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diff --git a/old/1432-0.txt b/old/1432-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..52154b7 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/1432-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5628 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Seraphita, by Honore de Balzac + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Seraphita + +Author: Honore de Balzac + +Translator: Katharine Prescott Wormeley + +Release Date: August, 1998 [Etext #1432] +Posting Date: February 24, 2010 +Last Updated: November 23, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SERAPHITA *** + + + + +Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny + + + + + +SERAPHITA + + +By Honore De Balzac + + + +Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley + + + + DEDICATION + + To Madame Eveline de Hanska, nee Comtesse Rzewuska. + + Madame,--Here is the work which you asked of me. I am happy, in + thus dedicating it, to offer you a proof of the respectful + affection you allow me to bear you. If I am reproached for + impotence in this attempt to draw from the depths of mysticism a + book which seeks to give, in the lucid transparency of our + beautiful language, the luminous poesy of the Orient, to you the + blame! Did you not command this struggle (resembling that of + Jacob) by telling me that the most imperfect sketch of this + Figure, dreamed of by you, as it has been by me since childhood, + would still be something to you? + + Here, then, it is,--that something. Would that this book could + belong exclusively to noble spirits, preserved like yours from + worldly pettiness by solitude! THEY would know how to give to it + the melodious rhythm that it lacks, which might have made it, in + the hands of a poet, the glorious epic that France still awaits. + But from me they must accept it as one of those sculptured + balustrades, carved by a hand of faith, on which the pilgrims + lean, in the choir of some glorious church, to think upon the end + of man. + + I am, madame, with respect, + Your devoted servant, + De Balzac. + + + + +SERAPHITA + + + + +CHAPTER I. SERAPHITUS + + +As the eye glances over a map of the coasts of Norway, can the +imagination fail to marvel at their fantastic indentations and serrated +edges, like a granite lace, against which the surges of the North Sea +roar incessantly? Who has not dreamed of the majestic sights to be seen +on those beachless shores, of that multitude of creeks and inlets and +little bays, no two of them alike, yet all trackless abysses? We may +almost fancy that Nature took pleasure in recording by ineffaceable +hieroglyphics the symbol of Norwegian life, bestowing on these coasts +the conformation of a fish’s spine, fishery being the staple commerce of +the country, and well-nigh the only means of living of the hardy men who +cling like tufts of lichen to the arid cliffs. Here, through fourteen +degrees of longitude, barely seven hundred thousand souls maintain +existence. Thanks to perils devoid of glory, to year-long snows which +clothe the Norway peaks and guard them from profaning foot of traveller, +these sublime beauties are virgin still; they will be seen to harmonize +with human phenomena, also virgin--at least to poetry--which here took +place, the history of which it is our purpose to relate. + +If one of these inlets, mere fissures to the eyes of the eider-ducks, is +wide enough for the sea not to freeze between the prison-walls of +rock against which it surges, the country-people call the little bay +a “fiord,”--a word which geographers of every nation have adopted into +their respective languages. Though a certain resemblance exists +among all these fiords, each has its own characteristics. The sea has +everywhere forced its way as through a breach, yet the rocks about each +fissure are diversely rent, and their tumultuous precipices defy the +rules of geometric law. Here the scarp is dentelled like a saw; there +the narrow ledges barely allow the snow to lodge or the noble crests of +the Northern pines to spread themselves; farther on, some convulsion of +Nature may have rounded a coquettish curve into a lovely valley flanked +in rising terraces with black-plumed pines. Truly we are tempted to call +this land the Switzerland of Ocean. + +Midway between Trondhjem and Christiansand lies an inlet called the +Strom-fiord. If the Strom-fiord is not the loveliest of these rocky +landscapes, it has the merit of displaying the terrestrial grandeurs +of Norway, and of enshrining the scenes of a history that is indeed +celestial. + +The general outline of the Strom-fiord seems at first sight to be that +of a funnel washed out by the sea. The passage which the waves have +forced present to the eye an image of the eternal struggle between old +Ocean and the granite rock,--two creations of equal power, one through +inertia, the other by ceaseless motion. Reefs of fantastic shape run out +on either side, and bar the way of ships and forbid their entrance. The +intrepid sons of Norway cross these reefs on foot, springing from rock +to rock, undismayed at the abyss--a hundred fathoms deep and only six +feet wide--which yawns beneath them. Here a tottering block of gneiss +falling athwart two rocks gives an uncertain footway; there the +hunters or the fishermen, carrying their loads, have flung the stems of +fir-trees in guise of bridges, to join the projecting reefs, around and +beneath which the surges roar incessantly. This dangerous entrance to +the little bay bears obliquely to the right with a serpentine movement, +and there encounters a mountain rising some twenty-five hundred feet +above sea-level, the base of which is a vertical palisade of solid +rock more than a mile and a half long, the inflexible granite nowhere +yielding to clefts or undulations until it reaches a height of two +hundred feet above the water. Rushing violently in, the sea is driven +back with equal violence by the inert force of the mountain to the +opposite shore, gently curved by the spent force of the retreating +waves. + +The fiord is closed at the upper end by a vast gneiss formation crowned +with forests, down which a river plunges in cascades, becomes a torrent +when the snows are melting, spreads into a sheet of waters, and then +falls with a roar into the bay,--vomiting as it does so the hoary pines +and the aged larches washed down from the forests and scarce seen amid +the foam. These trees plunge headlong into the fiord and reappear after +a time on the surface, clinging together and forming islets which float +ashore on the beaches, where the inhabitants of a village on the left +bank of the Strom-fiord gather them up, split, broken (though sometimes +whole), and always stripped of bark and branches. The mountain which +receives at its base the assaults of Ocean, and at its summit the +buffeting of the wild North wind, is called the Falberg. Its crest, +wrapped at all seasons in a mantle of snow and ice, is the sharpest peak +of Norway; its proximity to the pole produces, at the height of eighteen +hundred feet, a degree of cold equal to that of the highest mountains of +the globe. The summit of this rocky mass, rising sheer from the fiord +on one side, slopes gradually downward to the east, where it joins the +declivities of the Sieg and forms a series of terraced valleys, the +chilly temperature of which allows no growth but that of shrubs and +stunted trees. + +The upper end of the fiord, where the waters enter it as they come down +from the forest, is called the Siegdahlen,--a word which may be held to +mean “the shedding of the Sieg,”--the river itself receiving that name. +The curving shore opposite to the face of the Falberg is the valley +of Jarvis,--a smiling scene overlooked by hills clothed with firs, +birch-trees, and larches, mingled with a few oaks and beeches, the +richest coloring of all the varied tapestries which Nature in these +northern regions spreads upon the surface of her rugged rocks. The eye +can readily mark the line where the soil, warmed by the rays of the sun, +bears cultivation and shows the native growth of the Norwegian flora. +Here the expanse of the fiord is broad enough to allow the sea, dashed +back by the Falberg, to spend its expiring force in gentle murmurs upon +the lower slope of these hills,--a shore bordered with finest sand, +strewn with mica and sparkling pebbles, porphyry, and marbles of a +thousand tints, brought from Sweden by the river floods, together with +ocean waifs, shells, and flowers of the sea driven in by tempests, +whether of the Pole or Tropics. + +At the foot of the hills of Jarvis lies a village of some two hundred +wooden houses, where an isolated population lives like a swarm of bees +in a forest, without increasing or diminishing; vegetating happily, +while wringing their means of living from the breast of a stern Nature. +The almost unknown existence of the little hamlet is readily accounted +for. Few of its inhabitants were bold enough to risk their lives +among the reefs to reach the deep-sea fishing,--the staple industry of +Norwegians on the least dangerous portions of their coast. The fish of +the fiord were numerous enough to suffice, in part at least, for the +sustenance of the inhabitants; the valley pastures provided milk and +butter; a certain amount of fruitful, well-tilled soil yielded rye +and hemp and vegetables, which necessity taught the people to protect +against the severity of the cold and the fleeting but terrible heat of +the sun with the shrewd ability which Norwegians display in the two-fold +struggle. The difficulty of communication with the outer world, either +by land where the roads are impassable, or by sea where none but tiny +boats can thread their way through the maritime defiles that guard the +entrance to the bay, hinder these people from growing rich by the sale +of their timber. It would cost enormous sums to either blast a channel +out to sea or construct a way to the interior. The roads from Christiana +to Trondhjem all turn toward the Strom-fiord, and cross the Sieg by a +bridge some score of miles above its fall into the bay. The country to +the north, between Jarvis and Trondhjem, is covered with impenetrable +forests, while to the south the Falberg is nearly as much separated +from Christiana by inaccessible precipices. The village of Jarvis might +perhaps have communicated with the interior of Norway and Sweden by +the river Sieg; but to do this and to be thus brought into contact with +civilization, the Strom-fiord needed the presence of a man of genius. +Such a man did actually appear there,--a poet, a Swede of great +religious fervor, who died admiring, even reverencing this region as one +of the noblest works of the Creator. + +Minds endowed by study with an inward sight, and whose quick perceptions +bring before the soul, as though painted on a canvas, the contrasting +scenery of this universe, will now apprehend the general features of +the Strom-fiord. They alone, perhaps, can thread their way through the +tortuous channels of the reef, or flee with the battling waves to the +everlasting rebuff of the Falberg whose white peaks mingle with the +vaporous clouds of the pearl-gray sky, or watch with delight the curving +sheet of waters, or hear the rushing of the Sieg as it hangs for an +instant in long fillets and then falls over a picturesque abatis of +noble trees toppled confusedly together, sometimes upright, sometimes +half-sunken beneath the rocks. It may be that such minds alone can dwell +upon the smiling scenes nestling among the lower hills of Jarvis; where +the luscious Northern vegetables spring up in families, in myriads, +where the white birches bend, graceful as maidens, where colonnades +of beeches rear their boles mossy with the growth of centuries, where +shades of green contrast, and white clouds float amid the blackness of +the distant pines, and tracts of many-tinted crimson and purple shrubs +are shaded endlessly; in short, where blend all colors, all perfumes of +a flora whose wonders are still ignored. Widen the boundaries of this +limited ampitheatre, spring upward to the clouds, lose yourself among +the rocks where the seals are lying and even then your thought cannot +compass the wealth of beauty nor the poetry of this Norwegian coast. +Can your thought be as vast as the ocean that bounds it? as weird as +the fantastic forms drawn by these forests, these clouds, these shadows, +these changeful lights? + +Do you see above the meadows on that lowest slope which undulates around +the higher hills of Jarvis two or three hundred houses roofed with +“noever,” a sort of thatch made of birch-bark,--frail houses, long and +low, looking like silk-worms on a mulberry-leaf tossed hither by the +winds? Above these humble, peaceful dwellings stands the church, built +with a simplicity in keeping with the poverty of the villagers. A +graveyard surrounds the chancel, and a little farther on you see +the parsonage. Higher up, on a projection of the mountain is a +dwelling-house, the only one of stone; for which reason the inhabitants +of the village call it “the Swedish Castle.” In fact, a wealthy Swede +settled in Jarvis about thirty years before this history begins, and did +his best to ameliorate its condition. This little house, certainly not +a castle, built with the intention of leading the inhabitants to build +others like it, was noticeable for its solidity and for the wall that +inclosed it, a rare thing in Norway where, notwithstanding the abundance +of stone, wood alone is used for all fences, even those of fields. +This Swedish house, thus protected against the climate, stood on rising +ground in the centre of an immense courtyard. The windows were sheltered +by those projecting pent-house roofs supported by squared trunks of +trees which give so patriarchal an air to Northern dwellings. From +beneath them the eye could see the savage nudity of the Falberg, or +compare the infinitude of the open sea with the tiny drop of water in +the foaming fiord; the ear could hear the flowing of the Sieg, whose +white sheet far away looked motionless as it fell into its granite +cup edged for miles around with glaciers,--in short, from this vantage +ground the whole landscape whereon our simple yet superhuman drama was +about to be enacted could be seen and noted. + +The winter of 1799-1800 was one of the most severe ever known to +Europeans. The Norwegian sea was frozen in all the fiords, where, as a +usual thing, the violence of the surf kept the ice from forming. A wind, +whose effects were like those of the Spanish levanter, swept the ice of +the Strom-fiord, driving the snow to the upper end of the gulf. Seldom +indeed could the people of Jarvis see the mirror of frozen waters +reflecting the colors of the sky; a wondrous site in the bosom of +these mountains when all other aspects of nature are levelled beneath +successive sheets of snow, and crests and valleys are alike mere +folds of the vast mantle flung by winter across a landscape at once so +mournfully dazzling and so monotonous. The falling volume of the Sieg, +suddenly frozen, formed an immense arcade beneath which the inhabitants +might have crossed under shelter from the blast had any dared to risk +themselves inland. But the dangers of every step away from their own +surroundings kept even the boldest hunters in their homes, afraid lest +the narrow paths along the precipices, the clefts and fissures among the +rocks, might be unrecognizable beneath the snow. + +Thus it was that no human creature gave life to the white desert where +Boreas reigned, his voice alone resounding at distant intervals. The +sky, nearly always gray, gave tones of polished steel to the ice of the +fiord. Perchance some ancient eider-duck crossed the expanse, trusting +to the warm down beneath which dream, in other lands, the luxurious +rich, little knowing of the dangers through which their luxury has come +to them. Like the Bedouin of the desert who darts alone across the sands +of Africa, the bird is neither seen nor heard; the torpid atmosphere, +deprived of its electrical conditions, echoes neither the whirr of its +wings nor its joyous notes. Besides, what human eye was strong enough to +bear the glitter of those pinnacles adorned with sparkling crystals, or +the sharp reflections of the snow, iridescent on the summits in the rays +of a pallid sun which infrequently appeared, like a dying man seeking to +make known that he still lives. Often, when the flocks of gray clouds, +driven in squadrons athwart the mountains and among the tree-tops, hid +the sky with their triple veils Earth, lacking the celestial lights, lit +herself by herself. + +Here, then, we meet the majesty of Cold, seated eternally at the pole +in that regal silence which is the attribute of all absolute monarchy. +Every extreme principle carries with it an appearance of negation and +the symptoms of death; for is not life the struggle of two forces? Here +in this Northern nature nothing lived. One sole power--the unproductive +power of ice--reigned unchallenged. The roar of the open sea no longer +reached the deaf, dumb inlet, where during one short season of the year +Nature made haste to produce the slender harvests necessary for the food +of the patient people. A few tall pine-trees lifted their black pyramids +garlanded with snow, and the form of their long branches and depending +shoots completed the mourning garments of those solemn heights. + +Each household gathered in its chimney-corner, in houses carefully +closed from the outer air, and well supplied with biscuit, melted +butter, dried fish, and other provisions laid in for the seven-months +winter. The very smoke of these dwellings was hardly seen, half-hidden +as they were beneath the snow, against the weight of which they were +protected by long planks reaching from the roof and fastened at some +distance to solid blocks on the ground, forming a covered way around +each building. + +During these terrible winter months the women spun and dyed the woollen +stuffs and the linen fabrics with which they clothed their families, +while the men read, or fell into those endless meditations which have +given birth to so many profound theories, to the mystic dreams of the +North, to its beliefs, to its studies (so full and so complete in one +science, at least, sounded as with a plummet), to its manners and its +morals, half-monastic, which force the soul to react and feed upon +itself and make the Norwegian peasant a being apart among the peoples of +Europe. + +Such was the condition of the Strom-fiord in the first year of the +nineteenth century and about the middle of the month of May. + +On a morning when the sun burst forth upon this landscape, lighting the +fires of the ephemeral diamonds produced by crystallizations of the snow +and ice, two beings crossed the fiord and flew along the base of the +Falberg, rising thence from ledge to ledge toward the summit. What were +they? human creatures, or two arrows? They might have been taken for +eider-ducks sailing in consort before the wind. Not the boldest hunter +nor the most superstitious fisherman would have attributed to human +beings the power to move safely along the slender lines traced beneath +the snow by the granite ledges, where yet this couple glided with the +terrifying dexterity of somnambulists who, forgetting their own weight +and the dangers of the slightest deviation, hurry along a ridge-pole and +keep their equilibrium by the power of some mysterious force. + +“Stop me, Seraphitus,” said a pale young girl, “and let me breathe. I +look at you, you only, while scaling these walls of the gulf; otherwise, +what would become of me? I am such a feeble creature. Do I tire you?” + +“No,” said the being on whose arm she leaned. “But let us go on, Minna; +the place where we are is not firm enough to stand on.” + +Once more the snow creaked sharply beneath the long boards fastened to +their feet, and soon they reached the upper terrace of the first ledge, +clearly defined upon the flank of the precipice. The person whom Minna +had addressed as Seraphitus threw his weight upon his right heel, +arresting the plank--six and a half feet long and narrow as the foot of +a child--which was fastened to his boot by a double thong of leather. +This plank, two inches thick, was covered with reindeer skin, which +bristled against the snow when the foot was raised, and served to stop +the wearer. Seraphitus drew in his left foot, furnished with another +“skee,” which was only two feet long, turned swiftly where he stood, +caught his timid companion in his arms, lifted her in spite of the long +boards on her feet, and placed her on a projecting rock from which he +brushed the snow with his pelisse. + +“You are safe there, Minna; you can tremble at your ease.” + +“We are a third of the way up the Ice-Cap,” she said, looking at the +peak to which she gave the popular name by which it is known in Norway; +“I can hardly believe it.” + +Too much out of breath to say more, she smiled at Seraphitus, who, +without answering, laid his hand upon her heart and listened to its +sounding throbs, rapid as those of a frightened bird. + +“It often beats as fast when I run,” she said. + +Seraphitus inclined his head with a gesture that was neither coldness +nor indifference, and yet, despite the grace which made the movement +almost tender, it none the less bespoke a certain negation, which in a +woman would have seemed an exquisite coquetry. Seraphitus clasped the +young girl in his arms. Minna accepted the caress as an answer to her +words, continuing to gaze at him. As he raised his head, and threw back +with impatient gesture the golden masses of his hair to free his brow, +he saw an expression of joy in the eyes of his companion. + +“Yes, Minna,” he said in a voice whose paternal accents were charming +from the lips of a being who was still adolescent, “Keep your eyes on +me; do not look below you.” + +“Why not?” she asked. + +“You wish to know why? then look!” + +Minna glanced quickly at her feet and cried out suddenly like a child +who sees a tiger. The awful sensation of abysses seized her; one glance +sufficed to communicate its contagion. The fiord, eager for food, +bewildered her with its loud voice ringing in her ears, interposing +between herself and life as though to devour her more surely. From the +crown of her head to her feet and along her spine an icy shudder ran; +then suddenly intolerable heat suffused her nerves, beat in her veins +and overpowered her extremities with electric shocks like those of the +torpedo. Too feeble to resist, she felt herself drawn by a mysterious +power to the depths below, wherein she fancied that she saw some monster +belching its venom, a monster whose magnetic eyes were charming her, +whose open jaws appeared to craunch their prey before they seized it. + +“I die, my Seraphitus, loving none but thee,” she said, making a +mechanical movement to fling herself into the abyss. + +Seraphitus breathed softly on her forehead and eyes. Suddenly, like +a traveller relaxed after a bath, Minna forgot these keen emotions, +already dissipated by that caressing breath which penetrated her body +and filled it with balsamic essences as quickly as the breath itself had +crossed the air. + +“Who art thou?” she said, with a feeling of gentle terror. “Ah, but I +know! thou art my life. How canst thou look into that gulf and not die?” + she added presently. + +Seraphitus left her clinging to the granite rock and placed himself at +the edge of the narrow platform on which they stood, whence his eyes +plunged to the depths of the fiord, defying its dazzling invitation. His +body did not tremble, his brow was white and calm as that of a marble +statue,--an abyss facing an abyss. + +“Seraphitus! dost thou not love me? come back!” she cried. “Thy danger +renews my terror. Who art thou to have such superhuman power at thy +age?” she asked as she felt his arms inclosing her once more. + +“But, Minna,” answered Seraphitus, “you look fearlessly at greater +spaces far than that.” + +Then with raised finger, this strange being pointed upward to the blue +dome, which parting clouds left clear above their heads, where +stars could be seen in open day by virtue of atmospheric laws as yet +unstudied. + +“But what a difference!” she answered smiling. + +“You are right,” he said; “we are born to stretch upward to the +skies. Our native land, like the face of a mother, cannot terrify her +children.” + +His voice vibrated through the being of his companion, who made no +reply. + +“Come! let us go on,” he said. + +The pair darted forward along the narrow paths traced back and forth +upon the mountain, skimming from terrace to terrace, from line to line, +with the rapidity of a barb, that bird of the desert. Presently they +reached an open space, carpeted with turf and moss and flowers, where no +foot had ever trod. + +“Oh, the pretty saeter!” cried Minna, giving to the upland meadow its +Norwegian name. “But how comes it here, at such a height?” + +“Vegetation ceases here, it is true,” said Seraphitus. “These few plants +and flowers are due to that sheltering rock which protects the meadow +from the polar winds. Put that tuft in your bosom, Minna,” he added, +gathering a flower,--“that balmy creation which no eye has ever seen; +keep the solitary matchless flower in memory of this one matchless +morning of your life. You will find no other guide to lead you again to +this saeter.” + +So saying, he gave her the hybrid plant his falcon eye had seen amid the +tufts of gentian acaulis and saxifrages,--a marvel, brought to bloom +by the breath of angels. With girlish eagerness Minna seized the tufted +plant of transparent green, vivid as emerald, which was formed of little +leaves rolled trumpet-wise, brown at the smaller end but changing tint +by tint to their delicately notched edges, which were green. These +leaves were so tightly pressed together that they seemed to blend and +form a mat or cluster of rosettes. Here and there from this green ground +rose pure white stars edged with a line of gold, and from their throats +came crimson anthers but no pistils. A fragrance, blended of roses and +of orange blossoms, yet ethereal and fugitive, gave something as it +were celestial to that mysterious flower, which Seraphitus sadly +contemplated, as though it uttered plaintive thoughts which he alone +could understand. But to Minna this mysterious phenomenon seemed a mere +caprice of nature giving to stone the freshness, softness, and perfume +of plants. + +“Why do you call it matchless? can it not reproduce itself?” she asked, +looking at Seraphitus, who colored and turned away. + +“Let us sit down,” he said presently; “look below you, Minna. See! At +this height you will have no fear. The abyss is so far beneath us that +we no longer have a sense of its depths; it acquires the perspective +uniformity of ocean, the vagueness of clouds, the soft coloring of the +sky. See, the ice of the fiord is a turquoise, the dark pine forests are +mere threads of brown; for us all abysses should be thus adorned.” + +Seraphitus said the words with that fervor of tone and gesture seen +and known only by those who have ascended the highest mountains of the +globe,--a fervor so involuntarily acquired that the haughtiest of men +is forced to regard his guide as a brother, forgetting his own superior +station till he descends to the valleys and the abodes of his kind. +Seraphitus unfastened the skees from Minna’s feet, kneeling before her. +The girl did not notice him, so absorbed was she in the marvellous view +now offered of her native land, whose rocky outlines could here be seen +at a glance. She felt, with deep emotion, the solemn permanence of those +frozen summits, to which words could give no adequate utterance. + +“We have not come here by human power alone,” she said, clasping her +hands. “But perhaps I dream.” + +“You think that facts the causes of which you cannot perceive are +supernatural,” replied her companion. + +“Your replies,” she said, “always bear the stamp of some deep thought. +When I am near you I understand all things without an effort. Ah, I am +free!” + +“If so, you will not need your skees,” he answered. + +“Oh!” she said; “I who would fain unfasten yours and kiss your feet!” + +“Keep such words for Wilfrid,” said Seraphitus, gently. + +“Wilfrid!” cried Minna angrily; then, softening as she glanced at her +companion’s face and trying, but in vain, to take his hand, she added, +“You are never angry, never; you are so hopelessly perfect in all +things.” + +“From which you conclude that I am unfeeling.” + +Minna was startled at this lucid interpretation of her thought. + +“You prove to me, at any rate, that we understand each other,” she said, +with the grace of a loving woman. + +Seraphitus softly shook his head and looked sadly and gently at her. + +“You, who know all things,” said Minna, “tell me why it is that the +timidity I felt below is over now that I have mounted higher. Why do I +dare to look at you for the first time face to face, while lower down I +scarcely dared to give a furtive glance?” + +“Perhaps because we are withdrawn from the pettiness of earth,” he +answered, unfastening his pelisse. + +“Never, never have I seen you so beautiful!” cried Minna, sitting down +on a mossy rock and losing herself in contemplation of the being who +had now guided her to a part