. They felt that all were prostrate\nbefore the Throne, in all the spheres, in the Spheres Divine, in the\nSpiritual Spheres, and in the Worlds of Darkness.\n\nThe Angels bent the knee to celebrate the _Seraph\u2019s_ glory; the Spirits\nbent the knee in token of their impatience; others bent the knee in the\ndark abysses, shuddering with awe.\n\nA mighty cry of joy gushed forth, as the spring gushes forth to its\nmillions of flowering herbs sparkling with diamond dew-drops in the\nsunlight; at that instant the _Seraph_ reappeared, effulgent, crying,\n\u201c_Eternal! Eternal! Eternal_!\u201d\n\nThe universe heard the cry and understood it; it penetrated the spheres\nas God penetrates them; it took possession of the infinite; the Seven\nDivine Worlds heard the Voice and answered.\n\nA mighty movement was perceptible, as though whole planets, purified,\nwere rising in dazzling light to become Eternal.\n\nHad the _Seraph_ obtained, as a first mission, the work of calling to\nGod the creations permeated by His Word?\n\nBut already the sublime _hallelujah_ was sounding in the ear of the\ndesolate ones as the distant undulations of an ended melody. Already\nthe celestial lights were fading like the gold and crimson tints of a\nsetting sun. Death and Impurity recovered their prey.\n\nAs the two mortals re-entered the prison of flesh, from which their\nspirit had momentarily been delivered by some priceless sleep, they felt\nlike those who wake after a night of brilliant dreams, the memory\nof which still lingers in their soul, though their body retains no\nconsciousness of them, and human language is unable to give utterance to\nthem.\n\nThe deep darkness of the sphere that was now about them was that of the\nsun of the visible worlds.\n\n\u201cLet us descend to those lower regions,\u201d said Wilfrid.\n\n\u201cLet us do what he told us to do,\u201d answered Minna. \u201cWe have seen the\nworlds on their march to God; we know the Path. Our diadem of stars is\nThere.\u201d\n\nFloating downward through the abysses, they re-entered the dust of the\nlesser worlds, and saw the Earth, like a subterranean cavern, suddenly\nilluminated to their eyes by the light which their souls brought with\nthem, and which still environed them in a cloud of the paling harmonies\nof heaven. The sight was that which of old struck the inner eyes\nof Seers and Prophets. Ministers of all religions, Preachers of all\npretended truths, Kings consecrated by Force and Terror, Warriors and\nMighty men apportioning the Peoples among them, the Learned and the Rich\nstanding above the suffering, noisy crowd, and noisily grinding them\nbeneath their feet,--all were there, accompanied by their wives and\nservants; all were robed in stuffs of gold and silver and azure studded\nwith pearls and gems torn from the bowels of Earth, stolen from the\ndepths of Ocean, for which Humanity had toiled throughout the centuries,\nsweating and blaspheming. But these treasures, these splendors,\nconstructed of blood, seemed worn-out rags to the eyes of the two\nExiles. \u201cWhat do you there, in motionless ranks?\u201d cried Wilfrid. They\nanswered not. \u201cWhat do you there, motionless?\u201d They answered not.\nWilfrid waved his hands over them, crying in a loud voice, \u201cWhat do you\nthere, in motionless ranks?\u201d All, with unanimous action, opened their\ngarments and gave to sight their withered bodies, eaten with worms,\nputrefied, crumbling to dust, rotten with horrible diseases.\n\n\u201cYou lead the nations to Death,\u201d Wilfrid said to them. \u201cYou have\ndepraved the earth, perverted the Word, prostituted justice. After\ndevouring the grass of the fields you have killed the lambs of the fold.\nDo you think yourself justified because of your sores? I will warn my\nbrethren who have ears to hear the Voice, and they will come and drink\nof the spring of Living Waters which you have hidden.\u201d\n\n\u201cLet us save our strength for Prayer,\u201d said Minna. \u201cWilfrid, thy mission\nis not that of the Prophets or the Avenger or the Messenger; we are\nstill on the confines of the lowest sphere; let us endeavor to rise\nthrough space on the wings of Prayer.\u201d\n\n\u201cThou shalt be all my love!\u201d\n\n\u201cThou shalt be all my strength!\u201d\n\n\u201cWe have seen the Mysteries; we are, each to the other, the only being\nhere below to whom Joy and Sadness are comprehensible; let us pray,\ntherefore: we know the Path, let us walk in it.\u201d\n\n\u201cGive me thy hand,\u201d said the Young Girl, \u201cif we walk together, the way\nwill be to me less hard and long.\u201d\n\n\u201cWith thee, with thee alone,\u201d replied the Man, \u201ccan I cross the awful\nsolitude without complaint.\u201d\n\n\u201cTogether we will go to Heaven,\u201d she said.\n\nThe clouds gathered and formed a darksome dais. Suddenly the pair found\nthemselves kneeling beside a body which old David was guarding from\ncurious eyes, resolved to bury it himself.\n\nBeyond those walls the first summer of the nineteenth century shone\nforth in all its glory. The two lovers believed they heard a Voice\nin the sun-rays. They breathed a celestial essence from the new-born\nflowers. Holding each other by the hand, they said, \u201cThat illimitable\nocean which shines below us is but an image of what we saw above.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhere are you going?\u201d asked Monsieur Becker.\n\n\u201cTo God,\u201d they answered. \u201cCome with us, father.\u201d","title":"Seraphita","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":51199}