of the peak hitherto supposed to be +inaccessible. + +Never, in truth, had Seraphitus shone with so bright a radiance,--the +only word which can render the illumination of his face and the aspect +of his whole person. Was this splendor due to the lustre which the pure +air of mountains and the reflections of the snow give to the complexion? +Was it produced by the inward impulse which excites the body at the +instant when exertion is arrested? Did it come from the sudden contrast +between the glory of the sun and the darkness of the clouds, from whose +shadow the charming couple had just emerged? Perhaps to all these causes +we may add the effect of a phenomenon, one of the noblest which human +nature has to offer. If some able physiologist had studied this being +(who, judging by the pride on his brow and the lightning in his eyes +seemed a youth of about seventeen years of age), and if the student had +sought for the springs of that beaming life beneath the whitest skin +that ever the North bestowed upon her offspring, he would undoubtedly +have believed either in some phosphoric fluid of the nerves shining +beneath the cuticle, or in the constant presence of an inward luminary, +whose rays issued through the being of Seraphitus like a light through +an alabaster vase. Soft and slender as were his hands, ungloved to +remove his companion’s snow-boots, they seemed possessed of a strength +equal to that which the Creator gave to the diaphanous tentacles of the +crab. The fire darting from his vivid glance seemed to struggle with the +beams of the sun, not to take but to give them light. His body, slim and +delicate as that of a woman, gave evidence of one of those natures which +are feeble apparently, but whose strength equals their will, rendering +them at times powerful. Of medium height, Seraphitus appeared to grow in +stature as he turned fully round and seemed about to spring upward. His +hair, curled by a fairy’s hand and waving to the breeze, increased +the illusion produced by this aerial attitude; yet his bearing, wholly +without conscious effort, was the result far more of a moral phenomenon +than of a corporal habit. + +Minna’s imagination seconded this illusion, under the dominion of which +all persons would assuredly have fallen,--an illusion which gave to +Seraphitus the appearance of a vision dreamed of in happy sleep. No +known type conveys an image of that form so majestically made to Minna, +but which to the eyes of a man would have eclipsed in womanly grace the +fairest of Raphael’s creations. That painter of heaven has ever put +a tranquil joy, a loving sweetness, into the lines of his angelic +conceptions; but what soul, unless it contemplated Seraphitus himself, +could have conceived the ineffable emotions imprinted on his face? Who +would have divined, even in the dreams of artists, where all things +become possible, the shadow cast by some mysterious awe upon that brow, +shining with intellect, which seemed to question Heaven and to pity +Earth? The head hovered awhile disdainfully, as some majestic bird whose +cries reverberate on the atmosphere, then bowed itself resignedly, like +the turtledove uttering soft notes of tenderness in the depths of the +silent woods. His complexion was of marvellous whiteness, which brought +out vividly the coral lips, the brown eyebrows, and the silken lashes, +the only colors that trenched upon the paleness of that face, whose +perfect regularity did not detract from the grandeur of the sentiments +expressed in it; nay, thought and emotion were reflected there, without +hindrance or violence, with the majestic and natural gravity which we +delight in attributing to superior beings. That face of purest marble +expressed in all things strength and peace. + +Minna rose to take the hand of Seraphitus, hoping thus to draw him to +her, and to lay on that seductive brow a kiss given more from admiration +than from love; but a glance at the young man’s eyes, which pierced her +as a ray of sunlight penetrates a prism, paralyzed the young girl. She +felt, but without comprehending, a gulf between them; then she turned +away her head and wept. Suddenly a strong hand seized her by the waist, +and a soft voice said to her: “Come!” She obeyed, resting her head, +suddenly revived, upon the heart of her companion, who, regulating his +step to hers with gentle and attentive conformity, led her to a spot +whence they could see the radiant glories of the polar Nature. + +“Before I look, before I listen to you, tell me, Seraphitus, why you +repulse me. Have I displeased you? and how? tell me! I want nothing for +myself; I would that all my earthly goods were yours, for the riches +of my heart are yours already. I would that light came to my eyes only +though your eyes just as my thought is born of your thought. I should +not then fear to offend you, for I should give you back the echoes of +your soul, the words of your heart, day by day,--as we render to God the +meditations with which his spirit nourishes our minds. I would be thine +alone.” + +“Minna, a constant desire is that which shapes our future. Hope on! But +if you would be pure in heart mingle the idea of the All-Powerful with +your affections here below; then you will love all creatures, and your +heart will rise to heights indeed.” + +“I will do all you tell me,” she answered, lifting her eyes to his with +a timid movement. + +“I cannot be your companion,” said Seraphitus sadly. + +He seemed to repress some thoughts, then stretched his arms towards +Christiana, just visible like a speck on the horizon and said:-- + +“Look!” + +“We are very small,” she said. + +“Yes, but we become great through feeling and through intellect,” + answered Seraphitus. “With us, and us alone, Minna, begins the knowledge +of things; the little that we learn of the laws of the visible world +enables us to apprehend the immensity of the worlds invisible. I know +not if the time has come to speak thus to you, but I would, ah, I would +communicate to you the flame of my hopes! Perhaps we may one day be +together in the world where Love never dies.” + +“Why not here and now?” she said, murmuring. + +“Nothing is stable here,” he said, disdainfully. “The passing joys of +earthly love are gleams which reveal to certain souls the coming of +joys more durable; just as the discovery of a single law of nature leads +certain privileged beings to a conception of the system of the universe. +Our fleeting happiness here below is the forerunning proof of another +and a perfect happiness, just as the earth, a fragment of the world, +attests the universe. We cannot measure the vast orbit of the Divine +thought of which we are but an atom as small as God is great; but we +can feel its vastness, we can kneel, adore, and wait. Men ever mislead +themselves in science by not perceiving that all things on their globe +are related and co-ordinated to the general evolution, to a constant +movement and production which bring with them, necessarily, both +advancement and an End. Man himself is not a finished creation; if he +were, God would not Be.” + +“How is it that in thy short life thou hast found the time to learn so +many things?” said the young girl. + +“I remember,” he replied. + +“Thou art nobler than all else I see.” + +“We are the noblest of God’s greatest works. Has He not given us the +faculty of reflecting on Nature; of gathering it within us by thought; +of making it a footstool and stepping-stone from and by which to rise +to Him? We love according to the greater or the lesser portion of heaven +our souls contain. But do not be unjust, Minna; behold the magnificence +spread before you. Ocean expands at your feet like a carpet; the +mountains resemble ampitheatres; heaven’s ether is above them like the +arching folds of a stage curtain. Here we may breathe the thoughts of +God, as it were like a perfume. See! the angry billows which engulf the +ships laden with men seem to us, where we are, mere bubbles; and if we +raise our eyes and look above, all there is blue. Behold that diadem of +stars! Here the tints of earthly impressions disappear; standing on this +nature rarefied by space do you not feel within you something deeper far +than mind, grander than enthusiasm, of greater energy than will? Are you +not conscious of emotions whose interpretation is no longer in us? Do +you not feel your pinions? Let us pray.” + +Seraphitus knelt down and crossed his hands upon his breast, while Minna +fell, weeping, on her knees. Thus they remained for a time, while +the azure dome above their heads grew larger and strong rays of light +enveloped them without their knowledge. + +“Why dost thou not weep when I weep?” said Minna, in a broken voice. + +“They who are all spirit do not weep,” replied Seraphitus rising; “Why +should I weep? I see no longer human wretchedness. Here, Good appears +in all its majesty. There, beneath us, I hear the supplications and the +wailings of that harp of sorrows which vibrates in the hands of captive +souls. Here, I listen to the choir of harps harmonious. There, below, +is hope, the glorious inception of faith; but here is faith--it reigns, +hope realized!” + +“You will never love me; I am too imperfect; you disdain me,” said the +young girl. + +“Minna, the violet hidden at the feet of the oak whispers to itself: +‘The sun does not love me; he comes not.’ The sun says: ‘If my rays +shine upon her she will perish, poor flower.’ Friend of the flower, he +sends his beams through the oak leaves, he veils, he tempers them, and +thus they color the petals of his beloved. I have not veils enough, +I fear lest you see me too closely; you would tremble if you knew me +better. Listen: I have no taste for earthly fruits. Your joys, I know +them all too well, and, like the sated emperors of pagan Rome, I have +reached disgust of all things; I have received the gift of vision. Leave +me! abandon me!” he murmured, sorrowfully. + +Seraphitus turned and seated himself on a projecting rock, dropping his +head upon his breast. + +“Why do you drive me to despair?” said Minna. + +“Go, go!” cried Seraphitus, “I have nothing that you want of me. Your +love is too earthly for my love. Why do you not love Wilfrid? Wilfrid is +a man, tested by passions; he would clasp you in his vigorous arms and +make you feel a hand both broad and strong. His hair is black, his +eyes are full of human thoughts, his heart pours lava in every word he +utters; he could kill you with caresses. Let him be your beloved, your +husband! Yes, thine be Wilfrid!” + +Minna wept aloud. + +“Dare you say that you do not love him?” he went on, in a voice which +pierced her like a dagger. + +“Have mercy, have mercy, my Seraphitus!” + +“Love him, poor child of Earth to which thy destiny has indissolubly +bound thee,” said the strange being, beckoning Minna by a gesture, and +forcing her to the edge of the saeter, whence he pointed downward to a +scene that might well inspire a young girl full of enthusiasm with the +fancy that she stood above this earth. + +“I longed for a companion to the kingdom of Light; I wished to show you +that morsel of mud, I find you bound to it. Farewell. Remain on earth; +enjoy through the senses; obey your nature; turn pale with pallid men; +blush with women; sport with children; pray with the guilty; raise your +eyes to heaven when sorrows overtake you; tremble, hope, throb in all +your pulses; you will have a companion; you can laugh and weep, and give +and receive. I,--I am an exile, far from heaven; a monster, far from +earth. I live of myself and by myself. I feel by the spirit; I breathe +through my brow; I see by thought; I die of impatience and of longing. +No one here below can fulfil my desires or calm my griefs. I have +forgotten how to weep. I am alone. I resign myself, and I wait.” + +Seraphitus looked at the flowery mound on which he had seated Minna; +then he turned and faced the frowning heights, whose pinnacles were +wrapped in clouds; to them he cast, unspoken, the remainder of his +thoughts. + +“Minna, do you hear those delightful strains?” he said after a pause, +with the voice of a dove, for the eagle’s cry was hushed; “it is like +the music of those Eolian harps your poets hang in forests and on the +mountains. Do you see the shadowy figures passing among the clouds, +the winged feet of those who are making ready the gifts of heaven? They +bring refreshment to the soul; the skies are about to open and shed the +flowers of spring upon the earth. See, a gleam is darting from the pole. +Let us fly, let us fly! It is time we go!” + +In a moment their skees were refastened, and the pair descended the +Falberg by the steep slopes which join the mountain to the valleys of +the Sieg. Miraculous perception guided their course, or, to speak more +properly, their flight. When fissures covered with snow intercepted +them, Seraphitus caught Minna in his arms and darted with rapid motion, +lightly as a bird, over the crumbling causeways of the abyss. Sometimes, +while propelling his companion, he deviated to the right or left to +avoid a precipice, a tree, a projecting rock, which he seemed to see +beneath the snow, as an old sailor, familiar with the ocean, discerns +the hidden reefs by the color, the trend, or the eddying of the +water. When they reached the paths of the Siegdahlen, where they could +fearlessly follow a straight line to regain the ice of the fiord, +Seraphitus stopped Minna. + +“You have nothing to say to me?” he asked. + +“I thought you would rather think alone,” she answered respectfully. + +“Let us hasten, Minette; it is almost night,” he said. + +Minna quivered as she heard the voice, now so changed, of her guide,--a +pure voice, like that of a young girl, which dissolved the fantastic +dream through which she had been passing. Seraphitus seemed to be laying +aside his male force and the too keen intellect that flames from his +eyes. Presently the charming pair glided across the fiord and reached +the snow-field which divides the shore from the first range of houses; +then, hurrying forward as daylight faded, they sprang up the hill +toward the parsonage, as though they were mounting the steps of a great +staircase. + +“My father must be anxious,” said Minna. + +“No,” answered Seraphitus. + +As he spoke the couple reached the porch of the humble dwelling where +Monsieur Becker, the pastor of Jarvis, sat reading while awaiting his +daughter for the evening meal. + +“Dear Monsieur Becker,” said Seraphitus, “I have brought Minna back to +you safe and sound.” + +“Thank you, mademoiselle,” said the old man, laying his spectacles on +his book; “you must be very tired.” + +“Oh, no,” said Minna, and as she spoke she felt the soft breath of her +companion on her brow. + +“Dear heart, will you come day after to-morrow evening and take tea with +me?” + +“Gladly, dear.” + +“Monsieur Becker, you will bring her, will you not?” + +“Yes, mademoiselle.” + +Seraphitus inclined his head with a pretty gesture, and bowed to the old +pastor as he left the house. A few moments later he reached the great +courtyard of the Swedish villa. An old servant, over eighty years of +age, appeared in the portico bearing a lantern. Seraphitus slipped off +his snow-shoes with the graceful dexterity of a woman, then darting into +the salon he fell exhausted and motionless on a wide divan covered with +furs. + +“What will you take?” asked the old man, lighting the immensely tall +wax-candles that are used in Norway. + +“Nothing, David, I am too weary.” + +Seraphitus unfastened his pelisse lined with sable, threw it over him, +and fell asleep. The old servant stood for several minutes gazing with +loving eyes at the singular being before him, whose sex it would have +been difficult for any one at that moment to determine. Wrapped as he +was in a formless garment, which resembled equally a woman’s robe and a +man’s mantle, it was impossible not to fancy that the slender feet +which hung at the side of the couch were those of a woman, and equally +impossible not to note how the forehead and the outlines of the head +gave evidence of power brought to its highest pitch. + +“She suffers, and she will not tell me,” thought the old man. “She is +dying, like a flower wilted by the burning sun.” + +And the old man wept. + + + + +CHAPTER II. SERAPHITA + + +Later in the evening David re-entered the salon. + +“I know who it is you have come to announce,” said Seraphita in a sleepy +voice. “Wilfrid may enter.” + +Hearing these words a man suddenly presented himself, crossed the room +and sat down beside her. + +“My dear Seraphita, are you ill?” he said. “You look paler than usual.” + +She turned slowly towards him, tossing back her hair like a pretty woman +whose aching head leaves her no strength even for complaint. + +“I was foolish enough to cross the fiord with Minna,” she said. “We +ascended the Falberg.” + +“Do you mean to kill yourself?” he said with a lover’s terror. + +“No, my good Wilfrid; I took the greatest care of your Minna.” + +Wilfrid struck his hand violently on a table, rose hastily, and made +several steps towards the door with an exclamation full of pain; then he +returned and seemed about to remonstrate. + +“Why this disturbance if you think me ill?” she said. + +“Forgive me, have mercy!” he cried, kneeling beside her. “Speak to me +harshly if you will; exact all that the cruel fancies of a woman lead +you to imagine I least can bear; but oh, my beloved, do not doubt my +love. You take Minna like an axe to hew me down. Have mercy!” + +“Why do you say these things, my friend, when you know that they are +useless?” she replied, with a look which grew in the end so soft that +Wilfrid ceased to behold her eyes, but saw in their place a fluid light, +the shimmer of which was like the last vibrations of an Italian song. + +“Ah! no man dies of anguish!” he murmured. + +“You are suffering?” she said in a voice whose intonations produced upon +his heart the same effect as that of her look. “Would I could help you!” + +“Love me as I love you.” + +“Poor Minna!” she replied. + +“Why am I unarmed!” exclaimed Wilfrid, violently. + +“You are out of temper,” said Seraphita, smiling. “Come, have I not +spoken to you like those Parisian women whose loves you tell of?” + +Wilfrid sat down, crossed his arms, and looked gloomily at Seraphita. “I +forgive you,” he said; “for you know not what you do.” + +“You mistake,” she replied; “every woman from the days of Eve does good +and evil knowingly.” + +“I believe it,” he said. + +“I am sure of it, Wilfrid. Our instinct is precisely that which makes us +perfect. What you men learn, we feel.” + +“Why, then, do you not feel how much I love you?” + +“Because you do not love me.” + +“Good God!” + +“If you did, would you complain of your own sufferings?” + +“You are terrible to-night, Seraphita. You are a demon.” + +“No, but I am gifted with the faculty of comprehending, and it is awful. +Wilfrid, sorrow is a lamp which illumines life.” + +“Why did you ascend the Falberg?” + +“Minna will tell you. I am too weary to talk. You must talk to me,--you +who know so much, who have learned all things and forgotten nothing; you +who have passed through every social test. Talk to me, amuse me, I am +listening.” + +“What can I tell you that you do not know? Besides, the request is +ironical. You allow yourself no intercourse with social life; you +trample on its conventions, its laws, its customs, sentiments, and +sciences; you reduce them all to the proportions such things take when +viewed by you beyond this universe.” + +“Therefore you see, my friend, that I am not a woman. You do wrong +to love me. What! am I to leave the ethereal regions of my pretended +strength, make myself humbly small, cringe like the hapless female of +all species, that you may lift me up? and then, when I, helpless and +broken, ask you for help, when I need your arm, you will repulse me! No, +we can never come to terms.” + +“You are more maliciously unkind to-night than I have ever known you.” + +“Unkind!” she said, with a look which seemed to blend all feelings into +one celestial emotion, “no, I am ill, I suffer, that is all. Leave me, +my friend; it is your manly right. We women should ever please you, +entertain you, be gay in your presence and have no whims save those that +amuse you. Come, what shall I do for you, friend? Shall I sing, shall I +dance, though weariness deprives me of the use of voice and limbs?--Ah! +gentlemen, be we on our deathbeds, we yet must smile to please you; you +call that, methinks, your right. Poor women! I pity them. Tell me, you +who abandon them when they grow old, is it because they have neither +hearts nor souls? Wilfrid, I am a hundred years old; leave me! leave me! +go to Minna!” + +“Oh, my eternal love!” + +“Do you know the meaning of eternity? Be silent, Wilfrid. You desire +me, but you do not love me. Tell me, do I not seem to you like those +coquettish Parisian women?” + +“Certainly I no longer find you the pure celestial maiden I first saw in +the church of Jarvis.” + +At these words Seraphita passed her hands across her brow, and when +she removed them Wilfrid was amazed at the saintly expression that +overspread her face. + +“You are right, my friend,” she said; “I do wrong whenever I set my feet +upon your earth.” + +“Oh, Seraphita, be my star! stay where you can ever bless me with that +clear light!” + +As he spoke, he stretched forth his hand to take that of the young girl, +but she withdrew it, neither disdainfully nor in anger. Wilfrid rose +abruptly and walked to the window that she might not see the tears that +rose to his eyes. + +“Why do you weep?” she said. “You are not a child, Wilfrid. Come back to +me. I wish it. You are annoyed if I show just displeasure. You see that +I am fatigued and ill, yet you force me to think and speak, and listen +to persuasions and ideas that weary me. If you had any real perception +of my nature, you would have made some music, you would have lulled my +feelings--but no, you love me for yourself and not for myself.” + +The storm which convulsed the young man’s heart calmed down at these +words. He slowly approached her, letting his eyes take in the seductive +creature who lay exhausted before him, her head resting in her hand and +her elbow on the couch. + +“You think that I do not love you,” she resumed. “You are mistaken. +Listen to me, Wilfrid. You are beginning to know much; you have suffered +much. Let me explain your thoughts to you. You wished to take my hand +just now”; she rose to a sitting posture, and her graceful motions +seemed to emit light. “When a young girl allows her hand to be taken it +is as though she made a promise, is it not? and ought she not to fulfil +it? You well know that I cannot be yours. Two sentiments divide and +inspire the love of all the women of the earth. Either they devote +themselves to suffering, degraded, and criminal beings whom they desire +to console, uplift, redeem; or they give themselves to superior men, +sublime and strong, whom they adore and seek to comprehend, and by whom +they are often annihilated. You have been degraded, though now you are +purified by the fires of repentance, and to-day you are once more noble; +but I know myself too feeble to be your equal, and too religious to bow +before any power but that On High. I may refer thus to your life, my +friend, for we are in the North, among the clouds, where all things are +abstractions.” + +“You stab me, Seraphita, when you speak like this. It wounds me to hear +you apply the dreadful knowledge with which you strip from all things +human the properties that time and space and form have given them, +and consider them mathematically in the abstract, as geometry treats +substances from which it extracts solidity.” + +“Well, I will respect your wishes, Wilfrid. Let the subject drop. Tell +me what you think of this bearskin rug which my poor David has spread +out.” + +“It is very handsome.” + +“Did you ever see me wear this ‘doucha greka’?” + +She pointed to a pelisse made of cashmere and lined with the skin of the +black fox,--the name she gave it signifying “warm to the soul.” + +“Do you believe that any sovereign has a fur that can equal it?” she +asked. + +“It is worthy of her who wears it.” + +“And whom you think beautiful?” + +“Human words do not apply to her. Heart to heart is the only language I +can use.” + +“Wilfrid, you are kind to soothe my griefs with such sweet words--which +you have said to others.” + +“Farewell!” + +“Stay. I love both you and Minna, believe me. To me you two are as one +being. United thus you can be my brother or, if you will, my sister. +Marry her; let me see you both happy before I leave this world of trial +and of pain. My God! the simplest of women obtain what they ask of a +lover; they whisper ‘Hush!’ and he is silent; ‘Die’ and he dies; ‘Love +me afar’ and he stays at a distance, like courtiers before a king! All +I desire is to see you happy, and you refuse me! Am I then +powerless?--Wilfrid, listen, come nearer to me. Yes, I should grieve to +see you marry Minna but--when I am here no longer, then--promise me to +marry her; heaven destined you for each other.” + +“I listen to you with fascination, Seraphita. Your words are +incomprehensible, but they charm me. What is it you mean to say?” + +“You are right; I forget to be foolish,--to be the poor creature whose +weaknesses gratify you. I torment you, Wilfrid. You came to these +Northern lands for rest, you, worn-out by the impetuous struggle of +genius unrecognized, you, weary with the patient toils of science, you, +who well-nigh dyed your hands in crime and wore the fetters of human +justice--” + +Wilfrid dropped speechless on the carpet. Seraphita breathed softly on +his forehead, and in a moment he fell asleep at her feet. + +“Sleep! rest!” she said, rising. + +She passed her hands over Wilfrid’s brow; then the following sentences +escaped her lips, one by one,--all different in tone and accent, but all +melodious, full of a Goodness that seemed to emanate from her head in +vaporous waves, like the gleams the goddess chastely lays upon Endymion +sleeping. + +“I cannot show myself such as I am to thee, dear Wilfrid,--to thee who +art strong. + +“The hour is come; the hour when the effulgent lights of the future cast +their reflections backward on the soul; the hour when the soul awakes +into freedom. + +“Now am I permitted to tell thee how I love thee. Dost thou not see the +nature of my love, a love without self-interest; a sentiment full of +thee, thee only; a love which follows thee into the future to light that +future for thee--for it is the one True Light. Canst thou now conceive +with what ardor I would have thee leave this life which weighs thee +down, and behold thee nearer than thou art to that world where Love is +never-failing? Can it be aught but suffering to love for one life only? +Hast thou not felt a thirst for the eternal love? Dost thou not feel the +bliss to which a creature rises when, with twin-soul, it loves the Being +who betrays not love, Him before whom we kneel in adoration? + +“Would I had wings to cover thee, Wilfrid; power to give thee strength +to enter now into that world where all the purest joys of purest earthly +attachments are but shadows in the Light that shines, unceasing, to +illumine and rejoice all hearts. + +“Forgive a friendly soul for showing thee the picture of thy sins, in +the charitable hope of soothing the sharp pangs of thy remorse. Listen +to the pardoning choir; refresh thy soul in the dawn now rising for thee +beyond the night of death. Yes, thy life, thy true life is there! + +“May my words now reach thee clothed in the glorious forms of dreams; +may they deck themselves with images glowing and radiant as they hover +round you. Rise, rise, to the height where men can see themselves +distinctly, pressed together though they be like grains of sand upon +a sea-shore. Humanity rolls out like a many-colored ribbon. See the +diverse shades of that flower of the celestial gardens. Behold the +beings who lack intelligence, those who begin to receive it, those who +have passed through trials, those who love, those who follow wisdom and +aspire to the regions of Light! + +“Canst thou comprehend, through this thought made visible, the destiny +of humanity?--whence it came, whither to goeth? Continue steadfast in +the Path. Reaching the end of thy journey thou shalt hear the clarions +of omnipotence sounding the cries of victory in chords of which a single +one would shake the earth, but which are lost in the spaces of a world +that hath neither east nor west. + +“Canst thou comprehend, my poor beloved Tried-one, that unless the +torpor and the veils of sleep had wrapped thee, such sights would rend +and bear away thy mind as the whirlwinds rend and carry into space the +feeble sails, depriving thee forever of thy reason? Dost thou understand +that the Soul itself, raised to its utmost power can scarcely endure in +dreams the burning communications of the Spirit? + +“Speed thy way through the luminous spheres; behold, admire, hasten! +Flying thus thou canst pause or advance without weariness. Like other +men, thou wouldst fain be plunged forever in these spheres of light and +perfume where now thou art, free of thy swooning body, and where thy +thought alone has utterance. Fly! enjoy for a fleeting moment the wings +thou shalt surely win when Love has grown so perfect in thee that thou +hast no senses left; when thy whole being is all mind, all love. The +higher thy flight the less canst thou see the abysses. There are none in +heaven. Look at the friend who speaks to thee; she who holds thee above +this earth in which are all abysses. Look, behold, contemplate me yet a +moment longer, for never again wilt thou see me, save imperfectly as the +pale twilight of this world may show me to thee.” + +Seraphita stood erect, her head with floating hair inclining gently +forward, in that aerial attitude which great painters give to messengers +from heaven; the folds of her raiment fell with the same unspeakable +grace which holds an artist--the man who translates all things into +sentiment--before the exquisite well-known lines of Polyhymnia’s veil. +Then she stretched forth her hand. Wilfrid rose. When he looked at +Seraphita she was lying on the bear’s-skin, her head resting on her +hand, her face calm, her eyes brilliant. Wilfrid gazed at her silently; +but his face betrayed a deferential fear in its almost timid expression. + +“Yes, dear,” he said at last, as though he were answering some question; +“we are separated by worlds. I resign myself; I can only adore you. But +what will become of me, poor and alone!” + +“Wilfrid, you have Minna.” + +He shook his head. + +“Do not be so disdainful; woman understands all things through love; +what she does not understand she feels; what she does not feel she sees; +when she neither sees, nor feels, nor understands, this angel of earth +divines to protect you, and hides her protection beneath the grace of +love.” + +“Seraphita, am I worthy to belong to a woman?” + +“Ah, now,” she said, smiling, “you are suddenly very modest; is it a +snare? A woman is always so touched to see her weakness glorified. Well, +come and take tea with me the day after to-morrow evening; good Monsieur +Becker will be here, and Minna, the purest and most artless creature +I have known on earth. Leave me now, my friend; I need to make long +prayers and expiate my sins.” + +“You, can you commit sin?” + +“Poor friend! if we abuse our power, is not that the sin of pride? I +have been very proud to-day. Now leave me, till to-morrow.” + +“Till to-morrow,” said Wilfrid faintly, casting a long glance at the +being of whom he desired to carry with him an ineffaceable memory. + +Though he wished to go far away, he was held, as it were, outside the +house for some moments, watching the light which shone from all the +windows of the Swedish dwelling. + +“What is the matter with me?” he asked himself. “No, she is not a mere +creature, but a whole creation. Of her world, even through veils and +clouds, I have caught echoes like the memory of sufferings healed, +like the dazzling vertigo of dreams in which we hear the plaints of +generations mingling with the harmonies of some higher sphere where all +is Light and all is Love. Am I awake? Do I still sleep? Are these the +eyes before which the luminous space retreated further and further +indefinitely while the eyes followed it? The night is cold, yet my head +is on fire. I will go to the parsonage. With the pastor and his daughter +I shall recover the balance of my mind.” + +But still he did not leave the spot whence his eyes could plunge into +Seraphita’s salon. The mysterious creature seemed to him the radiating +centre of a luminous circle which formed an atmosphere about her wider +than that of other beings; whoever entered it felt the compelling +influence of, as it were, a vortex of dazzling light and all consuming +thoughts. Forced to struggle against this inexplicable power, Wilfrid +only prevailed after strong efforts; but when he reached and passed the +inclosing wall of the courtyard, he regained his freedom of will, walked +rapidly towards the parsonage, and was soon beneath the high wooden +arch which formed a sort of peristyle to Monsieur Becker’s dwelling. He +opened the first door, against which the wind had driven the snow, and +knocked on the inner one, saying:-- + +“Will you let me spend the evening with you, Monsieur Becker?” + +“Yes,” cried two voices, mingling their intonations. + +Entering the parlor, Wilfrid returned by degrees to real life. He bowed +affectionately to Minna, shook hands with Monsieur Becker, and looked +about at the picture of a home which calmed the convulsions of his +physical nature, in which a phenomenon was taking place analogous to +that which sometimes seizes upon men who have given themselves up +to protracted contemplations. If some strong thought bears upward on +phantasmal wing a man of learning or a poet, isolates him from the +external circumstances which environ him here below, and leads him +forward through illimitable regions where vast arrays of facts become +abstractions, where the greatest works of Nature are but images, then +woe betide him if a sudden noise strikes sharply on his senses and calls +his errant soul back to its prison-house of flesh and bones. The +shock of the reunion of these two powers, body and mind,--one of which +partakes of the unseen qualities of a thunderbolt, while the other +shares with sentient nature that soft resistant force which deifies +destruction,--this shock, this struggle, or, rather let us say, this +painful meeting and co-mingling, gives rise to frightful sufferings. The +body receives back the flame that consumes it; the flame has once more +grasped its prey. This fusion, however, does not take place without +convulsions, explosions, tortures; analogous and visible signs of which +may be seen in chemistry, when two antagonistic substances which science +has united separate. + +For the last few days whenever Wilfrid entered Seraphita’s presence his +body seemed to fall away from him into nothingness. With a single +glance this strange being led him in spirit through the spheres where +meditation leads the learned man, prayer the pious heart, where vision +transports the artist, and sleep the souls of men,--each and all have +their own path to the Height, their own guide to reach it, their own +individual sufferings in the dire return. In that sphere alone all veils +are rent away, and the revelation, the awful flaming certainty of an +unknown world, of which the soul brings back mere fragments to this +lower sphere, stands revealed. To Wilfrid one hour passed with Seraphita +was like the sought-for dreams of Theriakis, in which each knot of +nerves becomes the centre of a radiating delight. But he left her +bruised and wearied as some young girl endeavoring to keep step with a +giant. + +The cold air, with its stinging flagellations, had begun to still +the nervous tremors which followed the reunion of his two natures, so +powerfully disunited for a time; he was drawn towards the parsonage, +then towards Minna, by the sight of the every-day home life for which +he thirsted as the wandering European thirsts for his native land when +nostalgia seizes him amid the fairy scenes of Orient that have seduced +his senses. More weary than he had ever yet been, Wilfrid dropped into +a chair and looked about him for a time, like a man who awakens from +sleep. Monsieur Becker and his daughter accustomed, perhaps, to the +apparent eccentricity of their guest, continued the employments in which +they were engaged. + +The parlor was ornamented with a collection of the shells and insects +of Norway. These curiosities, admirably arranged on a background of the +yellow pine which panelled the room, formed, as it were, a rich tapestry +to which the fumes of tobacco had imparted a mellow tone. At the further +end of the room, opposite to the door, was an immense wrought-iron +stove, carefully polished by the serving-woman till it shone like +burnished steel. Seated in a large tapestried armchair near the stove, +before a table, with his feet in a species of muff, Monsieur Becker was +reading a folio volume which was propped against a pile of other books +as on a desk. At his left stood a jug of beer and a glass, at his right +burned a smoky lamp fed by some species of fish-oil. The pastor seemed +about sixty years of age. His face belonged to a type often painted by +Rembrandt; the same small bright eyes, set in wrinkles and surmounted by +thick gray eyebrows; the same white hair escaping in snowy flakes from a +black velvet cap; the same broad, bald brow, and a contour of face +which the ample chin made almost square; and lastly, the same calm +tranquillity, which, to an observer, denoted the possession of some +inward power, be it the supremacy bestowed by money, or the magisterial +influence of the burgomaster, or the consciousness of art, or the +cubic force of blissful ignorance. This fine old man, whose stout body +proclaimed his vigorous health, was wrapped in a dressing-gown of rough +gray cloth plainly bound. Between his lips was a meerschaum pipe, +from which, at regular intervals, he blew the smoke, following with +abstracted vision its fantastic wreathings,--his mind employed, no +doubt, in assimilating through some meditative process the thoughts of +the author whose works he was studying. + +On the other side of the stove and near a door which communicated with +the kitchen Minna was indistinctly visible in the haze of the good man’s +smoke, to which she was apparently accustomed. Beside her on a little +table were the implements of household work, a pile of napkins, and +another of socks waiting to be mended, also a lamp like that which shone +on the white page of the book in which the pastor was absorbed. Her +fresh young face, with its delicate outline, expressed an infinite +purity which harmonized with the candor of the white brow and the clear +blue eyes. She sat erect, turning slightly toward the lamp for better +light, unconsciously showing as she did so the beauty of her waist and +bust. She was already dressed for the night in a long robe of white +cotton; a cambric cap, without other ornament than a frill of the same, +confined her hair. Though evidently plunged in some inward meditation, +she counted without a mistake the threads of her napkins or the meshes +of her socks. Sitting thus, she presented the most complete image, the +truest type, of the woman destined for terrestrial labor, whose glance +may piece the clouds of the sanctuary while her thought, humble and +charitable, keeps her ever on the level of man. + +Wilfrid had flung himself into a chair between the two tables and +was contemplating with a species of intoxication this picture full of +harmony, to which the clouds of smoke did no despite. The single window +which lighted the parlor during the fine weather was now carefully +closed. An old tapestry, used for a curtain and fastened to a stick, +hung before it in heavy folds. Nothing in the room was picturesque, +nothing brilliant; everything denoted rigorous simplicity, true +heartiness, the ease of unconventional nature, and the habits of a +domestic life which knew neither cares nor troubles. Many a dwelling is +like a dream, the sparkle of passing pleasure seems to hide some ruin +beneath the cold smile of luxury; but this parlor, sublime in reality, +harmonious in tone, diffused the patriarchal ideas of a full and +self-contained existence. The silence was unbroken save by the movements +of the servant in the kitchen engaged in preparing the supper, and +by the sizzling of the dried fish which she was frying in salt butter +according to the custom of the country. + +“Will you smoke a pipe?” said the pastor, seizing a moment when he +thought that Wilfrid might listen to him. + +“Thank you, no, dear Monsieur Becker,” replied the visitor. + +“You seem to suffer more to-day than usual,” said Minna, struck by the +feeble tones of the stranger’s voice. + +“I am always so when I leave the chateau.” + +Minna quivered. + +“A strange being lives there, Monsieur Becker,” he continued after a +pause. “For the six months that I have been in this village I have never +yet dared to question you about her, and even now I do violence to +my feelings in speaking of her. I began by keenly regretting that my +journey in this country was arrested by the winter weather and that I +was forced to remain here. But during the last two months chains have +been forged and riveted which bind me irrevocably to Jarvis, till now +I fear to end my days here. You know how I first met Seraphita, what +impression her look and voice made upon me, and how at last I was +admitted to her home where she receives no one. From the very first day +I have longed to ask you the history of this mysterious being. On that +day began, for me, a series of enchantments.” + +“Enchantments!” cried the pastor shaking the ashes of his pipe into an +earthen-ware dish full of sand, “are there enchantments in these days?” + +“You, who are carefully studying at this moment that volume of the +‘Incantations’ of Jean Wier, will surely understand the explanation of +my sensations if I try to give it to you,” replied Wilfrid. “If we study +Nature attentively in its great evolutions as in its minutest works, we +cannot fail to recognize the possibility of enchantment--giving to that +word its exact significance. Man does not create forces; he employs the +only force that exists and which includes all others namely Motion, the +breath incomprehensible of the sovereign Maker of the universe. Species +are too distinctly separated for the human hand to mingle them. The only +miracle of which man is capable is done through the conjunction of +two antagonistic substances. Gunpowder for instance is germane to a +thunderbolt. As to calling forth a creation, and a sudden one, all +creation demands time, and time neither recedes nor advances at the word +of command. So, in the world without us, plastic nature obeys laws the +order and exercise of which cannot be interfered with by the hand of +man. But after fulfilling, as it were, the function of Matter, it would +be unreasonable not to recognize within us the existence of a gigantic +power, the effects of which are so incommensurable that the known +generations of men have never yet been able to classify them. I do not +speak of man’s faculty of abstraction, of constraining Nature to +confine itself within the Word,--a gigantic act on which the common +mind reflects as little as it does on the nature of Motion, but which, +nevertheless, has led the Indian theosophists to explain creation by +a word to which they give an inverse power. The smallest atom of their +subsistence, namely, the grain of rice, from which a creation issues and +in which alternately creation again is held, presented to their minds so +perfect an image of the creative word, and of the abstractive word, that +to them it was easy to apply the same system to the creation of worlds. +The majority of men content themselves with the grain of rice sown in +the first chapter of all the Geneses. Saint John, when he said the +Word was God only complicated the difficulty. But the fructification, +germination, and efflorescence of our ideas is of little consequence if +we compare that property, shared by many men, with the wholly +individual faculty of communicating to that property, by some mysterious +concentration, forces that are more or less active, of carrying it up +to a third, a ninth, or a twenty-seventh power, of making it thus fasten +upon the masses and obtain magical results by condensing the processes +of nature. + +“What I mean by enchantments,” continued Wilfrid after a moment’s pause, +“are those stupendous actions taking place between two membranes in the +tissue of the brain. We find in the unexplorable nature of the Spiritual +World certain beings armed with these wondrous faculties, comparable +only to the terrible power of certain gases in the physical world, +beings who combine with other beings, penetrate them as active agents, +and produce upon them witchcrafts, charms, against which these helpless +slaves are wholly defenceless; they are, in fact, enchanted, brought +under subjection, reduced to a condition of dreadful vassalage. Such +mysterious beings overpower others with the sceptre and the glory of +a superior nature,--acting upon them at times like the torpedo which +electrifies or paralyzes the fisherman, at other times like a dose of +phosphorous which stimulates life and accelerates its propulsion; or +again, like opium, which puts to sleep corporeal nature, disengages the +spirit from every bond, enables it to float above the world and shows +this earth to the spiritual eye as through a prism, extracting from it +the food most needed; or, yet again, like catalepsy, which deadens +all faculties for the sake of one only vision. Miracles, enchantments, +incantations, witchcrafts, spells, and charms, in short, all those +acts improperly termed supernatural, are only possible and can only be +explained by the despotism with which some spirit compels us to feel the +effects of a mysterious optic which increases, or diminishes, or exalts +creation, moves within us as it pleases, deforms or embellishes all +things to our eyes, tears us from heaven, or drags us to hell,--two +terms by which men agree to express the two extremes of joy and misery. + +“These phenomena are within us, not without us,” Wilfrid went on. “The +being whom we call Seraphita seems to me one of those rare and terrible +spirits to whom power is given to bind men, to crush nature, to enter +into participation of the occult power of God. The course of her +enchantments over me began on that first day, when silence as to her +was imposed upon me against my will. Each time that I have wished to +question you it seemed as though I were about to reveal a secret of +which I ought to be the incorruptible guardian. Whenever I have tried +to speak, a burning seal has been laid upon my lips, and I myself have +become the involuntary minister of these mysteries. You see me here +to-night, for the hundredth time, bruised, defeated, broken, after +leaving the hallucinating sphere which surrounds that young girl, so +gentle, so fragile to both of you, but to me the cruellest of magicians! +Yes, to me she is like a sorcerer holding in her right hand the +invisible wand that moves the globe, and in her left the thunderbolt +that rends asunder all things at her will. No longer can I look upon her +brow; the light of it is insupportable. I skirt the borders of the abyss +of madness too closely to be longer silent. I must speak. I seize this +moment, when courage comes to me, to resist the power which drags me +onward without inquiring whether or not I have the force to follow. Who +is she? Did you know her young? What of her birth? Had she father and +mother, or was she born of the conjunction of ice and sun? She burns and +yet she freeze; she shows herself and then withdraws; she attracts me +and repulses me; she brings me life, she gives me death; I love her and +yet I hate her! I cannot live thus; let me be wholly in heaven or in +hell!” + +Holding his refilled pipe in one hand, and in the other the cover +which he forgot to replace, Monsieur Becker listened to Wilfrid with a +mysterious expression on his face, looking occasionally at his daughter, +who seemed to understand the man’s language as in harmony with the +strange being who inspired it. Wilfrid was splendid to behold at this +moment,--like Hamlet listening to the ghost of his father as it rises +for him alone in the midst of the living. + +“This is certainly the language of a man in love,” said the good pastor, +innocently. + +“In love!” cried Wilfrid, “yes, to common minds. But, dear Monsieur +Becker, no words can express the frenzy which draws me to the feet of +that unearthly being.” + +“Then you do love her?” said Minna, in a tone of reproach. + +“Mademoiselle, I feel such extraordinary agitation when I see her, and +such deep sadness when I see her no more, that in any other man what I +feel would be called love. But that sentiment draws those who feel it +ardently together, whereas between her and me a great gulf lies, whose +icy coldness penetrates my very being in her presence; though the +feeling dies away when I see her no longer. I leave her in despair; I +return to her with ardor,--like men of science who seek a secret from +Nature only to be baffled, or like the painter who would fain put life +upon his canvas and strives with all the resources of his art in the +vain attempt.” + +“Monsieur, all that you say is true,” replied the young girl, artlessly. + +“How can you know, Minna?” asked the old pastor. + +“Ah! my father, had you been with us this morning on the summit of the +Falberg, had you seen him praying, you would not ask me that question. +You would say, like Monsieur Wilfrid, that he saw his Seraphita for the +first time in our temple, ‘It is the Spirit of Prayer.’” + +These words were followed by a moment’s silence. + +“Ah, truly!” said Wilfrid, “she has nothing in common with the creatures +who grovel upon this earth.” + +“On the Falberg!” said the old pastor, “how could you get there?” + +“I do not know,” replied Minna; “the way is like a dream to me, of which +no more than a memory remains. Perhaps I should hardly believe that I +had been there were it not for this tangible proof.” + +She drew the flower from her bosom and showed it to them. All three +gazed at the pretty saxifrage, which was still fresh, and now shone in +the light of the two lamps like a third luminary. + +“This is indeed supernatural,” said the old man, astounded at the sight +of a flower blooming in winter. + +“A mystery!” cried Wilfrid, intoxicated with its perfume. + +“The flower makes me giddy,” said Minna; “I fancy I still hear that +voice,--the music of thought; that I still see the light of that look, +which is Love.” + +“I implore you, my dear Monsieur Becker, tell me the history of +Seraphita,--enigmatical human flower,--whose image is before us in this +mysterious bloom.” + +“My dear friend,” said the old man, emitting a puff of smoke, “to +explain the birth of that being it is absolutely necessary that +I disperse the clouds which envelop the most obscure of Christian +doctrines. It is not easy to make myself clear when speaking of that +incomprehensible revelation,--the last effulgence of faith that has +shone upon our lump of mud. Do you know Swedenborg?” + +“By name only,--of him, of his books, and his religion I know nothing.” + +“Then I must relate to you the whole chronicle of Swedenborg.” + + + + +CHAPTER III. SERAPHITA-SERAPHITUS + + +After a pause, during which the pastor seemed to be gathering his +recollections, he continued in the following words:-- + +“Emanuel Swedenborg was born at Upsala in Sweden, in the month of +January, 1688, according to various authors,--in 1689, according to his +epitaph. His father was Bishop of Skara. Swedenborg lived eighty-five +years; his death occurred in London, March 29, 1772. I use that term to +convey the idea of a simple change of state. According to his disciples, +Swedenborg was seen at Jarvis and in Paris after that date. Allow me, +my dear Monsieur Wilfrid,” said Monsieur Becker, making a gesture to +prevent all interruption, “I relate these facts without either affirming +or denying them. Listen; afterwards you can think and say what you like. +I will inform you when I judge, criticise, and discuss these doctrines, +so as to keep clearly in view my own intellectual neutrality between HIM +and Reason. + +“The life of Swedenborg was divided into two parts,” continued the +pastor. “From 1688 to 1745 Baron Emanuel Swedenborg appeared in the +world as a man of vast learning, esteemed and cherished for his virtues, +always irreproachable and constantly useful. While fulfilling high +public functions in Sweden, he published, between 1709 and 1740, several +important works on mineralogy, physics, mathematics, and astronomy, +which enlightened the world of learning. He originated a method of +building docks suitable for the reception of large vessels, and he +wrote many treatises on various important questions, such as the rise +of tides, the theory of the magnet and its qualities, the motion and +position of the earth and planets, and while Assessor in the Royal +College of Mines, on the proper system of working salt mines. He +discovered means to construct canal-locks or sluices; and he also +discovered and applied the simplest methods of extracting ore and of +working metals. In fact he studied no science without advancing it. In +youth he learned Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, also the oriental languages, +with which he became so familiar that many distinguished scholars +consulted him, and he was able to decipher the vestiges of the oldest +known books of Scripture, namely: ‘The Wars of Jehovah’ and ‘The +Enunciations,’ spoken of by Moses (Numbers xxi. 14, 15, 27-30), also +by Joshua, Jeremiah, and Samuel,--‘The Wars of Jehovah’ being the +historical part and ‘The Enunciations’ the prophetical part of the +Mosaical Books anterior to Genesis. Swedenborg even affirms that ‘the +Book of Jasher,’ the Book of the Righteous, mentioned by Joshua, was +in existence in Eastern Tartary, together with the doctrine of +Correspondences. A Frenchman has lately, so they tell me, justified +these statements of Swedenborg, by the discovery at Bagdad of several +portions of the Bible hitherto unknown to Europe. During the widespread +discussion on animal magnetism which took its rise in Paris, and in +which most men of Western science took an active part about the year +1785, Monsieur le Marquis de Thome vindicated the memory of Swedenborg +by calling attention to certain assertions made by the Commission +appointed by the King of France to investigate the subject. These +gentlemen declared that no theory of magnetism existed, whereas +Swedenborg had studied and promulgated it ever since the year 1720. +Monsieur de Thome seizes this opportunity to show the reason why so many +men of science relegated Swedenborg to oblivion while they delved into +his treasure-house and took his facts to aid their work. ‘Some of the +most illustrious of these men,’ said Monsieur de Thome, alluding to +the ‘Theory of the Earth’ by Buffon, ‘have had the meanness to wear the +plumage of the noble bird and refuse him all acknowledgment’; and he +proved, by masterly quotations drawn from the encyclopaedic works of +Swedenborg, that the great prophet had anticipated by over a century the +slow march of human science. It suffices to read his philosophical and +mineralogical works to be convinced of this. In one passage he is +seen as the precursor of modern chemistry by the announcement that the +productions of organized nature are decomposable and resolve into two +simple principles; also that water, air, and fire are _not elements_. In +another, he goes in a few words to the heart of magnetic mysteries and +deprives Mesmer of the honors of a first knowledge of them. + +“There,” said Monsieur Becker, pointing to a long shelf against the +wall between the stove and the window on which were ranged books of all +sizes, “behold him! here are seventeen works from his pen, of which one, +his ‘Philosophical and Mineralogical Works,’ published in 1734, is in +three folio volumes. These productions, which prove the incontestable +knowledge of Swedenborg, were given to me by Monsieur Seraphitus, his +cousin and the father of Seraphita. + +“In 1740,” continued Monsieur Becker, after a slight pause, “Swedenborg +fell into a state of absolute silence, from which he emerged to bid +farewell to all his earthly occupations; after which his thoughts turned +exclusively to the Spiritual Life. He received the first commands of +heaven in 1745, and he thus relates the nature of the vocation to +which he was called: One evening, in London, after dining with a great +appetite, a thick white mist seemed to fill his room. When the +vapor dispersed a creature in human form rose from one corner of the +apartment, and said in a stern tone, ‘Do not eat so much.’ He refrained. +The next night the same man returned, radiant in light, and said to him, +‘I am sent of God, who has chosen you to explain to men the meaning of +his Word and his Creation. I will tell you what to write.’ The vision +lasted but a few moments. The _angel_ was clothed in purple. During that +night the eyes of his _inner man_ were opened, and he was forced to +look into the heavens, into the world of spirits, and into hell,--three +separate spheres; where he encountered persons of his acquaintance who +had departed from their human form, some long since, others lately. +Thenceforth Swedenborg lived wholly in the spiritual life, remaining in +this world only as the messenger of God. His mission was ridiculed by +the incredulous, but his conduct was plainly that of a being superior +to humanity. In the first place, though limited in means to the bare +necessaries of life, he gave away enormous sums, and publicly, in +several cities, restored the fortunes of great commercial houses +when they were on the brink of failure. No one ever appealed to his +generosity who was not immediately satisfied. A sceptical Englishman, +determined to know the truth, followed him to Paris, and relates that +there his doors stood always open. One day a servant complained of this +apparent negligence, which laid him open to suspicion of thefts +that might be committed by others. ‘He need feel no anxiety,’ said +Swedenborg, smiling. ‘But I do not wonder at his fear; he cannot see the +guardian who protects my door.’ In fact, no matter in what country he +made his abode he never closed his doors, and nothing was ever +stolen from him. At Gottenburg--a town situated some sixty miles from +Stockholm--he announced, eight days before the news arrived by courier, +the conflagration which ravaged Stockholm, and the exact time at which +it took place. The Queen of Sweden wrote to her brother, the King, at +Berlin, that one of her ladies-in-waiting, who was ordered by the courts +to pay a sum of money which she was certain her husband had paid before +his death, went to Swedenborg and begged him to ask her husband where +she could find proof of the payment. The following day Swedenborg, +having done as the lady requested, pointed out the place where the +receipt would be found. He also begged the deceased to appear to +his wife, and the latter saw her husband in a dream, wrapped in a +dressing-gown which he wore just before his death; and he showed her the +paper in the place indicated by Swedenborg, where it had been securely +put away. At another time, embarking from London in a vessel commanded +by Captain Dixon, he overheard a lady asking if there were plenty of +provisions on board. ‘We do not want a great quantity,’ he said; ‘in +eight days and two hours we shall reach Stockholm,’--which actually +happened. This peculiar state of vision as to the things of the +earth--into which Swedenborg could put himself at will, and +which astonished those about him--was, nevertheless, but a feeble +representative of his faculty of looking into heaven. + +“Not the least remarkable of his published visions is that in which he +relates his journeys through the Astral Regions; his descriptions +cannot fail to astonish the reader, partly through the crudity of their +details. A man whose scientific eminence is incontestable, and who +united in his own person powers of conception, will, and imagination, +would surely have invented better if he had invented at all. The +fantastic literature of the East offers nothing that can give an idea +of this astounding work, full of the essence of poetry, if it is +permissible to compare a work of faith with one of oriental fancy. The +transportation of Swedenborg by the Angel who served as guide to this +first journey is told with a sublimity which exceeds, by the distance +which God has placed betwixt the earth and the sun, the great epics of +Klopstock, Milton, Tasso, and Dante. This description, which serves in +fact as an introduction to his work on the Astral Regions, has never +been published; it is among the oral traditions left by Swedenborg to +the three disciples who were nearest to his heart. Monsieur Silverichm +has written them down. Monsieur Seraphitus endeavored more than once to +talk to me about them; but the recollection of his cousin’s words was so +burning a memory that he always stopped short at the first sentence and +became lost in a revery from which I could not rouse him.” + +The old pastor sighed as he continued: “The baron told me that the +argument by which the Angel proved to Swedenborg that these bodies are +not made to wander through space puts all human science out of sight +beneath the grandeur of a divine logic. According to the Seer, the +inhabitants of Jupiter will not cultivate the sciences, which they call +darkness; those of Mercury abhor the expression of ideas by speech, +which seems to them too material,--their language is ocular; those of +Saturn are continually tempted by evil spirits; those of the Moon are as +small as six-year-old children, their voices issue from the abdomen, on +which they crawl; those of Venus are gigantic in height, but stupid, and +live by robbery,--although a part of this latter planet is inhabited by +beings of great sweetness, who live in the love of Good. In short, he +describes the customs and morals of all the peoples attached to the +different globes, and explains the general meaning of their existence as +related to the universe in terms so precise, giving explanations which +agree so well with their visible evolutions in the system of the world, +that some day, perhaps, scientific men will come to drink of these +living waters. + +“Here,” said Monsieur Becker, taking down a book and opening it at a +mark, “here are the words with which he ended this work:-- + +“‘If any man doubts that I was transported through a vast number of +Astral Regions, let him recall my observation of the distances in that +other life, namely, that they exist only in relation to the external +state of man; now, being transformed within like unto the Angelic +Spirits of those Astral Spheres, I was able to understand them.’ + +“The circumstances to which we of this canton owe the presence among +us of Baron Seraphitus, the beloved cousin of Swedenborg, enabled me to +know all the events of the extraordinary life of that prophet. He has +lately been accused of imposture in certain quarters of Europe, and the +public prints reported the following fact based on a letter written +by the Chevalier Baylon. Swedenborg, they said, informed by certain +senators of a secret correspondence of the late Queen of Sweden with her +brother, the Prince of Prussia, revealed his knowledge of the secrets +contained in that correspondence to the Queen, making her believe he +had obtained this knowledge by supernatural means. A man worthy of all +confidence, Monsieur Charles-Leonhard de Stahlhammer, captain in +the Royal guard and knight of the Sword, answered the calumny with a +convincing letter.” + +The pastor opened a drawer of his table and looked through a number of +papers until he found a gazette which he held out to Wilfrid, asking him +to read aloud the following letter:-- + +Stockholm, May 18, 1788. + + I have read with amazement a letter which purports to relate the + interview of the famous Swedenborg with Queen Louisa-Ulrika. The + circumstances therein stated are wholly false; and I hope the + writer will excuse me for showing him by the following faithful + narration, which can be proved by the testimony of many + distinguished persons then present and still living, how + completely he has been deceived. + + In 1758, shortly after the death of the Prince of Prussia + Swedenborg came to court, where he was in the habit of attending + regularly. He had scarcely entered the queen’s presence before she + said to him: “Well, Mr. Assessor, have you seen my brother?” + Swedenborg answered no, and the queen rejoined: “If you do see + him, greet him for me.” In saying this she meant no more than a + pleasant jest, and had no thought whatever of asking him for + information about her brother. Eight days later (not twenty-four + as stated, nor was the audience a private one), Swedenborg again + came to court, but so early that the queen had not left her + apartment called the White Room, where she was conversing with her + maids-of-honor and other ladies attached to the court. Swedenborg + did not wait until she came forth, but entered the said room and + whispered something in her ear. The queen, overcome with + amazement, was taken ill, and it was some time before she + recovered herself. When she did so she said to those about her: + “Only God and my brother knew the thing that he has just spoken + of.” She admitted that it related to her last correspondence with + the prince on a subject which was known to them alone. I cannot + explain how Swedenborg came to know the contents of that letter, + but I can affirm on my honor, that neither Count H---- (as the + writer of the article states) nor any other person intercepted, or + read, the queen’s letters. The senate allowed her to write to her + brother in perfect security, considering the correspondence as of + no interest to the State. It is evident that the author of the + said article is ignorant of the character of Count H----. This + honored gentleman, who has done many important services to his + country, unites the qualities of a noble heart to gifts of mind, + and his great age has not yet weakened these precious possessions. + During his whole administration he added the weight of scrupulous + integrity to his enlightened policy and openly declared himself + the enemy of all secret intrigues and underhand dealings, which he + regarded as unworthy means to attain an end. Neither did the + writer of that article understand the Assessor Swedenborg. The + only weakness of that essentially honest man was a belief in the + apparition of spirits; but I knew him for many years, and I can + affirm that he was as fully convinced that he met and talked with + spirits as I am that I am writing at this moment. As a citizen and + as a friend his integrity was absolute; he abhorred deception and + led the most exemplary of lives. The version which the Chevalier + Baylon gave of these facts is, therefore, entirely without + justification; the visit stated to have been made to Swedenborg in + the night-time by Count H---- and Count T---- is hereby + contradicted. In conclusion, the writer of the letter may rest + assured that I am not a follower of Swedenborg. The love of truth + alone impels me to give this faithful account of a fact which has + been so often stated with details that are entirely false. I + certify to the truth of what I have written by adding my + signature. + + Charles-Leonhard de Stahlhammer. + + +“The proofs which Swedenborg gave of his mission to the royal families +of Sweden and Prussia were no doubt the foundation of the belief in his +doctrines which is prevalent at the two courts,” said Monsieur Becker, +putting the gazette into the drawer. “However,” he continued, “I shall +not tell you all the facts of his visible and material life; indeed his +habits prevented them from being fully known. He lived a hidden life; +not seeking either riches or fame. He was even noted for a sort of +repugnance to making proselytes; he opened his mind to few persons, and +never showed his external powers of second-sight to any who were not +eminent in faith, wisdom, and love. He could recognize at a glance the +state of the soul of every person who approached him, and those whom he +desired to reach with his inward language he converted into Seers. After +the year 1745, his disciples never saw him do a single thing from any +human motive. One man alone, a Swedish priest, named Mathesius, set +afloat a story that he went mad in London in 1744. But a eulogium on +Swedenborg prepared with minute care as to all the known events of his +life, was pronounced after his death in 1772 on behalf of the Royal +Academy of Sciences in the Hall of the Nobles at Stockholm, by Monsieur +Sandels, counsellor of the Board of Mines. A declaration made before the +Lord Mayor of London gives the details of his last illness and death, +in which he received the ministrations of Monsieur Ferelius a Swedish +priest of the highest standing, and pastor of the Swedish Church in +London, Mathesius being his assistant. All persons present attested that +so far from denying the value of his writings Swedenborg firmly asserted +their truth. ‘In one hundred years,’ Monsieur Ferelius quotes him as +saying, ‘my doctrine will guide the _Church_.’ He predicted the day +and hour of his death. On that day, Sunday, March 29, 1772, hearing the +clock strike, he asked what time it was. ‘Five o’clock’ was the answer. +‘It is well,’ he answered; ‘thank you, God bless you.’ Ten minutes later +he tranquilly departed, breathing a gentle sigh. Simplicity, moderation, +and solitude were the features of his life. When he had finished writing +any of his books he sailed either for London or for Holland, where he +published them, and never spoke of them again. He published in this +way twenty-seven different treatises, all written, he said, from the +dictation of Angels. Be it true or false, few men have been strong +enough to endure the flames of oral illumination. + +“There they all are,” said Monsieur Becker, pointing to a second shelf +on which were some sixty volumes. “The treatises on which the Divine +Spirit casts its most vivid gleams are seven in number, namely: ‘Heaven +and Hell’; ‘Angelic Wisdom concerning the Divine Love and the Divine +Wisdom’; ‘Angelic Wisdom concerning the Divine Providence’; ‘The +Apocalypse Revealed’; ‘Conjugial Love and its Chaste Delights’; ‘The +True Christian Religion’; and ‘An Exposition of the Internal Sense.’ +Swedenborg’s explanation of the Apocalypse begins with these words,” + said Monsieur Becker, taking down and opening the volume nearest to him: +“‘Herein I have written nothing of mine own; I speak as I am bidden by +the Lord, who said, through the same angel, to John: “Thou shalt not +seal the sayings of this Prophecy.”’ (Revelation xxii. 10.) + +“My dear Monsieur Wilfrid,” said the old man, looking at his guest, “I +often tremble in every limb as I read, during the long winter evenings +the awe-inspiring works in which this man declares with perfect +artlessness the wonders that are revealed to him. ‘I have seen,’ he +says, ‘Heaven and the Angels. The spiritual man sees his spiritual +fellows far better than the terrestrial man sees the men of earth. In +describing the wonders of heaven and beneath the heavens I obey the +Lord’s command. Others have the right to believe me or not as they +choose. I cannot put them into the state in which God has put me; it +is not in my power to enable them to converse with Angels, nor to work +miracles within their understanding; they alone can be the instrument of +their rise to angelic intercourse. It is now twenty-eight years since +I have lived in the Spiritual world with angels, and on earth with men; +for it pleased God to open the eyes of my spirit as he did that of Paul, +and of Daniel and Elisha.’ + +“And yet,” continued the pastor, thoughtfully, “certain persons have +had visions of the spiritual world through the complete detachment which +somnambulism produces between their external form and their inner being. +‘In this state,’ says Swedenborg in his treatise on Angelic Wisdom +(No. 257) ‘Man may rise into the region of celestial light because, his +corporeal senses being abolished, the influence of heaven acts without +hindrance on his inner man.’ Many persons who do not doubt that +Swedenborg received celestial revelations think that his writings are +not all the result of divine inspiration. Others insist on absolute +adherence to him; while admitting his many obscurities, they believe +that the imperfection of earthly language prevented the prophet from +clearly revealing those spiritual visions whose clouds disperse to +the eyes of those whom faith regenerates; for, to use the words of his +greatest disciple, ‘Flesh is but an external propagation.’ To poets and +to writers his presentation of the marvellous is amazing; to Seers it +is simply reality. To some Christians his descriptions have seemed +scandalous. Certain critics have ridiculed the celestial substance +of his temples, his golden palaces, his splendid cities where angels +disport themselves; they laugh at his groves of miraculous trees, his +gardens where the flowers speak and the air is white, and the mystical +stones, the sard, carbuncle, chrysolite, chrysoprase, jacinth, +chalcedony, beryl, the Urim and Thummim, are endowed with motion, +express celestial truths, and reply by variations of light to questions +put to them [‘True Christian Religion,’ 219). Many noble souls will not +admit his spiritual worlds where colors are heard in delightful concert, +where language flames and flashes, where the Word is writ in pointed +spiral letters [‘True Christian Religion,’ 278). Even in the North some +writers have laughed at the gates of pearl, and the diamonds which +stud the floors and walls of his New Jerusalem, where the most ordinary +utensils are made of the rarest substances of the globe. ‘But,’ say his +disciples, ‘because such things are sparsely scattered on this earth +does it follow that they are not abundant in other worlds? On earth +they are terrestrial substances, whereas in heaven they assume celestial +forms and are in keeping with angels.’ In this connection Swedenborg +has used the very words of Jesus Christ, who said, ‘If I have told you +earthly things and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you of +heavenly things?’ + +“Monsieur,” continued the pastor, with an emphatic gesture, “I have read +the whole of Swedenborg’s works; and I say it with pride, because I have +done it and yet retained my reason. In reading him men either miss his +meaning or become Seers like him. Though I have evaded both extremes, I +have often experienced unheard-of delights, deep emotions, inward joys, +which alone can reveal to us the plenitude of truth,--the evidence of +celestial Light. All things here below seem small indeed when the soul +is lost in the perusal of these Treatises. It is impossible not to be +amazed when we think that in the short space of thirty years this man +wrote and published, on the truths of the Spiritual World, twenty-five +quarto volumes, composed in Latin, of which the shortest has five +hundred pages, all of them printed in small type. He left, they say, +twenty others in London, bequeathed to his nephew, Monsieur Silverichm, +formerly almoner to the King of Sweden. Certainly a man who, between the +ages of twenty and sixty, had already exhausted himself in publishing +a series of encyclopaedical works, must have received supernatural +assistance in composing these later stupendous treatises, at an age, +too, when human vigor is on the wane. You will find in these writings +thousands of propositions, all numbered, none of which have been +refuted. Throughout we see method and precision; the presence of the +spirit issuing and flowing down from a single fact,--the existence of +angels. His ‘True Christian Religion,’ which sums up his whole doctrine +and is vigorous with light, was conceived and written at the age of +eighty-three. In fact, his amazing vigor and omniscience are not denied +by any of his critics, not even by his enemies. + +“Nevertheless,” said Monsieur Becker, slowly, “though I have drunk deep +in this torrent of divine light, God has not opened the eyes of my inner +being, and I judge these writings by the reason of an unregenerated man. +I have often felt that the _inspired_ Swedenborg must have misunderstood +the Angels. I have laughed over certain visions which, according to his +disciples, I ought to have believed with veneration. I have failed to +imagine the spiral writing of the Angels or their golden belts, on +which the gold is of great or lesser thickness. If, for example, this +statement, ‘Some angels are solitary,’ affected me powerfully for a +time, I was, on reflection, unable to reconcile this solitude with their +marriages. I have not understood why the Virgin Mary should continue to +wear blue satin garments in heaven. I have even dared to ask myself why +those gigantic demons, Enakim and Hephilim, came so frequently to fight +the cherubim on the apocalyptic plains of Armageddon; and I cannot +explain to my own mind how Satans can argue with Angels. Monsieur le +Baron Seraphitus assured me that those details concerned only the angels +who live on earth in human form. The visions of the prophet are +often blurred with grotesque figures. One of his spiritual tales, +or ‘Memorable relations,’ as he called them, begins thus: ‘I see the +spirits assembling, they have hats upon their heads.’ In another of +these Memorabilia he receives from heaven a bit of paper, on which he +saw, he says, the hieroglyphics of the primitive peoples, which were +composed of curved lines traced from the finger-rings that are worn in +heaven. However, perhaps I am wrong; possibly the material absurdities +with which his works are strewn have spiritual significations. +Otherwise, how shall we account for the growing influence of his +religion? His church numbers to-day more than seven hundred thousand +believers,--as many in the United States of America as in England, where +there are seven thousand Swedenborgians in the city of Manchester alone. +Many men of high rank in knowledge and in social position in Germany, in +Prussia, and in the Northern kingdoms have publicly adopted the beliefs +of Swedenborg; which, I may remark, are more comforting than those of +all other Christian communions. I wish I had the power to explain to you +clearly in succinct language the leading points of the doctrine on which +Swedenborg founded his church; but I fear such a summary, made from +recollection, would be necessarily defective. I shall, therefore, +allow myself to speak only of those ‘Arcana’ which concern the birth of +Seraphita.” + +Here Monsieur Becker paused, as though composing his mind to gather up +his ideas. Presently he continued, as follows:-- + +“After establishing mathematically that man lives eternally in spheres +of either a lower or a higher grade, Swedenborg applies the term +‘Spiritual Angels’ to beings who in this world are prepared for heaven, +where they become angels. According to him, God has not created angels; +none exist who have not been men upon the earth. The earth is the +nursery-ground of heaven. The Angels are therefore not Angels as +such [‘Angelic Wisdom,’ 57), they are transformed through their close +conjunction with God; which conjunction God never refuses, because the +essence of God is not negative, but essentially active. The spiritual +angels pass through three natures of love, because man is only +regenerated through successive stages [‘True Religion’). First, the +_love of self_: the supreme expression of this love is human genius, +whose works are worshipped. Next, _love of life_: this love produces +prophets,--great men whom the world accepts as guides and proclaims +to be divine. Lastly, _love of heaven_, and this creates the Spiritual +Angel. These angels are, so to speak, the flowers of humanity, which +culminates in them and works for that culmination. They must possess +either the love of heaven or the wisdom of heaven, but always Love +before Wisdom. + +“Thus the transformation of the natural man is into Love. To reach this +first degree, his previous existences must have passed through Hope and +Charity, which prepare him for Faith and Prayer. The ideas acquired +by the exercise of these virtues are transmitted to each of the human +envelopes within which are hidden the metamorphoses of the _inner +being_; for nothing is separate, each existence is necessary to the +other existences. Hope cannot advance without Charity, nor Faith +without Prayer; they are the four fronts of a solid square. ‘One virtue +missing,’ he said, ‘and the Spiritual Angel is like a broken pearl.’ +Each of these existences is therefore a circle in which revolves the +celestial riches of the inner being. The perfection of the Spiritual +Angels comes from this mysterious progression in which nothing is lost +of the high qualities that are successfully acquired to attain each +glorious incarnation; for at each transformation they cast away +unconsciously the flesh and its errors. When the man lives in Love he +has shed all evil passions: Hope, Charity, Faith, and Prayer have, in +the words of Isaiah, purged the dross of his inner being, which can +never more be polluted by earthly affections. Hence the grand saying +of Christ quoted by Saint Matthew, ‘Lay up for yourselves treasures +in Heaven where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt,’ and those still +grander words: ‘If ye were of this world the world would love you, but I +have chosen you out of the world; be ye therefore perfect as your Father +in heaven is perfect.’ + +“The second transformation of man is to Wisdom. Wisdom is the +understanding of celestial things to which the Spirit is brought by +Love. The Spirit of Love has acquired strength, the result of all +vanquished terrestrial passions; it loves God blindly. But the Spirit of +Wisdom has risen to understanding and knows why it loves. The wings of +the one are spread and bear the spirit to God; the wings of the other +are held down by the awe that comes of understanding: the spirit knows +God. The one longs incessantly to see God and to fly to Him; the other +attains to Him and trembles. The union effected between the Spirit of +Love and the Spirit of Wisdom carries the human being into a Divine +state during which time his soul is _woman_ and his body _man_, the last +human manifestation in which the Spirit conquers Form, or Form still +struggles against the Spirit,--for Form, that is, the flesh, is +ignorant, rebels, and desires to continue gross. This supreme trial +creates untold sufferings seen by Heaven alone,--the agony of Christ in +the Garden of Olives. + +“After death the first heaven opens to this dual and purified human +nature. Therefore it is that man dies in despair while the Spirit +dies in ecstasy. Thus, the _natural_, the state of beings not yet +regenerated; the _spiritual_, the state of those who have become Angelic +Spirits, and the _divine_, the state in which the Angel exists before +he breaks from his covering of flesh, are the three degrees of existence +through which man enters heaven. One of Swedenborg’s thoughts expressed +in his own words will explain to you with wonderful clearness the +difference between the _natural_ and the _spiritual_. ‘To the minds of +men,’ he says, ‘the Natural passes into the Spiritual; they regard the +world under its visible aspects, they perceive it only as it can be +realized by their senses. But to the apprehension of Angelic Spirits, +the Spiritual passes into the Natural; they regard the world in its +inward essence and not in its form.’ Thus human sciences are but +analyses of form. The man of science as the world goes is purely +external like his knowledge; his inner being is only used to preserve +his aptitude for the perception of external truths. The Angelic Spirit +goes far beyond that; his knowledge is the thought of which human +science is but the utterance; he derives that knowledge from the Logos, +and learns the law of _correspondences_ by which the world is placed +in unison with heaven. The _word of God_ was wholly written by pure +Correspondences, and covers an esoteric or spiritual meaning, which +according to the science of Correspondences, cannot be understood. +‘There exist,’ says Swedenborg [‘Celestial Doctrine’ 26), ‘innumerable +Arcana within the hidden meaning of the Correspondences. Thus the men +who scoff at the books of the Prophets where the Word is enshrined are +as densely ignorant as those other men who know nothing of a science and +yet ridicule its truths. To know the Correspondences which exist between +the things visible and ponderable in the terrestrial world and the +things invisible and imponderable in the spiritual world, is to hold +heaven within our comprehension. All the objects of the manifold +creations having emanated from God necessarily enfold a hidden meaning; +according, indeed, to the grand thought of Isaiah, ‘The earth is a +garment.’ + +“This mysterious link between Heaven and the smallest atoms of created +matter constitutes what Swedenborg calls a Celestial Arcanum, and +his treatise on the ‘Celestial Arcana’ in which he explains the +correspondences or significances of the Natural with, and to, the +Spiritual, giving, to use the words of Jacob Boehm, the sign and seal +of all things, occupies not less than sixteen volumes containing thirty +thousand propositions. ‘This marvellous knowledge of Correspondences +which the goodness of God granted to Swedenborg,’ says one of his +disciples, ‘is the secret of the interest which draws men to his works. +According to him, all things are derived from heaven, all things lead +back to heaven. His writings are sublime and clear; he speaks in heaven, +and earth hears him. Take one of his sentences by itself and a volume +could be made of it’; and the disciple quotes the following passages +taken from a thousand others that would answer the same purpose. + +“‘The kingdom of heaven,’ says Swedenborg [‘Celestial Arcana’), ‘is the +kingdom of motives. _Action_ is born in heaven, thence into the world, +and, by degrees, to the infinitely remote parts of earth. Terrestrial +effects being thus linked to celestial causes, all things are +_correspondent_ and _significant_. Man is the means of union between the +Natural and the Spiritual.’ + +“The Angelic Spirits therefore know the very nature of the +Correspondences which link to heaven all earthly things; they know, +too, the inner meaning of the prophetic words which foretell their +evolutions. Thus to these Spirits everything here below has its +significance; the tiniest flower is a thought,--a life which corresponds +to certain lineaments of the Great Whole, of which they have a constant +intuition. To them Adultery and the excesses spoken of in Scripture and +by the Prophets, often garbled by self-styled scholars, mean the state +of those souls which in this world persist in tainting themselves with +earthly affections, thus compelling their divorce from Heaven. Clouds +signify the veil of the Most High. Torches, shew-bread, horses and +horsemen, harlots, precious stones, in short, everything named in +Scripture, has to them a clear-cut meaning, and reveals the future of +terrestrial facts in their relation to Heaven. They penetrate the +truths contained in the Revelation of Saint John the divine, which human +science has subsequently demonstrated and proved materially; such, for +instance, as the following [‘big,’ said Swedenborg, ‘with many human +sciences’): ‘I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven +and the first earth were passed away’ (Revelation xxi. 1). These Spirits +know the supper at which the flesh of kings and the flesh of all men, +free and bond, is eaten, to which an Angel standing in the sun has +bidden them. They see the winged woman, clothed with the sun, and the +mailed man. ‘The horse of the Apocalypse,’ says Swedenborg, ‘is the +visible image of human intellect ridden by Death, for it bears within +itself the elements of its own destruction.’ Moreover, they can +distinguish beings concealed under forms which to ignorant eyes +would seem fantastic. When a man is disposed to receive the prophetic +afflation of Correspondences, it rouses within him a perception of the +Word; he comprehends that the creations are transformations only; his +intellect is sharpened, a burning thirst takes possession of him which +only Heaven can quench. He conceives, according to the greater or lesser +perfection of his inner being, the power of the Angelic Spirits; and he +advances, led by Desire (the least imperfect state of unregenerated man) +towards Hope, the gateway to the world of Spirits, whence he reaches +Prayer, which gives him the Key of Heaven. + +“What being here below would not desire to render himself worthy of +entrance into the sphere of those who live in secret by Love and Wisdom? +Here on earth, during their lifetime, such spirits remain pure; they +neither see, nor think, nor speak like other men. There are two ways by +which perception comes,--one internal, the other external. Man is wholly +external, the Angelic Spirit wholly internal. The Spirit goes to +the depth of Numbers, possesses a full sense of them, knows their +significances. It controls Motion, and by reason of its ubiquity it +shares in all things. ‘An Angel,’ says Swedenborg, ‘is ever present to +a man when desired’ [‘Angelic Wisdom’); for the Angel has the gift of +detaching himself from his body, and he sees into heaven as the +prophets and as Swedenborg himself saw into it. ‘In this state,’ writes +Swedenborg [‘True Religion,’ 136), ‘the spirit of a man may move from +one place to another, his body remaining where it is,--a condition in +which I lived for over twenty-six years.’ It is thus that we should +interpret all Biblical statements which begin, ‘The Spirit led me.’ +Angelic Wisdom is to human wisdom what the innumerable forces of nature +are to its action, which is one. All things live again, and move and +have their being in the Spirit, which is in God. Saint Paul expresses +this truth when he says, ‘In Deo sumus, movemur, et vivimus,’--we live, +we act, we are in God. + +“Earth offers no hindrance to the Angelic Spirit, just as the Word +offers him no obscurity. His approaching divinity enables him to see the +thought of God veiled in the Logos, just as, living by his inner being, +the Spirit is in communion with the hidden meaning of all things on this +earth. Science is the language of the Temporal world, Love is that of +the Spiritual world. Thus man takes note of more than he is able +to explain, while the Angelic Spirit sees and comprehends. Science +depresses man; Love exalts the Angel. Science is still seeking, Love +has found. Man judges Nature according to his own relations to her; the +Angelic Spirit judges it in its relation to Heaven. In short, all things +have a voice for the Spirit. Spirits are in the secret of the harmony of +all creations with each other; they comprehend the spirit of sound, the +spirit of color, the spirit of vegetable life; they can question the +mineral, and the mineral makes answer to their thoughts. What to them +are sciences and the treasures of the earth when they grasp all things +by the eye at all moments, when the worlds which absorb the minds of so +many men are to them but the last step from which they spring to God? +Love of heaven, or the Wisdom of heaven, is made manifest to them by a +circle of light which surrounds them, and is visible to the Elect. +Their innocence, of which that of children is a symbol, possesses, +nevertheless, a knowledge which children have not; they are both +innocent and learned. ‘And,’ says Swedenborg, ‘the innocence of Heaven +makes such an impression upon the soul that those whom it affects keep +a rapturous memory of it which lasts them all their lives, as I myself +have experienced. It is perhaps sufficient,’ he goes on, ‘to have only a +minimum perception of it to be forever changed, to long to enter Heaven +and the sphere of Hope.’ + +“His doctrine of Marriage can be reduced to the following words: ‘The +Lord has taken the beauty and the grace of the life of man and bestowed +them upon woman. When man is not reunited to this beauty and this grace +of his life, he is harsh, sad, and sullen; when he is reunited to them +he is joyful and complete.’ The Angels are ever at the perfect point +of beauty. Marriages are celebrated by wondrous ceremonies. In these +unions, which produce no children, man contributes the _understanding_, +woman the _will_; they become one being, one Flesh here below, and pass +to heaven clothed in the celestial form. On this earth, the natural +attraction of the sexes towards enjoyment is an Effect which allures, +fatigues and disgusts; but in the form celestial the pair, now _one_ in +Spirit find within theirself a ceaseless source of joy. Swedenborg was +led to see these nuptials of the Spirits, which in the words of Saint +Luke (xx. 35) are neither marrying nor giving in marriage, and which +inspire none but spiritual pleasures. An Angel offered to make him +witness of such a marriage and bore him thither on his wings (the wings +are a symbol and not a reality). The Angel clothed him in a wedding +garment and when Swedenborg, finding himself thus robed in light, asked +why, the answer was: ‘For these events, our garments are illuminated; +they shine; they are made nuptial.’ [‘Conjugial Love,’ 19, 20, 21.) Then +he saw the two Angels, one coming from the South, the other from the +East; the Angel of the South was in a chariot drawn by two white horses, +with reins of the color and brilliance of the dawn; but lo, when they +were near him in the sky, chariot and horses vanished. The Angel of the +East, clothed in crimson, and the Angel of the South, in purple, drew +together, like breaths, and mingled: one was the Angel of Love, the +other the Angel of Wisdom. Swedenborg’s guide told him that the two +Angels had been linked together on earth by an inward friendship and +ever united though separated in life by great distances. Consent, the +essence of all good marriage upon earth, is the habitual state of Angels +in Heaven. Love is the light of their world. The eternal rapture of +Angels comes from the faculty that God communicates to them to +render back to Him the joy they feel through Him. This reciprocity of +infinitude forms their life. They become infinite by participating of +the essence of God, who generates Himself by Himself. + +“The immensity of the Heavens where the Angels dwell is such that if man +were endowed with sight as rapid as the darting of light from the sun to +the earth, and if he gazed throughout eternity, his eyes could not reach +the horizon, nor find an end. Light alone can give an idea of the joys +of heaven. ‘It is,’ says Swedenborg [‘Angelic Wisdom,’ 7, 25, 26, 27), +‘a vapor of the virtue of God, a pure emanation of His splendor, beside +which our greatest brilliance is obscurity. It can compass all; it can +renew all, and is never absorbed: it environs the Angel and unites him +to God by infinite joys which multiply infinitely of themselves. This +Light destroys whosoever is not prepared to receive it. No one here +below, nor yet in Heaven can see God and live. This is the meaning of +the saying (Exodus xix. 12, 13, 21-23) “Take heed to yourselves that ye +go not up into the mount--lest ye break through unto the Lord to gaze, +and many perish.” And again (Exodus xxxiv. 29-35), “When Moses came down +from Mount Sinai with the two Tables of testimony in his hand, his face +shone, so that he put a veil upon it when he spake with the people, lest +any of them die.” The Transfiguration of Jesus Christ likewise revealed +the light surrounding the Messengers from on high and the ineffable joys +of the Angels who are forever imbued with it. “His face,” says Saint +Matthew (xvii. 1-5), “did shine as the sun and his raiment was white as +the light--and a bright cloud overshadowed them.”’ + +“When a planet contains only those beings who reject the Lord, when his +word is ignored, then the Angelic Spirits are gathered together by the +four winds, and God sends forth an Exterminating Angel to change the +face of the refractory earth, which in the immensity of this universe is +to Him what an unfruitful seed is to Nature. Approaching the globe, this +Exterminating Angel, borne by a comet, causes the planet to turn upon +its axis, and the lands lately covered by the seas reappear, adorned in +freshness and obedient to the laws proclaimed in Genesis; the Word of +God is once more powerful on this new earth, which everywhere exhibits +the effects of terrestrial waters and celestial flames. The light +brought by the Angel from On High, causes the sun to pale. ‘Then,’ says +Isaiah, (xix. 20) ‘men will hide in the clefts of the rock and roll +themselves in the dust of the earth.’ ‘They will cry to the mountains’ +(Revelation), ‘Fall on us! and to the seas, Swallow us up! Hide us from +the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the +Lamb!’ The Lamb is the great figure and hope of the Angels misjudged and +persecuted here below. Christ himself has said, ‘Blessed are those who +mourn! Blessed are the simple-hearted! Blessed are they that love!’--All +Swedenborg is there! Suffer, Believe, Love. To love truly must we not +suffer? must we not believe? Love begets Strength, Strength bestows +Wisdom, thence Intelligence; for Strength and Wisdom demand Will. To +be intelligent, is not that to Know, to Wish, and to Will,--the three +attributes of the Angelic Spirit? ‘If the universe has a meaning,’ +Monsieur Saint-Martin said to me when I met him during a journey which +he made in Sweden, ‘surely this is the one most worthy of God.’ + +“But, Monsieur,” continued the pastor after a thoughtful pause, “of what +avail to you are these shreds of thoughts taken here and there from +the vast extent of a work of which no true idea can be given except +by comparing it to a river of light, to billows of flame? When a man +plunges into it he is carried away as by an awful current. Dante’s poem +seems but a speck to the reader submerged in the almost Biblical +verses with which Swedenborg renders palpable the Celestial Worlds, +as Beethoven built his palaces of harmony with thousands of notes, as +architects have reared cathedrals with millions of stones. We roll in +soundless depths, where our minds will not always sustain us. Ah, surely +a great and powerful intellect is needed to bring us back, safe and +sound, to our own social beliefs. + +“Swedenborg,” resumed the pastor, “was particularly attached to the +Baron de Seraphitz, whose name, according to an old Swedish custom, had +taken from time immemorial the Latin termination of ‘us.’ The baron was +an ardent disciple of the Swedish prophet, who had opened the eyes of +his Inner-Man and brought him to a life in conformity with the decrees +from On-High. He sought for an Angelic Spirit among women; Swedenborg +found her for him in a vision. His bride was the daughter of a London +shoemaker, in whom, said Swedenborg, the life of Heaven shone, she +having passed through all anterior trials. After the death, that is, the +transformation of the prophet, the baron came to Jarvis to accomplish +his celestial nuptials with the observances of Prayer. As for me, who +am not a Seer, I have only known the terrestrial works of this couple. +Their lives were those of saints whose virtues are the glory of the +Roman Church. They ameliorated the condition of our people; they +supplied them all with means in return for work,--little, perhaps, +but enough for all their wants. Those who lived with them in constant +intercourse never saw them show a sign of anger or impatience; they were +constantly beneficent and gentle, full of courtesy and loving-kindness; +their marriage was the harmony of two souls indissolubly united. Two +eiders winging the same flight, the sound in the echo, the thought in +the word,--these, perhaps, are true images of their union. Every one +here in Jarvis loved them with an affection which I can compare only +to the love of a plant for the sun. The wife was simple in her manners, +beautiful in form, lovely in face, with a dignity of bearing like that +of august personages. In 1783, being then twenty-six years old, she +conceived a child; her pregnancy was to the pair a solemn joy. They +prepared to bid the earth farewell; for they told me they should be +transformed when their child had passed the state of infancy which +needed their fostering care until the strength to exist alone should be +given to her. + +“Their child was born,--the Seraphita we are now concerned with. From +the moment of her conception father and mother lived a still more +solitary life than in the past, lifting themselves up to heaven by +Prayer. They hoped to see Swedenborg, and faith realized their hope. +The day on which Seraphita came into the world Swedenborg appeared in +Jarvis, and filled the room of the new-born child with light. I was told +that he said, ‘The work is accomplished; the Heavens rejoice!’ Sounds of +unknown melodies were heard throughout the house, seeming to come +from the four points of heaven on the wings of the wind. The spirit of +Swedenborg led the father forth to the shores of the fiord and there +quitted him. Certain inhabitants of Jarvis, having approached Monsieur +Seraphitus as he stood on the shore, heard him repeat those blissful +words of Scripture: ‘How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of Him +who is sent of God!’ + +“I had left the parsonage on my way to baptize the infant and name +it, and perform the other duties required by law, when I met the baron +returning to the house. ‘Your ministrations are superfluous,’ he said; +‘our child is to be without name on this earth. You must not baptize in +the waters of an earthly Church one who has just been immersed in the +fires of Heaven. This child will remain a blossom, it will not grow old; +you will see it pass away. You exist, but our child has life; you have +outward senses, the child has none, its being is always inward.’ These +words were uttered in so strange and supernatural a voice that I was +more affected by them than by the shining of his face, from which light +appeared to exude. His appearance realized the phantasmal ideas which we +form of inspired beings as we read the prophesies of the Bible. But such +effects are not rare among our mountains, where the nitre of perpetual +snows produces extraordinary phenomena in the human organization. + +“I asked him the cause of his emotion. ‘Swedenborg came to us; he has +just left me; I have breathed the air of heaven,’ he replied. ‘Under +what form did he appear?’ I said. ‘Under his earthly form; dressed as +he was the last time I saw him in London, at the house of Richard +Shearsmith, Coldbath-fields, in July, 1771. He wore his brown frieze +coat with steel buttons, his waistcoat buttoned to the throat, a white +cravat, and the same magisterial wig rolled and powdered at the sides +and raised high in front, showing his vast and luminous brow, in keeping +with the noble square face, where all is power and tranquillity. I +recognized the large nose with its fiery nostril, the mouth that +ever smiled,--angelic mouth from which these words, the pledge of my +happiness, have just issued, “We shall meet soon.”’ + +“The conviction that shone on the baron’s face forbade all discussion; I +listened in silence. His voice had a contagious heat which made my bosom +burn within me; his fanaticism stirred my heart as the anger of another +makes our nerves vibrate. I followed him in silence to his house, where +I saw the nameless child lying mysteriously folded to its mother’s +breast. The babe heard my step and turned its head toward me; its +eyes were not those of an ordinary child. To give you an idea of the +impression I received, I must say that already they saw and thought. The +childhood of this predestined being was attended by circumstances quite +extraordinary in our climate. For nine years our winters were milder +and our summers longer than usual. This phenomenon gave rise to several +discussions among scientific men; but none of their explanations seemed +sufficient to academicians, and the baron smiled when I told him of +them. The child was never seen in its nudity as other children are; it +was never touched by man or woman, but lived a sacred thing upon the +mother’s breast, and it never cried. If you question old David he will +confirm these facts about his mistress, for whom he feels an adoration +like that of Louis IX. for the saint whose name he bore. + +“At nine years of age the child began to pray; prayer is her life. You +saw her in the church at Christmas, the only day on which she comes +there; she is separated from the other worshippers by a visible space. +If that space does not exist between herself and men she suffers. That +is why she passes nearly all her time alone in the chateau. The events +of her life are unknown; she is seldom seen; her days are spent in the +state of mystical contemplation which was, so Catholic writers tell us, +habitual with the early Christian solitaries, in whom the oral tradition +of Christ’s own words still remained. Her mind, her soul, her body, all +within her is virgin as the snow on those mountains. At ten years of +age she was just what you see her now. When she was nine her father and +mother expired together, without pain or visible malady, after naming +the day and hour at which they would cease to be. Standing at their +feet she looked at them with a calm eye, not showing either sadness, or +grief, or joy, or curiosity. When we approached to remove the two bodies +she said, ‘Carry them away!’ ‘Seraphita,’ I said, for so we called her, +‘are you not affected by the death of your father and your mother +who loved you so much?’ ‘Dead?’ she answered, ‘no, they live in me +forever--That is nothing,’ she pointed without emotion to the bodies +they were bearing away. I then saw her for the third time only since her +birth. In church it is difficult to distinguish her; she stands near +a column which, seen from the pulpit, is in shadow, so that I cannot +observe her features. + +“Of all the servants of the household there remained after the death of +the master and mistress only old David, who, in spite of his eighty-two +years, suffices to wait on his mistress. Some of our Jarvis people tell +wonderful tales about her. These have a certain weight in a land so +essentially conducive to mystery as ours; and I am now studying the +treatise on Incantations by Jean Wier and other works relating to +demonology, where pretended supernatural events are recorded, hoping to +find facts analogous to those which are attributed to her.” + +“Then you do not believe in her?” said Wilfrid. + +“Oh yes, I do,” said the pastor, genially, “I think her a very +capricious girl; a little spoilt by her parents, who turned her head +with the religious ideas I have just revealed to you.” + +Minna shook her head in a way that gently expressed contradiction. + +“Poor girl!” continued the old man, “her parents bequeathed to her that +fatal exaltation of soul which misleads mystics and renders them all +more or less mad. She subjects herself to fasts which horrify poor +David. The good old man is like a sensitive plant which quivers at the +slightest breeze, and glows under the first sun-ray. His mistress, whose +incomprehensible language has become his, is the breeze and the sun-ray +to him; in his eyes her feet are diamonds and her brow is strewn with +stars; she walks environed with a white and luminous atmosphere; her +voice is accompanied by music; she has the gift of rendering herself +invisible. If you ask to see her, he will tell you she has gone to the +_astral regions_. It is difficult to believe such a story, is it not? +You know all miracles bear more or less resemblance to the story of the +Golden Tooth. We have our golden tooth in Jarvis, that is all. Duncker +the fisherman asserts that he has seen her plunge into the fiord and +come up in the shape of an eider-duck, at other times walking on the +billows of a storm. Fergus, who leads the flocks to the saeters, says +that in rainy weather a circle of clear sky can be seen over the Swedish +castle; and that the heavens are always blue above Seraphita’s head when +she is on the mountain. Many women hear the tones of a mighty organ when +Seraphita enters the church, and ask their neighbors earnestly if they +too do not hear them. But my daughter, for whom during the last two +years Seraphita has shown much affection, has never heard this music, +and has never perceived the heavenly perfumes which, they say, make the +air fragrant about her when she moves. Minna, to be sure, has often on +returning from their walks together expressed to me the delight of a +young girl in the beauties of our spring-time, in the spicy odors of +budding larches and pines and the earliest flowers; but after our long +winters what can be more natural than such pleasure? The companionship +of this so-called spirit has nothing so very extraordinary in it, has +it, my child?” + +“The secrets of that spirit are not mine,” said Minna. “Near it I know +all, away from it I know nothing; near that exquisite life I am no +longer myself, far from it I forget all. The time we pass together is +a dream which my memory scarcely retains. I may have heard yet not +remember the music which the women tell of; in that presence, I may have +breathed celestial perfumes, seen the glory of the heavens, and yet be +unable to recollect them here.” + +“What astonishes me most,” resumed the pastor, addressing Wilfrid, “is +to notice that you suffer from being near her.” + +“Near her!” exclaimed the stranger, “she has never so much as let +me touch her hand. When she saw me for the first time her glance +intimidated me; she said: ‘You are welcome here, for you were to come.’ +I fancied that she knew me. I trembled. It is fear that forces me to +believe in her.” + +“With me it is love,” said Minna, without a blush. + +“Are you making fun of me?” said Monsieur Becker, laughing +good-humoredly; “you my daughter, in calling yourself a Spirit of Love, +and you, Monsieur Wilfrid, in pretending to be a Spirit of Wisdom?” + +He drank a glass of beer and so did not see the singular look which +Wilfrid cast upon Minna. + +“Jesting apart,” resumed the old gentleman, “I have been much astonished +to hear that these two mad-caps ascended to the summit of the Falberg; +it must be a girlish exaggeration; they probably went to the crest of a +ledge. It is impossible to reach the peaks of the Falberg.” + +“If so, father,” said Minna, in an agitated voice, “I must have been +under the power of a spirit; for indeed we reached the summit of the +Ice-Cap.” + +“This is really serious,” said Monsieur Becker. “Minna is always +truthful.” + +“Monsieur Becker,” said Wilfrid, “I swear to you that Seraphita +exercises such extraordinary power over me that I know no language in +which I can give you the least idea of it. She has revealed to me things +known to myself alone.” + +“Somnambulism!” said the old man. “A great many such effects are related +by Jean Wier as phenomena easily explained and formerly observed in +Egypt.” + +“Lend me Swedenborg’s theosophical works,” said Wilfrid, “and let me +plunge into those gulfs of light,--you have given me a thirst for them.” + +Monsieur Becker took down a volume and gave it to his guest, who +instantly began to read it. It was about nine o’clock in the evening. +The serving-woman brought in the supper. Minna made tea. The repast +over, each turned silently to his or her occupation; the pastor read the +Incantations; Wilfrid pursued the spirit of Swedenborg; and the young +girl continued to sew, her mind absorbed in recollections. It was a true +Norwegian evening--peaceful, studious, and domestic; full of thoughts, +flowers blooming beneath the snow. Wilfrid, as he devoured the pages of +the prophet, lived by his inner senses only; the pastor, looking up at +times from his book, called Minna’s attention to the absorption of +their guest with an air that was half-serious, half-jesting. To Minna’s +thoughts the face of Seraphitus smiled upon her as it hovered above the +clouds of smoke which enveloped them. The clock struck twelve. Suddenly +the outer door was opened violently. Heavy but hurried steps, the steps +of a terrified old man, were heard in the narrow vestibule between the +two doors; then David burst into the parlor. + +“Danger, danger!” he cried. “Come! come, all! The evil spirits are +unchained! Fiery mitres are on their heads! Demons, Vertumni, Sirens! +they tempt her as Jesus was tempted on the mountain! Come, come! and +drive them away.” + +“Do you not recognize the language of Swedenborg?” said the pastor, +laughing, to Wilfrid. “Here it is; pure from the source.” + +But Wilfrid and Minna were gazing in terror at old David, who, with hair +erect, and eyes distraught, his legs trembling and covered with snow, +for he had come without snow-shoes, stood swaying from side to side, as +if some boisterous wind were shaking him. + +“Is he harmed?” cried Minna. + +“The devils hope and try to conquer her,” replied the old man. + +The words made Wilfrid’s pulses throb. + +“For the last five hours she has stood erect, her eyes raised to heaven +and her arms extended; she suffers, she cries to God. I cannot cross the +barrier; Hell has posted the Vertumni as sentinels. They have set up an +iron wall between her and her old David. She wants me, but what can I +do? Oh, help me! help me! Come and pray!” + +The old man’s despair was terrible to see. + +“The Light of God is defending her,” he went on, with infectious faith, +“but oh! she might yield to violence.” + +“Silence, David! you are raving. This is a matter to be verified. We +will go with you,” said the pastor, “and you shall see that there are no +Vertumni, nor Satans, nor Sirens, in that house.” + +“Your father is blind,” whispered David to Minna. + +Wilfrid, on whom the reading of Swedenborg’s first treatise, which he +had rapidly gone through, had produced a powerful effect, was already in +the corridor putting on his skees; Minna was ready in a few moments, and +both left the old men far behind as they darted forward to the Swedish +castle. + +“Do you hear that cracking sound?” said Wilfrid. + +“The ice of the fiord stirs,” answered Minna; “the spring is coming.” + +Wilfrid was silent. When the two reached the courtyard they were +conscious that they had neither the faculty nor the strength to enter +the house. + +“What think you of her?” asked Wilfrid. + +“See that radiance!” cried Minna, going towards the window of the salon. +“He is there! How beautiful! O my Seraphitus, take me!” + +The exclamation was uttered inwardly. She saw Seraphitus standing erect, +lightly swathed in an opal-tinted mist that disappeared at a little +distance from the body, which seemed almost phosphorescent. + +“How beautiful she is!” cried Wilfrid, mentally. + +Just then Monsieur Becker arrived, followed by David; he saw his +daughter and guest standing before the window; going up to them, he +looked into the salon and said quietly, “Well, my good David, she is +only saying her prayers.” + +“Ah, but try to enter, Monsieur.” + +“Why disturb those who pray?” answered the pastor. + +At this instant the moon, rising above the Falberg, cast its rays upon +the window. All three turned round, attracted by this natural effect +which made them quiver; when they turned back to again look at Seraphita +she had disappeared. + +“How strange!” exclaimed Wilfrid. + +“I hear delightful sounds,” said Minna. + +“Well,” said the pastor, “it is all plain enough; she is going to bed.” + +David had entered the house. The others took their way back in silence; +none of them interpreted the vision in the same manner,--Monsieur Becker +doubted, Minna adored, Wilfrid longed. + +Wilfrid was a man about thirty-six years of age. His figure, though +broadly developed, was not wanting in symmetry. Like most men who +distinguish themselves above their fellows, he was of medium height; his +chest and shoulders were broad, and his neck short,--a characteristic of +those whose hearts are near their heads; his hair was black, thick, and +fine; his eyes, of a yellow brown, had, as it were, a solar brilliancy, +which proclaimed with what avidity his nature aspired to Light. Though +these strong and virile features were defective through the absence +of an inward peace,--granted only to a life without storms or +conflicts,--they plainly showed the inexhaustible resources of impetuous +senses and the appetites of instinct; just as every motion revealed +the perfection of the man’s physical apparatus, the flexibility of +his senses, and their fidelity when brought into play. This man might +contend with savages, and hear, as they do, the tread of enemies in +distant forests; he could follow a scent in the air, a trail on the +ground, or see on the horizon the signal of a friend. His sleep was +light, like that of all creatures who will not allow themselves to be +surprised. His body came quickly into harmony with the climate of any +country where his tempestuous life conducted him. Art and science would +have admired his organization in the light of a human model. Everything +about him was symmetrical and well-balanced,--action and heart, +intelligence and will. At first sight he might be classed among purely +instinctive beings, who give themselves blindly up to the material wants +of life; but in the very morning of his days he had flung himself into +a higher social world, with which his feelings harmonized; study had +widened his mind, reflection had sharpened his power of thought, and the +sciences had enlarged his understanding. He had studied human laws,--the +working of self-interests brought into conflict by the passions, and he +seemed to have early familiarized himself with the abstractions on which +societies rest. He had pored over books,--those deeds of dead humanity; +he had spent whole nights of pleasure in every European capital; he had +slept on fields of battle the night before the combat and the night that +followed victory. His stormy youth may have flung him on the deck of +some corsair and sent him among the contrasting regions of the globe; +thus it was that he knew the actions of a living humanity. He knew the +present and the past,--a double history; that of to-day, that of other +days. Many men have been, like Wilfrid, equally powerful by the Hand, by +the Heart, by the Head; like him, the majority have abused their triple +power. But though this man still held by certain outward liens to the +slimy side of humanity, he belonged also and positively to the sphere +where force is intelligent. In spite of the many veils which enveloped +his soul, there were certain ineffable symptoms of this fact which were +visible to pure spirits, to the eyes of the child whose innocence has +known no breath of evil passions, to the eyes of the old man who has +lived to regain his purity. + +These signs revealed a Cain for whom there was still hope,--one who +seemed as though he were seeking absolution from the ends of the +earth. Minna suspected the galley-slave of glory in the man; Seraphita +recognized him. Both admired and both pitied him. Whence came their +prescience? Nothing could be more simple nor yet more extraordinary. +As soon as we seek to penetrate the secrets of Nature, where nothing +is secret, and where it is only necessary to have the eyes to see, we +perceive that the simple produces the marvellous. + +“Seraphitus,” said Minna one evening a few days after Wilfrid’s arrival +in Jarvis, “you read the soul of this stranger while I have only vague +impressions of it. He chills me or else he excites me; but you seem to +know the cause of this cold and of this heat; tell me what it means, for +you know all about him.” + +“Yes, I have seen the causes,” said Seraphitus, lowing his large +eyelids. + +“By what power?” asked the curious Minna. + +“I have the gift of Specialism,” he answered. “Specialism is an inward +sight which can penetrate all things; you will only understand its full +meaning through a comparison. In the great cities of Europe where works +are produced by which the human Hand seeks to represent the effects of +the moral nature was well as those of the physical nature, there are +glorious men who express ideas in marble. The sculptor acts on the +stone; he fashions it; he puts a realm of ideas into it. There +are statues which the hand of man has endowed with the faculty of +representing the noble side of humanity, or the whole evil side; most +men see in such marbles a human figure and nothing more; a few other +men, a little higher in the scale of being, perceive a fraction of the +thoughts expressed in the statue; but the Initiates in the secrets of +art are of the same intellect as the sculptor; they see in his work +the whole universe of his thought. Such persons are in themselves the +principles of art; they bear within them a mirror which reflects nature +in her slightest manifestations. Well! so it is with me; I have within +me a mirror before which the moral nature, with its causes and effects, +appears and is reflected. Entering thus into the consciousness of others +I am able to divine both the future and the past. How? do you still ask +how? Imagine that the marble statue is the body of a man, a piece of +statuary in which we see the emotion, sentiment, passion, vice or crime, +virtue or repentance which the creating hand has put into it, and +you will then comprehend how it is that I read the soul of this +foreigner--though what I have said does not explain the gift of +Specialism; for to conceive the nature of that gift we must possess it.” + +Though Wilfrid belonged to the two first divisions of humanity, the men +of force and the men of thought, yet his excesses, his tumultuous life, +and his misdeeds had often turned him towards Faith; for doubt has two +sides; a side to the light and a side to the darkness. Wilfrid had too +closely clasped the world under its forms of Matter and of Mind not to +have acquired that thirst for the unknown, that longing to _go beyond_ +which lay their grasp upon the men who know, and wish, and will. +But neither his knowledge, nor his actions, nor his will, had found +direction. He had fled from social life from necessity; as a great +criminal seeks the cloister. Remorse, that virtue of weak beings, +did not touch him. Remorse is impotence, impotence which sins again. +Repentance alone is powerful; it ends all. But in traversing the world, +which he made his cloister, Wilfrid had found no balm for his wounds; he +saw nothing in nature to which he could attach himself. In him, despair +had dried the sources of desire. He was one of those beings who, having +gone through all passions and come out victorious, have nothing more to +raise in their hot-beds, and who, lacking opportunity to put themselves +at the head of their fellow-men to trample under iron heel entire +populations, buy, at the price of a horrible martyrdom, the faculty of +ruining themselves in some belief,--rocks sublime, which await the touch +of a wand that comes not to bring the waters gushing from their far-off +spring. + +Led by a scheme of his restless, inquiring life to the shores of Norway, +the sudden arrival of winter had detained the wanderer at Jarvis. The +day on which, for the first time, he saw Seraphita, the whole past of +his life faded from his mind. The young girl excited emotions which he +had thought could never be revived. The ashes gave forth a lingering +flame at the first murmurings of that voice. Who has ever felt himself +return to youth and purity after growing cold and numb with age and +soiled with impurity? Suddenly, Wilfrid loved as he had never loved; he +loved secretly, with faith, with fear, with inward madness. His life was +stirred to the very source of his being at the mere thought of seeing +Seraphita. As he listened to her he was transported into unknown worlds; +he was mute before her, she magnetized him. There, beneath the snows, +among the glaciers, bloomed the celestial flower to which his hopes, so +long betrayed, aspired; the sight of which awakened ideas of freshness, +purity, and faith which grouped about his soul and lifted it to higher +regions,--as Angels bear to heaven the Elect in those symbolic pictures +inspired by the guardian spirit of a great master. Celestial perfumes +softened the granite hardness of the rocky scene; light endowed with +speech shed its divine melodies on the path of him who looked to heaven. +After emptying the cup of terrestrial love which his teeth had bitten as +he drank it, he saw before him the chalice of salvation where the limpid +waters sparkled, making thirsty for ineffable delights whoever dare +apply his lips burning with a faith so strong that the crystal shall not +be shattered. + +But Wilfrid now encountered the wall of brass for which he had been +seeking up and down the earth. He went impetuously to Seraphita, meaning +to express the whole force and bearing of a passion under which he +bounded like the fabled horse beneath the iron horseman, firm in his +saddle, whom nothing moves while the efforts of the fiery animal only +made the rider heavier and more solid. He sought her to relate his +life,--to prove the grandeur of his soul by the grandeur of his faults, +to show the ruins of his desert. But no sooner had he crossed +her threshold, and found himself within the zone of those eyes of +scintillating azure, that met no limits forward and left none behind, +than he grew calm and submissive, as a lion, springing on his prey in +the plains of Africa, receives from the wings of the wind a message +of love, and stops his bound. A gulf opened before him, into which his +frenzied words fell and disappeared, and from which uprose a voice which +changed his being; he became as a child, a child of sixteen, timid and +frightened before this maiden with serene brow, this white figure whose +inalterable calm was like the cruel impassibility of human justice. The +combat between them had never ceased until this evening, when with a +glance she brought him down, as a falcon making his dizzy spirals in +the air around his prey causes it to fall stupefied to earth, before +carrying it to his eyrie. + +We may note within ourselves many a long struggle the end of which is +one of our own actions,--struggles which are, as it were, the reverse +side of humanity. This reverse side belongs to God; the obverse side to +men. More than once Seraphita had proved to Wilfrid that she knew this +hidden and ever varied side, which is to the majority of men a second +being. Often she said to him in her dove-like voice: “Why all this +vehemence?” when on his way to her he had sworn she should be his. +Wilfrid was, however, strong enough to raise the cry of revolt to which +he had given utterance in Monsieur Becker’s study. The narrative of +the old pastor had calmed him. Sceptical and derisive as he was, he saw +belief like a sidereal brilliance dawning on his life. He asked himself +if Seraphita were not an exile from the higher spheres seeking the +homeward way. The fanciful deifications of all ordinary lovers he could +not give to this lily of Norway in whose divinity he believed. Why lived +she here beside this fiord? What did she? Questions that received no +answer filled his mind. Above all, what was about to happen between +them? What fate had brought him there? To him, Seraphita was the +motionless marble, light nevertheless as a vapor, which Minna had seen +that day poised above the precipices of the Falberg. Could she thus +stand on the edge of all gulfs without danger, without a tremor of the +arching eyebrows, or a quiver of the light of the eye? If his love was +to be without hope, it was not without curiosity. + +From the moment when Wilfrid suspected the ethereal nature of the +enchantress who had told him the secrets of his life in melodious +utterance, he had longed to try to subject her, to keep her to himself, +to tear her from the heaven where, perhaps, she was awaited. Earth and +Humanity seized their prey; he would imitate them. His pride, the only +sentiment through which man can long be exalted, would make him happy in +this triumph for the rest of his life. The idea sent the blood boiling +through his veins, and his heart swelled. If he did not succeed, he +would destroy her,--it is so natural to destroy that which we cannot +possess, to deny what we cannot comprehend, to insult that which we +envy. + +On the morrow, Wilfrid, laden with ideas which the extraordinary events +of the previous night naturally awakened in his mind, resolved to +question David, and went to find him on the pretext of asking after +Seraphita’s health. Though Monsieur Becker spoke of the old servant as +falling into dotage, Wilfrid relied on his own perspicacity to discover +scraps of truth in the torrent of the old man’s rambling talk. + +David had the immovable, undecided, physiognomy of an octogenarian. +Under his white hair lay a forehead lined with wrinkles like the stone +courses of a ruined wall; and his face was furrowed like the bed of a +dried-up torrent. His life seemed to have retreated wholly to the eyes, +where light still shone, though its gleams were obscured by a mistiness +which seemed to indicate either an active mental alienation or the +stupid stare of drunkenness. His slow and heavy movements betrayed the +glacial weight of age, and communicated an icy influence to whoever +allowed themselves to look long at him,--for he possessed the magnetic +force of torpor. His limited intelligence was only roused by the sight, +the hearing, or the recollection of his mistress. She was the soul of +this wholly material fragment of an existence. Any one seeing David +alone by himself would have thought him a corpse; let Seraphita enter, +let her voice be heard, or a mention of her be made, and the dead came +forth from his grave and recovered speech and motion. The dry bones +were not more truly awakened by the divine breath in the valley of +Jehoshaphat, and never was that apocalyptic vision better realized than +in this Lazarus issuing from the sepulchre into life at the voice of +a young girl. His language, which was always figurative and often +incomprehensible, prevented the inhabitants of the village from talking +with him; but they respected a mind that deviated so utterly from common +ways,--a thing which the masses instinctively admire. + +Wilfrid found him in the antechamber, apparently asleep beside the +stove. Like a dog who recognizes a friend of the family, the old man +raised his eyes, saw the foreigner, and did not stir. + +“Where is she?” inquired Wilfrid, sitting down beside him. + +David fluttered his fingers in the air as if to express the flight of a +bird. + +“Does she still suffer?” asked Wilfrid. + +“Beings vowed to Heaven are able so to suffer that suffering does not +lessen their love; this is the mark of the true faith,” answered the old +man, solemnly, like an instrument which, on being touched, gives forth +an accidental note. + +“Who taught you those words?” + +“The Spirit.” + +“What happened to her last night? Did you force your way past the +Vertumni standing sentinel? did you evade the Mammons?” + +“Yes”; answered David, as though awaking from a dream. + +The misty gleam of his eyes melted into a ray that came direct from +the soul and made it by degrees brilliant as that of an eagle, as +intelligent as that of a poet. + +“What did you see?” asked Wilfrid, astonished at this sudden change. + +“I saw Species and Shapes; I heard the Spirit of all things; I beheld +the revolt of the Evil Ones; I listened to the words of the Good. Seven +devils came, and seven archangels descended from on high. The archangels +stood apart and looked on through veils. The devils were close by; they +shone, they acted. Mammon came on his pearly shell in the shape of a +beautiful naked woman; her snowy body dazzled the eye, no human form +ever equalled it; and he said, ‘I am Pleasure; thou shalt possess me!’ +Lucifer, prince of serpents, was there in sovereign robes; his Manhood +was glorious as the beauty of an angel, and he said, ‘Humanity shall be +at thy feet!’ The Queen of misers,--she who gives back naught that she +has ever received,--the Sea, came wrapped in her virent mantle; she +opened her bosom, she showed her gems, she brought forth her treasures +and offered them; waves of sapphire and of emerald came at her bidding; +her hidden wonders stirred, they rose to the surface of her breast, they +spoke; the rarest pearl of Ocean spread its iridescent wings and gave +voice to its marine melodies, saying, ‘Twin daughter of suffering, we +are sisters! await me; let us go together; all I need is to become a +Woman.’ The Bird with the wings of an eagle and the paws of a lion, the +head of a woman and the body of a horse, the Animal, fell down before +her and licked her feet, and promised seven hundred years of plenty to +her best-beloved daughter. Then came the most formidable of all, the +Child, weeping at her knees, and saying, ‘Wilt thou leave me, feeble +and suffering as I am? oh, my mother, stay!’ and he played with her, +and shed languor on the air, and the Heavens themselves had pity for +his wail. The Virgin of pure song brought forth her choirs to relax the +soul. The Kings of the East came with their slaves, their armies, and +their women; the Wounded asked her for succor, the Sorrowful stretched +forth their hands: ‘Do not leave us! do not leave us!’ they cried. I, +too, I cried, ‘Do not leave us! we adore thee! stay!’ Flowers, bursting +from the seed, bathed her in their fragrance which uttered, ‘Stay!’ The +giant Enakim came forth from Jupiter, leading Gold and its friends and +all the Spirits of the Astral Regions which are joined with him, and +they said, ‘We are thine for seven hundred years.’ At last came Death on +his pale horse, crying, ‘I will obey thee!’ One and all fell prostrate +before her. Could you but have seen them! They covered as it were a vast +plain, and they cried aloud to her, ‘We have nurtured thee, thou art our +child; do not abandon us!’ At length Life issued from her Ruby Waters, +and said, ‘I will not leave thee!’ then, finding Seraphita silent, she +flamed upon her as the sun, crying out, ‘I am light!’ ‘_The light_ +is there!’ cried Seraphita, pointing to the clouds where stood the +archangels; but she was wearied out; Desire had wrung her nerves, she +could only cry, ‘My God! my God!’ Ah! many an Angelic Spirit, scaling +the mountain and nigh to the summit, has set his foot upon a rolling +stone which plunged him back into the abyss! All these lost Spirits +adored her constancy; they stood around her,--a choir without a +song,--weeping and whispering, ‘Courage!’ At last she conquered; +Desire--let loose upon her in every Shape and every Species--was +vanquished. She stood in prayer, and when at last her eyes were lifted +she saw the feet of Angels circling in the Heavens.” + +“She saw the feet of Angels?” repeated Wilfrid. + +“Yes,” said the old man. + +“Was it a dream that she told you?” asked Wilfrid. + +“A dream as real as your life,” answered David; “I was there.” + +The calm assurance of the old servant affected Wilfrid powerfully. +He went away asking himself whether these visions were any less +extraordinary than those he had read of in Swedenborg the night before. + +“If Spirits exist, they must act,” he was saying to himself as he +entered the parsonage, where he found Monsieur Becker alone. + +“Dear pastor,” he said, “Seraphita is connected with us in form only, +and even that form is inexplicable. Do not think me a madman or a lover; +a profound conviction cannot be argued with. Convert my belief into +scientific theories, and let us try to enlighten each other. To-morrow +evening we shall both be with her.” + +“What then?” said Monsieur Becker. + +“If her eye ignores space,” replied Wilfrid, “if her thought is an +intelligent sight which enables her to perceive all things in their +essence, and to connect them with the general evolution of the universe, +if, in a word, she sees and knows all, let us seat the Pythoness on her +tripod, let us force this pitiless eagle by threats to spread its wings! +Help me! I breathe a fire which burns my vitals; I must quench it or it +will consume me. I have found a prey at last, and it shall be mine!” + +“The conquest will be difficult,” said the pastor, “because this girl +is--” + +“Is what?” cried Wilfrid. + +“Mad,” said the old man. + +“I will not dispute her madness, but neither must you dispute her +wonderful powers. Dear Monsieur Becker, she has often confounded me with +her learning. Has she travelled?” + +“From her house to the fiord, no further.” + +“Never left this place!” exclaimed Wilfrid. “Then she must have read +immensely.” + +“Not a page, not one iota! I am the only person who possesses any books +in Jarvis. The works of Swedenborg--the only books that were in the +chateau--you see before you. She has never looked into a single one of +them.” + +“Have you tried to talk with her?” + +“What good would that do?” + +“Does no one live with her in that house?” + +“She has no friends but you and Minna, nor any servant except old +David.” + +“It cannot be that she knows nothing of science nor of art.” + +“Who should teach her?” said the pastor. + +“But if she can discuss such matters pertinently, as she has often done +with me, what do you make of it?” + +“The girl may have acquired through years of silence the faculties +enjoyed by Apollonius of Tyana and other pretended sorcerers burned +by the Inquisition, which did not choose to admit the fact of +second-sight.” + +“If she can speak Arabic, what would you say to that?” + +“The history of medical science gives many authentic instances of girls +who have spoken languages entirely unknown to them.” + +“What can I do?” exclaimed Wilfrid. “She knows of secrets in my past +life known only to me.” + +“I shall be curious if she can tell me thoughts that I have confided to +no living person,” said Monsieur Becker. + +Minna entered the room. + +“Well, my daughter, and how is your familiar spirit?” + +“He suffers, father,” she answered, bowing to Wilfrid. “Human passions, +clothed in their false riches, surrounded him all night, and showed him +all the glories of the world. But you think these things mere tales.” + +“Tales as beautiful to those who read them in their brains as the +‘Arabian Nights’ to common minds,” said the pastor, smiling. + +“Did not Satan carry our Savior to the pinnacle of the Temple, and show +him all the kingdoms of the world?” she said. + +“The Evangelists,” replied her father, “did not correct their copies +very carefully, and several versions are in existence.” + +“You believe in the reality of these visions?” said Wilfrid to Minna. + +“Who can doubt when he relates them.” + +“He?” demanded Wilfrid. “Who?” + +“He who is there,” replied Minna, motioning towards the chateau. + +“Are you speaking of Seraphita?” he said. + +The young girl bent her head, and looked at him with an expression of +gentle mischief. + +“You too!” exclaimed Wilfrid, “you take pleasure in confounding me. Who +and what is she? What do you think of her?” + +“What I feel is inexplicable,” said Minna, blushing. + +“You are all crazy!” cried the pastor. + +“Farewell, until to-morrow evening,” said Wilfrid. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. THE CLOUDS OF THE SANCTUARY + + +There are pageants in which all the material splendors that man arrays +co-operate. Nations of slaves and divers have searched the sands of +ocean and the bowels of earth for the pearls and diamonds which adorn +the spectators. Transmitted as heirlooms from generation to generation, +these treasures have shone on consecrated brows and could be the most +faithful of historians had they speech. They know the joys and sorrows +of the great and those of the small. Everywhere do they go; they are +worn with pride at festivals, carried in despair to usurers, borne off +in triumph amid blood and pillage, enshrined in masterpieces conceived +by art for their protection. None, except the pearl of Cleopatra, +has been lost. The Great and the Fortunate assemble to witness the +coronation of some king, whose trappings are the work of men’s hands, +but the purple of whose raiment is less glorious than that of the +flowers of the field. These festivals, splendid in light, bathed in +music which the hand of man creates, aye, all the triumphs of that hand +are subdued by a thought, crushed by a sentiment. The Mind can illumine +in a man and round a man a light more vivid, can open his ear to more +melodious harmonies, can seat him on clouds of shining constellations +and teach him to question them. The Heart can do still greater things. +Man may come into the presence of one sole being and find in a single +word, a single look, an influence so weighty to bear, of so luminous a +light, so penetrating a sound, that he succumbs and kneels before it. +The most real of all splendors are not in outward things, they are +within us. A single secret of science is a realm of wonders to the man +of learning. Do the trumpets of Power, the jewels of Wealth, the music +of Joy, or a vast concourse of people attend his mental festival? No, he +finds his glory in some dim retreat where, perchance, a pallid suffering +man whispers a single word into his ear; that word, like a torch lighted +in a mine, reveals to him a Science. All human ideas, arrayed in every +attractive form which Mystery can invent surrounded a blind man seated +in a wayside ditch. Three worlds, the Natural, the Spiritual, the +Divine, with all their spheres, opened their portals to a Florentine +exile; he walked attended by the Happy and the Unhappy; by those who +prayed and those who moaned; by angels and by souls in hell. When the +Sent of God, who knew and could accomplish all things, appeared to three +of his disciples it was at eventide, at the common table of the humblest +of inns; and then and there the Light broke forth, shattering Material +Forms, illuminating the Spiritual Faculties, so that they saw him in his +glory, and the earth lay at their feet like a cast-off sandal. + +Monsieur Becker, Wilfrid, and Minna were all under the influence of fear +as they took their way to meet the extraordinary being whom each desired +to question. To them, in their several ways, the Swedish castle had +grown to mean some gigantic representation, some spectacle like those +whose colors and masses are skilfully and harmoniously marshalled by the +poets, and whose personages, imaginary actors to men, are real to +those who begin to penetrate the Spiritual World. On the tiers of this +Coliseum Monsieur Becker seated the gray legions of Doubt, the stern +ideas, the specious formulas of Dispute. He convoked the various +antagonistic worlds of philosophy and religion, and they all appeared, +in the guise of a fleshless shape, like that in which art embodies +Time,--an old man bearing in one hand a scythe, in the other a broken +globe, the human universe. + +Wilfrid had bidden to the scene his earliest illusions and his latest +hopes, human destiny and its conflicts, religion and its conquering +powers. + +Minna saw heaven confusedly by glimpses; love raised a curtain wrought +with mysterious images, and the melodious sounds which met her ear +redoubled her curiosity. + +To all three, therefore, this evening was to be what that other evening +had been for the pilgrims to Emmaus, what a vision was to Dante, an +inspiration to Homer,--to them, three aspects of the world revealed, +veils rent away, doubts dissipated, darkness illumined. Humanity in all +its moods expecting light could not be better represented than here by +this young girl, this man in the vigor of his age, and these old men, +of whom one was learned enough to doubt, the other ignorant enough +to believe. Never was any scene more simple in appearance, nor more +portentous in reality. + +When they entered the room, ushered in by old David, they found +Seraphita standing by a table on which were served the various dishes +which compose a “tea”; a form of collation which in the North takes the +place of wine and its pleasures,--reserved more exclusively for Southern +climes. Certainly nothing proclaimed in her, or in him, a being with the +strange power of appearing under two distinct forms; nothing about her +betrayed the manifold powers which she wielded. Like a careful housewife +attending to the comfort of her guests, she ordered David to put more +wood into the stove. + +“Good evening, my neighbors,” she said. “Dear Monsieur Becker, you do +right to come; you see me living for the last time, perhaps. This winter +has killed me. Will you sit there?” she said to Wilfrid. “And you, +Minna, here?” pointing to a chair beside her. “I see you have brought +your embroidery. Did you invent that stitch? the design is very pretty. +For whom is it,--your father, or monsieur?” she added, turning to +Wilfrid. “Surely we ought to give him, before we part, a remembrance of +the daughters of Norway.” + +“Did you suffer much yesterday?” asked Wilfrid. + +“It was nothing,” she answered; “the suffering gladdened me; it was +necessary, to enable me to leave this life.” + +“Then death does not alarm you?” said Monsieur Becker, smiling, for he +did not think her ill. + +“No, dear pastor; there are two ways of dying: to some, death is +victory, to others, defeat.” + +“Do you think that you have conquered?” asked Minna. + +“I do not know,” she said, “perhaps I have only taken a step in the +path.” + +The lustrous splendor of her brow grew dim, her eyes were veiled beneath +slow-dropping lids; a simple movement which affected the prying guests +and kept them silent. Monsieur Becker was the first to recover courage. + +“Dear child,” he said, “you are truth itself, and you are ever kind. +I would ask of you to-night something other than the dainties of your +tea-table. If we may believe certain persons, you know amazing things; +if this be true, would it not be charitable in you to solve a few of our +doubts?” + +“Ah!” she said smiling, “I walk on the clouds. I visit the depths of +the fiord; the sea is my steed and I bridle it; I know where the singing +flower grows, and the talking light descends, and fragrant colors shine! +I wear the seal of Solomon; I am a fairy; I cast my orders to the wind +which, like an abject slave, fulfils them; my eyes can pierce the earth +and behold its treasures; for lo! am I not the virgin to whom the pearls +dart from their ocean depths and--” + +“--who led me safely to the summit of the Falberg?” said Minna, +interrupting her. + +“Thou! thou too!” exclaimed the strange being, with a luminous glance +at the young girl which filled her soul with trouble. “Had I not the +faculty of reading through your foreheads the desires which have brought +you here, should I be what you think I am?” she said, encircling all +three with her controlling glance, to David’s great satisfaction. The +old man rubbed his hands with pleasure as he left the room. + +“Ah!” she resumed after a pause, “you have come, all of you, with the +curiosity of children. You, my poor Monsieur Becker, have asked yourself +how it was possible that a girl of seventeen should know even a single +one of those secrets which men of science seek with their noses to the +earth,--instead of raising their eyes to heaven. Were I to tell you how +and at what point the plant merges into the animal you would begin +to doubt your doubts. You have plotted to question me; you will admit +that?” + +“Yes, dear Seraphita,” answered Wilfrid; “but the desire is a natural +one to men, is it not?” + +“You will bore this dear child with such topics,” she said, passing her +hand lightly over Minna’s hair with a caressing gesture. + +The young girl raised her eyes and seemed as though she longed to lose +herself in him. + +“Speech is the endowment of us all,” resumed the mysterious creature, +gravely. “Woe to him who keeps silence, even in a desert, believing +that no one hears him; all voices speak and all ears listen here below. +Speech moves the universe. Monsieur Becker, I desire to say nothing +unnecessarily. I know the difficulties that beset your mind; would you +not think it a miracle if I were now to lay bare the past history of +your consciousness? Well, the miracle shall be accomplished. You have +never admitted to yourself the full extent of your doubts. I alone, +immovable in my faith, I can show it to you; I can terrify you with +yourself. + +“You stand on the darkest side of Doubt. You do not believe in +God,--although you know it not,--and all things here below are secondary +to him who rejects the first principle of things. Let us leave aside the +fruitless discussions of false philosophy. The spiritualist generations +made as many and as vain efforts to deny Matter as the materialist +generations have made to deny Spirit. Why such discussions? Does not man +himself offer irrefragable proof of both systems? Do we not find in him +material things and spiritual things? None but a madman can refuse to +see in the human body a fragment of Matter; your natural sciences, when +they decompose it, find little difference between its elements and those +of other animals. On the other hand, the idea produced in man by the +comparison of many objects has never seemed to any one to belong to the +domain of Matter. As to this, I offer no opinion. I am now concerned +with your doubts, not with my certainties. To you, as to the majority of +thinkers, the relations between things, the reality of which is proved +to you by your sensations and which you possess the faculty to discover, +do not seem Material. The Natural universe of things and beings ends, in +man, with the Spiritual universe of similarities or differences which +he perceives among the innumerable forms of Nature,--relations so +multiplied as to seem infinite; for if, up to the present time, no one +has been able to enumerate the separate terrestrial creations, who +can reckon their correlations? Is not the fraction which you know, in +relation to their totality, what a single number is to infinity? Here, +then, you fall into a perception of the infinite which undoubtedly +obliges you to conceive of a purely Spiritual world. + +“Thus man himself offers sufficient proof of the two orders,--Matter +and Spirit. In him culminates a visible finite universe; in him begins a +universe invisible and infinite,--two worlds unknown to each other. Have +the pebbles of the fiord a perception of their combined being? have they +a consciousness of the colors they present to the eye of man? do they +hear the music of the waves that lap them? Let us therefore spring over +and not attempt to sound the abysmal depths presented to our minds in +the union of a Material universe and a Spiritual universe,--a creation +visible, ponderable, tangible, terminating in a creation invisible, +imponderable, intangible; completely dissimilar, separated by the void, +yet united by indisputable bonds and meeting in a being who derives +equally from the one and from the other! Let us mingle in one world +these two worlds, absolutely irreconcilable to your philosophies, but +conjoined by fact. However abstract man may suppose the relation which +binds two things together, the line of junction is perceptible. How? +Where? We are not now in search of the vanishing point where Matter +subtilizes. If such were the question, I cannot see why He who has, by +physical relations, studded with stars at immeasurable distances the +heavens which veil Him, may not have created solid substances, nor why +you deny Him the faculty of giving a body to thought. + +“Thus your invisible moral universe and your visible physical universe +are one and the same matter. We will not separate properties from +substances, nor objects from effects. All that exists, all that presses +upon us and overwhelms us from above or from below, before us or in +us, all that which our eyes and our minds perceive, all these named and +unnamed things compose--in order to fit the problem of Creation to the +measure of your logic--a block of finite Matter; but were it infinite, +God would still not be its master. Now, reasoning with your views, dear +pastor, no matter in what way God the infinite is concerned with this +block of finite Matter, He cannot exist and retain the attributes with +which man invests Him. Seek Him in facts, and He is not; spiritually and +materially, you have made God impossible. Listen to the Word of human +Reason forced to its ultimate conclusions. + +“In bringing God face to face with the Great Whole, we see that only +two states are possible between them,--either God and Matter are +contemporaneous, or God existed alone before Matter. Were +Reason--the light that has guided the human race from the dawn of its +existence--accumulated in one brain, even that mighty brain could not +invent a third mode of being without suppressing both Matter and God. +Let human philosophies pile mountain upon mountain of words and of +ideas, let religions accumulate images and beliefs, revelations and +mysteries, you must face at last this terrible dilemma and choose +between the two propositions which compose it; you have no option, and +one as much as the other leads human reason to Doubt. + +“The problem thus established, what signifies Spirit or Matter? Why +trouble about the march of the worlds in one direction or in another, +since the Being who guides them is shown to be an absurdity? Why +continue to ask whether man is approaching heaven or receding from it, +whether creation is rising towards Spirit or descending towards Matter, +if the questioned universe gives no reply? What signifies theogonies and +their armies, theologies and their dogmas, since whichever side of the +problem is man’s choice, his God exists not? Let us for a moment take up +the first proposition, and suppose God contemporaneous with Matter. +Is subjection to the action or the co-existence of an alien substance +consistent with being God at all? In such a system, would not God become +a secondary agent compelled to organize Matter? If so, who compelled +Him? Between His material gross companion and Himself, who was the +arbiter? Who paid the wages of the six days’ labor imputed to the great +Designer? Has any determining force been found which was neither God nor +Matter? God being regarded as the manufacturer of the machinery of the +worlds, is it not as ridiculous to call Him God as to call the slave who +turns the grindstone a Roman citizen? Besides, another difficulty, as +insoluble to this supreme human reason as it is to God, presents itself. + +“If we carry the problem higher, shall we not be like the Hindus, who +put the world upon a tortoise, the tortoise on an elephant, and do not +know on what the feet of their elephant may rest? This supreme will, +issuing from the contest between God and Matter, this God, this more +than God, can He have existed throughout eternity without willing what +He afterwards willed,--admitting that Eternity can be divided into two +eras. No matter where God is, what becomes of His intuitive intelligence +if He did not know His ultimate thought? Which, then, is the true +Eternity,--the created Eternity or the uncreated? But if God throughout +all time did will the world such as it is, this new necessity, which +harmonizes with the idea of sovereign intelligence, implies the +co-eternity of Matter. Whether Matter be co-eternal by a divine will +necessarily accordant with itself from the beginning, or whether +Matter be co-eternal of its own being, the power of God, which must be +absolute, perishes if His will is circumscribed; for in that case God +would find within Him a determining force which would control Him. Can +He be God if He can no more separate Himself from His creation in a past +eternity than in the coming eternity? + +“This face of the problem is insoluble in its cause. Let us now inquire +into its effects. If a God compelled to have created the world from all +eternity seems inexplicable, He is quite as unintelligible in perpetual +cohesion with His work. God, constrained to live eternally united to His +creation is held down to His first position as workman. Can you conceive +of a God who shall be neither independent of nor dependent on His work? +Could He destroy that work without challenging Himself? Ask yourself, +and decide! Whether He destroys it some day, or whether He never +destroys it, either way is fatal to the attributes without which God +cannot exist. Is the world an experiment? is it a perishable form to +which destruction must come? If it is, is not God inconsistent and +impotent? inconsistent, because He ought to have seen the result before +the attempt,--moreover why should He delay to destroy that which He is +to destroy?--impotent, for how else could He have created an imperfect +man? + +“If an imperfect creation contradicts the faculties which man attributes +to God we are forced back upon the question, Is creation perfect? The +idea is in harmony with that of a God supremely intelligent who could +make no mistakes; but then, what means the degradation of His work, +and its regeneration? Moreover, a perfect world is, necessarily, +indestructible; its forms would not perish, it could neither advance nor +recede, it would revolve in the everlasting circumference from which it +would never issue. In that case God would be dependent on His work; +it would be co-eternal with Him; and so we fall back into one of the +propositions most antagonistic to God. If the world is imperfect, it +can progress; if perfect, it is stationary. On the other hand, if it +be impossible to admit of a progressive God ignorant through a past +eternity of the results of His creative work, can there be a stationary +God? would not that imply the triumph of Matter? would it not be the +greatest of all negations? Under the first hypothesis God perishes +through weakness; under the second through the Force of his inertia. + +“Therefore, to all sincere minds the supposition that Matter, in the +conception and execution of the worlds, is contemporaneous with God, is +to deny God. Forced to choose, in order to govern the nations, between +the two alternatives of the problem, whole generations have preferred +this solution of it. Hence the doctrine of the two principles of +Magianism, brought from Asia and adopted in Europe under the form of +Satan warring with the Eternal Father. But this religious formula and +the innumerable aspects of divinity that have sprung from it are surely +crimes against the Majesty Divine. What other term can we apply to +the belief which sets up as a rival to God a personification of Evil, +striving eternally against the Omnipotent Mind without the possibility +of ultimate triumph? Your statics declare that two Forces thus pitted +against each other are reciprocally rendered null. + +“Do you turn back, therefore, to the other side of the problem, and say +that God pre-existed, original, alone? + +“I will not go over the preceding arguments (which here return in full +force) as to the severance of Eternity into two parts; nor the questions +raised by the progression or the immobility of the worlds; let us +look only at the difficulties inherent to this second theory. If God +pre-existed alone, the world must have emanated from Him; Matter was +therefore drawn from His essence; consequently Matter in itself is +non-existent; all forms are veils to cover the Divine Spirit. If this +be so, the World is Eternal, and also it must be God. Is not this +proposition even more fatal than the former to the attributes conferred +on God by human reason? How can the actual condition of Matter be +explained if we suppose it to issue from the bosom of God and to be +ever united with Him? Is it possible to believe that the All-Powerful, +supremely good in His essence and in His faculties, has engendered +things dissimilar to Himself. Must He not in all things and through all +things be like unto Himself? Can there be in God certain evil parts +of which at some future day he may rid Himself?--a conjecture less +offensive and absurd than terrible, for the reason that it drags back +into Him the two principles which the preceding theory proved to be +inadmissible. God must be ONE; He cannot be divided without renouncing +the most important condition of His existence. It is therefore +impossible to admit of a fraction of God which yet is not God. This +hypothesis seemed so criminal to the Roman Church that she has made the +omnipresence of God in the least particles of the Eucharist an article +of faith. + +“But how then can we imagine an omnipotent mind which does not triumph? +How associate it unless in triumph with Nature? But Nature is not +triumphant; she seeks, combines, remodels, dies, and is born again; she +is even more convulsed when creating than when all was fusion; Nature +suffers, groans, is ignorant, degenerates, does evil; deceives herself, +annihilates herself, disappears, and begins again. If God is associated +with Nature, how can we explain the inoperative indifference of the +divine principle? Wherefore death? How came it that Evil, king of +the earth, was born of a God supremely good in His essence and in His +faculties, who can produce nothing that is not made in His own image? + +“But if, from this relentless conclusion which leads at once to +absurdity, we pass to details, what end are we to assign to the world? +If all is God, all is reciprocally cause and effect; all is _One_ as God +is _One_, and we can perceive neither points of likeness nor points of +difference. Can the real end be a rotation of Matter which subtilizes +and disappears? In whatever sense it were done, would not this +mechanical trick of Matter issuing from God and returning to God seem +a sort of child’s play? Why should God make himself gross with Matter? +Under which form is he most God? Which has the ascendant, Matter or +Spirit, when neither can in any way do wrong? Who can comprehend the +Deity engaged in this perpetual business, by which he divides Himself +into two Natures, one of which knows nothing, while the other knows all? +Can you conceive of God amusing Himself in the form of man, laughing at +His own efforts, dying Friday, to be born again Sunday, and continuing +this play from age to age, knowing the end from all eternity, and +telling nothing to Himself, the Creature, of what He the Creator, does? +The God of the preceding hypothesis, a God so nugatory by the very power +of His inertia, seems the more possible of the two if we are compelled +to choose between the impossibilities with which this God, so dull a +jester, fusillades Himself when two sections of humanity argue face to +face, weapons in hand. + +“However absurd this outcome of the second problem may seem, it +was adopted by half the human race in the sunny lands where smiling +mythologies were created. Those amorous nations were consistent; +with them all was God, even Fear and its dastardy, even crime and its +bacchanals. If we accept pantheism,--the religion of many a great human +genius,--who shall say where the greater reason lies? Is it with the +savage, free in the desert, clothed in his nudity, listening to the sun, +talking to the sea, sublime and always true in his deeds whatever they +may be; or shall we find it in civilized man, who derives his chief +enjoyments through lies; who wrings Nature and all her resources to put +a musket on his shoulder; who employs his intellect to hasten the hour +of his death and to create diseases out of pleasures? When the rake of +pestilence and the ploughshare of war and the demon of desolation have +passed over a corner of the globe and obliterated all things, who will +be found to have the greater reason,--the Nubian savage or the patrician +of Thebes? Your doubts descend the scale, they go from heights to +depths, they embrace all, the end as well as the means. + +“But if the physical world seems inexplicable, the moral world presents +still stronger arguments against God. Where, then, is progress? If all +things are indeed moving toward perfection why do we die young? why do +not nations perpetuate themselves? The world having issued from God and +being contained in God can it be stationary? Do we live once, or do +we live always? If we live once, hurried onward by the march of the +Great-Whole, a knowledge of which has not been given to us, let us act +as we please. If we are eternal, let things take their course. Is the +created being guilty if he exists at the instant of the transitions? If +he sins at the moment of a great transformation will he be punished for +it after being its victim? What becomes of the Divine goodness if we are +not transferred to the regions of the blest--should any such exist? +What becomes of God’s prescience if He is ignorant of the results of the +trials to which He subjects us? What is this alternative offered to man +by all religions,--either to boil in some eternal cauldron or to walk +in white robes, a palm in his hand and a halo round his head? Can it +be that this pagan invention is the final word of God? Where is the +generous soul who does not feel that the calculating virtue which seeks +the eternity of pleasure offered by all religions to whoever fulfils +at stray moments certain fanciful and often unnatural conditions, is +unworthy of man and of God? Is it not a mockery to give to man impetuous +senses and forbid him to satisfy them? Besides, what mean these ascetic +objections if Good and Evil are equally abolished? Does Evil exist? +If substance in all its forms is God, then Evil is God. The faculty of +reasoning as well as the faculty of feeling having been given to man +to use, nothing can be more excusable in him than to seek to know the +meaning of human suffering and the prospects of the future. + +“If these rigid and rigorous arguments lead to such conclusions +confusion must reign. The world would have no fixedness; nothing +would advance, nothing would pause, all would change, nothing would be +destroyed, all would reappear after self-renovation; for if your mind +does not clearly demonstrate to you an end, it is equally impossible to +demonstrate the destruction of the smallest particle of Matter; Matter +can transform but not annihilate itself. + +“Though blind force may provide arguments for the atheist, intelligent +force is inexplicable; for if it emanates from God, why should it meet +with obstacles? ought not its triumph to be immediate? Where is God? +If the living cannot perceive Him, can the dead find Him? Crumble, +ye idolatries and ye religions! Fall, feeble keystones of all social +arches, powerless to retard the decay, the death, the oblivion that +have overtaken all nations however firmly founded! Fall, morality and +justice! our crimes are purely relative; they are divine effects whose +causes we are not allowed to know. All is God. Either we are God or God +is not!--Child of a century whose every year has laid upon your brow, +old man, the ice of its unbelief, here, here is the summing up of your +lifetime of thought, of your science and your reflections! Dear Monsieur +Becker, you have laid your head upon the pillow of Doubt, because it is +the easiest of solutions; acting in this respect with the majority +of mankind, who say in their hearts: ‘Let us think no more of these +problems, since God has not vouchsafed to grant us the algebraic +demonstrations that could solve them, while He has given us so many +other ways to get from earth to heaven.’ + +“Tell me, dear pastor, are not these your secret thoughts? Have I evaded +the point of any? nay, rather, have I not clearly stated all? First, in +the dogma of two principles,--an antagonism in which God perishes for +the reason that being All-Powerful He chose to combat. Secondly, in the +absurd pantheism where, all being God, God exists no longer. These two +sources, from which have flowed all the religions for whose triumph +Earth has toiled and prayed, are equally pernicious. Behold in them the +double-bladed axe with which you decapitate the white old man whom you +enthrone among your painted clouds! And now, to me the axe, I wield it!” + +Monsieur Becker and Wilfrid gazed at the young girl with something like +terror. + +“To believe,” continued Seraphita, in her Woman’s voice, for the Man +had finished speaking, “to believe is a gift. To believe is to feel. +To believe in God we must feel God. This feeling is a possession slowly +acquired by the human being, just as other astonishing powers which you +admire in great men, warriors, artists, scholars, those who know and +those who act, are acquired. Thought, that budget of the relations which +you perceive among created things, is an intellectual language which can +be learned, is it not? Belief, the budget of celestial truths, is also a +language as superior to thought as thought is to instinct. This language +also can be learned. The Believer answers with a single cry, a single +gesture; Faith puts within his hand a flaming sword with which he +pierces and illumines all. The Seer attains to heaven and descends not. +But there are beings who believe and see, who know and will, who love +and pray and wait. Submissive, yet aspiring to the kingdom of light, +they have neither the aloofness of the Believer nor the silence of the +Seer; they listen and reply. To them the doubt of the twilight ages +is not a murderous weapon, but a divining rod; they accept the contest +under every form; they train their tongues to every language; they are +never angered, though they groan; the acrimony of the aggressor is not +in them, but rather the softness and tenuity of light, which penetrates +and warms and illumines. To their eyes Doubt is neither an impiety, nor +a blasphemy, nor a crime, but a transition through which men return upon +their steps in the Darkness, or advance into the Light. This being so, +dear pastor, let us reason together. + +“You do not believe in God? Why? God, to your thinking, is +incomprehensible, inexplicable. Agreed. I will not reply that to +comprehend God in His entirety would be to be God; nor will I tell you +that you deny what seems to you inexplicable so as to give me the right +to affirm that which to me is believable. There is, for you, one +evident fact, which lies within yourself. In you, Matter has ended in +intelligence; can you therefore think that human intelligence will +end in darkness, doubt, and nothingness? God may seem to you +incomprehensible and inexplicable, but you must admit Him to be, in all +things purely physical, a splendid and consistent workman. Why should +His craft stop short at man, His most finished creation? + +“If that question is not convincing, at least it compels meditation. +Happily, although you deny God, you are obliged, in order to establish +your doubts, to admit those double-bladed facts, which kill your +arguments as much as your arguments kill God. We have also admitted that +Matter and Spirit are two creations which do not comprehend each other; +that the spiritual world is formed of infinite relations to which the +finite material world has given rise; that if no one on earth is able +to identify himself by the power of his spirit with the great-whole of +terrestrial creations, still less is he able to rise to the knowledge of +the relations which the spirit perceives between these creations. + +“We might end the argument here in one word, by denying you the faculty +of comprehending God, just as you deny to the pebbles of the fiord the +faculties of counting and of seeing each other. How do you know that the +stones themselves do not deny the existence of man, though man makes +use of them to build his houses? There is one fact that appals +you,--the Infinite; if you feel it within, why will you not admit its +consequences? Can the finite have a perfect knowledge of the infinite? +If you cannot perceive those relations which, according to your own +admission, are infinite, how can you grasp a sense of the far-off end to +which they are converging? Order, the revelation of which is one of your +needs, being infinite, can your limited reason apprehend it? Do not ask +why man does not comprehend that which he is able to perceive, for he is +equally able to perceive that which he does not comprehend. If I prove +to you that your mind ignores that which lies within its compass, will +you grant that it is impossible for it to conceive whatever is beyond +it? This being so, am I not justified in saying to you: ‘One of the two +propositions under which God is annihilated before the tribunal of our +reason must be true, the other is false. Inasmuch as creation exists, +you feel the necessity of an end, and that end should be good, should it +not? Now, if Matter terminates in man by intelligence, why are you not +satisfied to believe that the end of human intelligence is the Light of +the higher spheres, where alone an intuition of that God who seems so +insoluble a problem is obtained? The species which are beneath you have +no conception of the universe, and you have; why should there not be +other species above you more intelligent than your own? Man ought to be +better informed than he is about himself before he spends his strength +in measuring God. Before attacking the stars that light us, and the +higher certainties, ought he not to understand the certainties which are +actually about him?’ + +“But no! to the negations of doubt I ought rather to reply by negations. +Therefore I ask you whether there is anything here below so evident +that I can put faith in it? I will show you in a moment that you believe +firmly in things which act, and yet are not beings; in things which +engender thought, and yet are not spirits; in living abstractions which +the understanding cannot grasp in any shape, which are in fact nowhere, +but which you perceive everywhere; which have, and can have, on name, +but which, nevertheless, you have named; and which, like the God +of flesh upon whom you figure to yourself, remain inexplicable, +incomprehensible, and absurd. I shall also ask you why, after admitting +the existence of these incomprehensible things, you reserve your doubts +for God? + +“You believe, for instance, in Number,--a base on which you have built +the edifice of sciences which you call ‘exact.’ Without Number, what +would become of mathematics? Well, what mysterious being endowed with +the faculty of living forever could utter, and what language would be +compact to word the Number which contains the infinite numbers whose +existence is revealed to you by thought? Ask it of the loftiest human +genius; he might ponder it for a thousand years and what would be his +answer? You know neither where Number begins, nor where it pauses, nor +where it ends. Here you call it Time, there you call it Space. Nothing +exists except by Number. Without it, all would be one and the same +substance; for Number alone differentiates and qualifies substance. +Number is to your Spirit what it is to Matter, an incomprehensible +agent. Will you make a Deity of it? Is it a being? Is it a breath +emanating from God to organize the material universe where nothing +obtains form except by the Divinity which is an effect of Number? The +least as well as the greatest of creations are distinguishable from +each other by quantities, qualities, dimensions, forces,--all attributes +created by Number. The infinitude of Numbers is a fact proved to your +soul, but of which no material proof can be given. The mathematician +himself tells you that the infinite of numbers exists, but cannot be +proved. + +“God, dear pastor, is a Number endowed with motion,--felt, but not seen, +the Believer will tell you. Like the Unit, He begins Number, with which +He has nothing in common. The existence of Number depends on the Unit, +which without being a number engenders Number. God, dear pastor is a +glorious Unit who has nothing in common with His creations but who, +nevertheless, engenders them. Will you not therefore agree with me that +you are just as ignorant of where Number begins and ends as you are of +where created Eternity begins and ends? + +“Why, then, if you believe in Number, do you deny God? Is not Creation +interposed between the Infinite of unorganized substances and the +Infinite of the divine spheres, just as the Unit stands between the +Cipher of the fractions you have lately named Decimals, and the Infinite +of Numbers which you call Wholes? Man alone on earth comprehends Number, +that first step of the peristyle which leads to God, and yet his reason +stumbles on it! What! you can neither measure nor grasp the first +abstraction which God delivers to you, and yet you try to subject His +ends to your own tape-line! Suppose that I plunge you into the abyss of +Motion, the force that organizes Number. If I tell you that the Universe +is naught else than Number and Motion, you would see at once that we +speak two different languages. I understand them both; you understand +neither. + +“Suppose I add that Motion and Number are engendered by the Word, namely +the supreme Reason of Seers and Prophets who in the olden time heard the +Breath of God beneath which Saul fell to the earth. That Word, you +scoff at it, you men, although you well know that all visible works, +societies, monuments, deeds, passions, proceed from the breath of your +own feeble word, and that without that word you would resemble the +African gorilla, the nearest approach to man, the Negro. You believe +firmly in Number and in Motion, a force and a result both inexplicable, +incomprehensible, to the existence of which I may apply the logical +dilemma which, as we have seen, prevents you from believing in God. +Powerful reasoner that you are, you do not need that I should prove to +you that the Infinite must everywhere be like unto Itself, and that, +necessarily, it is One. God alone is Infinite, for surely there cannot +be two Infinities, two Ones. If, to make use of human terms, anything +demonstrated to you here below seems to you infinite, be sure that +within it you will find some one aspect of God. But to continue. + +“You have appropriated to yourself a place in the Infinite of Number; +you have fitted it to your own proportions by creating (if indeed you +did create) arithmetic, the basis on which all things rest, even your +societies. Just as Number--the only thing in which your self-styled +atheists believe--organized physical creations, so arithmetic, in the +employ of Number, organized the moral world. This numeration must +be absolute, like all else that is true in itself; but it is purely +relative, it does not exist absolutely, and no proof can be given of its +reality. In the first place, though Numeration is able to take account +of organized substances, it is powerless in relation to unorganized +forces, the ones being finite and the others infinite. The man who can +conceive the Infinite by his intelligence cannot deal with it in its +entirety; if he could, he would be God. Your Numeration, applying to +things finite and not to the Infinite, is therefore true in relation to +the details which you are able to perceive, and false in relation to +the Whole, which you are unable to perceive. Though Nature is like unto +herself in the organizing force or in her principles which are infinite, +she is not so in her finite effects. Thus you will never find in Nature +two objects identically alike. In the Natural Order two and two never +make four; to do so, four exactly similar units must be had, and you +know how impossible it is to find two leaves alike on the same tree, +or two trees alike of the same species. This axiom of your numeration, +false in visible nature, is equally false in the invisible universe of +your abstractions, where the same variance takes place in your ideas, +which are the things of the visible world extended by means of their +relations; so that the variations here are even more marked than +elsewhere. In fact, all being relative to the temperament, strength, +habits, and customs of individuals, who never resemble each other, the +smallest objects take the color of personal feelings. For instance, man +has been able to create units and to give an equal weight and value to +bits of gold. Well, take the ducat of the rich man and the ducat of the +poor man to a money-changer and they are rated exactly equal, but to +the mind of the thinker one is of greater importance than the other; one +represents a month of comfort, the other an ephemeral caprice. Two and +two, therefore, only make four through a false conception. + +“Again: fraction does not exist in Nature, where what you call a +fragment is a finished whole. Does it not often happen (have you not +many proofs of it?) that the hundredth part of a substance is stronger +than what you term the whole of it? If fraction does not exist in the +Natural Order, still less shall we find it in the Moral Order, where +ideas and sentiments may be as varied as the species of the Vegetable +kingdom and yet be always whole. The theory of fractions is therefore +another signal instance of the servility of your mind. + +“Thus Number, with its infinite minuteness and its infinite expansion, +is a power whose weakest side is known to you, but whose real import +escapes your perception. You have built yourself a hut in the Infinite +of numbers, you have adorned it with hieroglyphics scientifically +arranged and painted, and you cry out, ‘All is here!’ + +“Let us pass from pure, unmingled Number to corporate Number. Your +geometry establishes that a straight line is the shortest way from one +point to another, but your astronomy proves that God has proceeded +by curves. Here, then, we find two truths equally proved by the +same science,--one by the testimony of your senses reinforced by the +telescope, the other by the testimony of your mind; and yet the one +contradicts the other. Man, liable to err, affirms one, and the Maker +of the worlds, whom, so far, you have not detected in error, contradicts +it. Who shall decide between rectalinear and curvilinear geometry? +between the theory of the straight line and that of the curve? If, in +His vast work, the mysterious Artificer, who knows how to reach His ends +miraculously fast, never employs a straight line except to cut off an +angle and so obtain a curve, neither does man himself always rely upon +it. The bullet which he aims direct proceeds by a curve, and when you +wish to strike a certain point in space, you impel your bombshell along +its cruel parabola. None of your men of science have drawn from this +fact the simple deduction that the Curve is the law of the material +worlds and the Straight line that of the Spiritual worlds; one is the +theory of finite creations, the other the theory of the infinite. Man, +who alone in the world has a knowledge of the Infinite, can alone know +the straight line; he alone has the sense of verticality placed in a +special organ. A fondness for the creations of the curve would seem to +be in certain men an indication of the impurity of their nature still +conjoined to the material substances which engender us; and the love of +great souls for the straight line seems to show in them an intuition of +heaven. Between these two lines there is a gulf fixed like that between +the finite and the infinite, between matter and spirit, between man and +the idea, between motion and the object moved, between the creature and +God. Ask Love the Divine to grant you his wings and you can cross that +gulf. Beyond it begins the revelation of the Word. + +“No part of those things which you call material is without its own +meaning; lines are the boundaries of solid parts and imply a force +of action which you suppress in your formulas,--thus rendering those +formulas false in relation to substances taken as a whole. Hence the +constant destruction of the monuments of human labor, which you supply, +unknown to yourselves, with acting properties. Nature has substances; +your science combines only their appearances. At every step Nature +gives the lie to all your laws. Can you find a single one that is not +disproved by a fact? Your Static laws are at the mercy of a thousand +accidents; a fluid can overthrow a solid mountain and prove that the +heaviest substances may be lifted by one that is imponderable. + +“Your laws on Acoustics and Optics are defied by the sounds which you +hear within yourselves in sleep, and by the light of an electric sun +whose rays often overcome you. You know no more how light makes itself +seen within you, than you know the simple and natural process which +changes it on the throats of tropic birds to rubies, sapphires, +emeralds, and opals, or keeps it gray and brown on the breasts of the +same birds under the cloudy skies of Europe, or whitens it here in the +bosom of our polar Nature. You know not how to decide whether color is a +faculty with which all substances are endowed, or an effect produced by +an effluence of light. You admit the saltness of the sea without +being able to prove that the water is salt at its greatest depth. You +recognize the existence of various substances which span what you think +to be the void,--substances which are not tangible under any of the +forms assumed by Matter, although they put themselves in harmony with +Matter in spite of every obstacle. + +“All this being so, you believe in the results of Chemistry, although +that science still knows no way of gauging the changes produced by the +flux and reflux of substances which come and go across your crystals and +your instruments on the impalpable filaments of heat or light conducted +and projected by the affinities of metal or vitrified flint. You obtain +none but dead substances, from which you have driven the unknown force +that holds in check the decomposition of all things here below, and of +which cohesion, attraction, vibration, and polarity are but phenomena. +Life is the thought of substances; bodies are only the means of +fixing life and holding it to its way. If bodies were beings living of +themselves they would be Cause itself, and could not die. + +“When a man discovers the results of the general movement, which is +shared by all creations according to their faculty of absorption, you +proclaim him mighty in science, as though genius consisted in explaining +a thing that is! Genius ought to cast its eyes beyond effects. Your men +of science would laugh if you said to them: ‘There exist such positive +relations between two human beings, one of whom may be here, and +the other in Java, that they can at the same instant feel the same +sensation, and be conscious of so doing; they can question each other +and reply without mistake’; and yet there are mineral substances which +exhibit sympathies as far off from each other as those of which I speak. +You believe in the power of the electricity which you find in the magnet +and you deny that which emanates from the soul! According to you, the +moon, whose influence upon the tides you think fixed, has none whatever +upon the winds, nor upon navigation, nor upon men; she moves the sea, +but she must not affect the sick folk; she has undeniable relations +with one half of humanity, and nothing at all to do with the other half. +These are your vaunted certainties! + +“Let us go a step further. You believe in physics. But your physics +begin, like the Catholic religion, with an _act of faith_. Do they not +pre-suppose some external force distinct from substance to which it +communicates motion? You see its effects, but what is it? where is it? +what is the essence of its nature, its life? has it any limits?--and +yet, you deny God! + +“Thus, the majority of your scientific axioms, true to their relation to +man, are false in relation to the Great Whole. Science is One, but you +have divided it. To know the real meaning of the laws of phenomena must +we not know the correlations which exist between phenomena and the law +of the Whole? There is, in all things, an appearance which strikes +your senses; under that appearance stirs a soul; a body is there and a +faculty is there. Where do you teach the study of the relations which +bind things to each other? Nowhere. Consequently you have nothing +positive. Your strongest certainties rest upon the analysis of material +forms whose essence you persistently ignore. + +“There is a Higher Knowledge of which, too late, some men obtain a +glimpse, though they dare not avow it. Such men comprehend the necessity +of considering substances not merely in their mathematical properties +but also in their entirety, in their occult relations and affinities. +The greatest man among you divined, in his latter days, that all was +reciprocally cause and effect; that the visible worlds were co-ordinated +among themselves and subject to worlds invisible. He groaned at the +recollection of having tried to establish fixed precepts. Counting up +his worlds, like grape-seeds scattered through ether, he had explained +their coherence by the laws of planetary and molecular attraction. +You bowed before that man of science--well! I tell you that he died in +despair. By supposing that the centrifugal and centripetal forces, +which he had invented to explain to himself the universe, were equal, he +stopped the universe; yet he admitted motion in an indeterminate +sense; but supposing those forces unequal, then utter confusion of the +planetary system ensued. His laws therefore were not absolute; some +higher problem existed than the principle on which his false glory +rested. The connection of the stars with one another and the centripetal +action of their internal motion did not deter him from seeking the +parent stalk on which his clusters hung. Alas, poor man! the more he +widened space the heavier his burden grew. He told you how there came +to be equilibrium among the parts, but whither went the whole? His mind +contemplated the vast extent, illimitable to human eyes, filled with +those groups of worlds a mere fraction of which is all our telescopes +can reach, but whose immensity is revealed by the rapidity of light. +This sublime contemplation enabled him to perceive myriads of worlds, +planted in space like flowers in a field, which are born like infants, +grow like men, die as the aged die, and live by assimilating from their +atmosphere the substances suitable for their nourishment,--having +a centre and a principal of life, guaranteeing to each other their +circuits, absorbed and absorbing like plants, and forming a vast Whole +endowed with life and possessing a destiny. + +“At that sight your man of science trembled! He knew that life is +produced by the union of the thing and its principle, that death or +inertia or gravity is produced by a rupture between a thing and the +movement which appertains to it. Then it was that he foresaw the +crumbling of the worlds and their destruction if God should withdraw the +Breath of His Word. He searched the Apocalypse for the traces of that +Word. You thought him mad. Understand him better! He was seeking pardon +for the work of his genius. + +“Wilfrid, you have come here hoping to make me solve equations, or rise +upon a rain-cloud, or plunge into the fiord and reappear a swan. If +science or miracles were the end and object of humanity, Moses would +have bequeathed to you the law of fluxions; Jesus Christ would have +lightened the darkness of your sciences; his apostles would have told +you whence come those vast trains of gas and melted metals, attached +to cores which revolve and solidify as they dart through ether, or +violently enter some system and combine with a star, jostling and +displacing it by the shock, or destroying it by the infiltration of +their deadly gases; Saint Paul, instead of telling you to live in God, +would have explained why food is the secret bond among all creations and +the evident tie between all living Species. In these days the greatest +miracle of all would be the discovery of the squaring of the circle,--a +problem which you hold to be insoluble, but which is doubtless solved in +the march of worlds by the intersection of some mathematical lines whose +course is visible to the eye of spirits who have reached the higher +spheres. Believe me, miracles are in us, not without us. Here natural +facts occur which men call supernatural. God would have been strangely +unjust had he confined the testimony of his power to certain generations +and peoples and denied them to others. The brazen rod belongs to all. +Neither Moses, nor Jacob, nor Zoroaster, nor Paul, nor Pythagoras, nor +Swedenborg, not the humblest Messenger nor the loftiest Prophet of the +Most High are greater than you are capable of being. Only, there come to +nations as to men certain periods when Faith is theirs. + +“If material sciences be the end and object of human effort, tell +me, both of you, would societies,--those great centres where men +congregate,--would they perpetually be dispersed? If civilization were +the object of our Species, would intelligence perish? would it continue +purely individual? The grandeur of all nations that were truly great was +based on exceptions; when the exception ceased their power died. If such +were the End-all, Prophets, Seers, and Messengers of God would have lent +their hand to Science rather than have given it to Belief. Surely they +would have quickened your brains sooner than have touched your hearts! +But no; one and all they came to lead the nations back to God; they +proclaimed the sacred Path in simple words that showed the way to +heaven; all were wrapped in love and faith, all were inspired by that +_word_ which hovers above the inhabitants of earth, enfolding them, +inspiriting them, uplifting them; none were prompted by any human +interest. Your great geniuses, your poets, your kings, your learned men +are engulfed with their cities; while the names of these good pastors of +humanity, ever blessed, have survived all cataclysms. + +“Alas! we cannot understand each other on any point. We are separated by +an abyss. You are on the side of darkness, while I--I live in the light, +the true Light! Is this the word that you ask of me? I say it with joy; +it may change you. Know this: there are sciences of matter and sciences +of spirit. There, where you see substances, I see forces that stretch +one toward another with generating power. To me, the character of bodies +is the indication of their principles and the sign of their properties. +Those principles beget affinities which escape your knowledge, and +which are linked to centres. The different species among which life is +distributed are unfailing streams which correspond unfailingly among +themselves. Each has his own vocation. Man is effect and cause. He is +fed, but he feeds in turn. When you call God a Creator, you dwarf Him. +He did not create, as you think He did, plants or animals or stars. +Could He proceed by a variety of means? Must He not act by unity +of composition? Moreover, He gave forth principles to be developed, +according to His universal law, at the will of the surroundings in which +they were placed. Hence a single substance and motion, a single plant, a +single animal, but correlations everywhere. In fact, all affinities are +linked together by contiguous similitudes; the life of the worlds is +drawn toward the centres by famished aspiration, as you are drawn by +hunger to seek food. + +“To give you an example of affinities linked to similitudes (a secondary +law on which the creations of your thought are based), music, that +celestial art, is the working out of this principle; for is it not a +complement of sounds harmonized by number? Is not sound a modification +of air, compressed, dilated, echoed? You know the composition of +air,--oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon. As you cannot obtain sound from +the void, it is plain that music and the human voice are the result of +organized chemical substances, which put themselves in unison with the +same substances prepared within you by your thought, co-ordinated +by means of light, the great nourisher of your globe. Have you ever +meditated on the masses of nitre deposited by the snow, have you ever +observed a thunderstorm and seen the plants breathing in from the air +about them the metal it contains, without concluding that the sun has +fused and distributed the subtle essence which nourishes all things here +below? Swedenborg has said, ‘The earth is a man.’ + +“Your Science, which makes you great in your own eyes, is paltry indeed +beside the light which bathes a Seer. Cease, cease to question me; our +languages are different. For a moment I have used yours to cast, if it +be possible, a ray of faith into your soul; to give you, as it were, the +hem of my garment and draw you up into the regions of Prayer. Can God +abase Himself to you? Is it not for you to rise to Him? If human reason +finds the ladder of its own strength too weak to bring God down to it, +is it not evident that you must find some other path to reach Him? That +Path is in ourselves. The Seer and the Believer find eyes within their +souls more piercing far than eyes that probe the things of earth,--they +see the Dawn. Hear this truth: Your science, let it be never so exact, +your meditations, however bold, your noblest lights are Clouds. Above, +above is the Sanctuary whence the true Light flows.” + +She sat down and remained silent; her calm face bore no sign of the +agitation which orators betray after their least fervid improvisations. + +Wilfrid bent toward Monsieur Becker and said in a low voice, “Who taught +her that?” + +“I do not know,” he answered. + +“He was gentler on the Falberg,” Minna whispered to herself. + +Seraphita passed her hand across her eyes and then she said, smiling:-- + +“You are very thoughtful to-night, gentlemen. You treat Minna and me as +though we were men to whom you must talk politics or commerce; whereas +we are young girls, and you ought to tell us tales while you drink +your tea. That is what we do, Monsieur Wilfrid, in our long Norwegian +evenings. Come, dear pastor, tell me some Saga that I have not +heard,--that of Frithiof, the chronicle that you believe and have so +often promised me. Tell us the story of the peasant lad who owned the +ship that talked and had a soul. Come! I dream of the frigate Ellida, +the fairy with the sails young girls should navigate!” + +“Since we have returned to the regions of Jarvis,” said Wilfrid, whose +eyes were fastened on Seraphita as those of a robber, lurking in the +darkness, fasten on the spot where he knows the jewels lie, “tell me why +you do not marry?” + +“You are all born widows and widowers,” she replied; “but my marriage +was arranged at my birth. I am betrothed.” + +“To whom?” they cried. + +“Ask not my secret,” she said; “I will promise, if our father permits +it, to invite you to these mysterious nuptials.” + +“Will they be soon?” + +“I think so.” + +A long silence followed these words. + +“The spring has come!” said Seraphita, suddenly. “The noise of the +waters and the breaking of the ice begins. Come, let us welcome the +first spring of the new century.” + +She rose, followed by Wilfrid, and together they went to a window which +David had opened. After the long silence of winter, the waters stirred +beneath the ice and resounded through the fiord like music,--for there +are sounds which space refines, so that they reach the ear in waves of +light and freshness. + +“Wilfrid, cease to nourish evil thoughts whose triumph would be hard to +bear. Your desires are easily read in the fire of your eyes. Be kind; +take one step forward in well-doing. Advance beyond the love of man and +sacrifice yourself completely to the happiness of her you love. Obey me; +I will lead you in a path where you shall obtain the distinctions which +you crave, and where Love is infinite indeed.” + +She left him thoughtful. + +“That soft creature!” he said within himself; “is she indeed the +prophetess whose eyes have just flashed lightnings, whose voice has +rung through worlds, whose hand has wielded the axe of doubt against our +sciences? Have we been dreaming? Am I awake?” + +“Minna,” said Seraphita, returning to the young girl, “the eagle swoops +where the carrion lies, but the dove seeks the mountain spring beneath +the peaceful greenery of the glades. The eagle soars to heaven, the dove +descends from it. Cease to venture into regions where thou canst find +no spring of waters, no umbrageous shade. If on the Falberg thou couldst +not gaze into the abyss and live, keep all thy strength for him who will +love thee. Go, poor girl; thou knowest, I am betrothed.” + +Minna rose and followed Seraphita to the window where Wilfrid stood. All +three listened to the Sieg bounding out the rush of the upper waters, +which brought down trees uprooted by the ice; the fiord had regained +its voice; all illusions were dispelled! They rejoiced in Nature as she +burst her bonds and seemed to answer with sublime accord to the Spirit +whose breath had wakened her. + +When the three guests of this mysterious being left the house, they were +filled with the vague sensation which is neither sleep, nor torpor, +nor astonishment, but partakes of the nature of each,--a state that is +neither dusk nor dawn, but which creates a thirst for light. All three +were thinking. + +“I begin to believe that she is indeed a Spirit hidden in human form,” + said Monsieur Becker. + +Wilfrid, re-entering his own apartments, calm and convinced, was unable +to struggle against that influence so divinely majestic. + +Minna said in her heart, “Why will he not let me love him!” + + + + +CHAPTER V. FAREWELL + + +There is in man an almost hopeless phenomenon for thoughtful minds who +seek a meaning in the march of civilization, and who endeavor to give +laws of progression to the movement of intelligence. However portentous +a fact may be, or even supernatural,--if such facts exist,--however +solemnly a miracle may be done in sight of all, the lightning of that +fact, the thunderbolt of that miracle is quickly swallowed up in the +ocean of life, whose surface, scarcely stirred by the brief convulsion, +returns to the level of its habitual flow. + +A Voice is heard from the jaws of an Animal; a Hand writes on the wall +before a feasting Court; an Eye gleams in the slumber of a king, and a +Prophet explains the dream; Death, evoked, rises on the confines of the +luminous sphere were faculties revive; Spirit annihilates Matter at the +foot of that mystic ladder of the Seven Spiritual Worlds, one resting +upon another in space and revealing themselves in shining waves that +break in light upon the steps of the celestial Tabernacle. But however +solemn the inward Revelation, however clear the visible outward Sign, +be sure that on the morrow Balaam doubts both himself and his ass, +Belshazzar and Pharoah call Moses and Daniel to qualify the Word. The +Spirit, descending, bears man above this earth, opens the seas and lets +him see their depths, shows him lost species, wakens dry bones whose +dust is the soil of valleys; the Apostle writes the Apocalypse, and +twenty centuries later human science ratifies his words and turns his +visions into maxims. And what comes of it all? Why this,--that the +peoples live as they have ever lived, as they lived in the first +Olympiad, as they lived on the morrow of Creation, and on the eve of the +great cataclysm. The waves of Doubt have covered all things. The same +floods surge with the same measured motion on the human granite which +serves as a boundary to the ocean of intelligence. When man has inquired +of himself whether he has seen that which he has seen, whether he has +heard the words that entered his ears, whether the facts were facts and +the idea is indeed an idea, then he resumes his wonted bearing, thinks +of his worldly interests, obeys some envoy of death and of oblivion +whose dusky mantle covers like a pall an ancient Humanity of which +the moderns retain no memory. Man never pauses; he goes his round, +he vegetates until the appointed day when his Axe falls. If this wave +force, this pressure of bitter waters prevents all progress, no doubt it +also warns of death. Spirits prepared by faith among the higher souls of +earth can alone perceive the mystic ladder of Jacob. + +After listening to Seraphita’s answer in which (being earnestly +questioned) she unrolled before their eyes a Divine Perspective,--as an +organ fills a church with sonorous sound and reveals a musical universe, +its solemn tones rising to the loftiest arches and playing, like light, +upon their foliated capitals,--Wilfrid returned to his own room, awed +by the sight of a world in ruins, and on those ruins the brilliance of +mysterious lights poured forth in torrents by the hand of a young girl. +On the morrow he still thought of these things, but his awe was gone; he +felt he was neither destroyed nor changed; his passions, his ideas awoke +in full force, fresh and vigorous. He went to breakfast with Monsieur +Becker and found the old man absorbed in the “Treatise on Incantations,” + which he had searched since early morning to convince his guest that +there was nothing unprecedented in all that they had seen and heard at +the Swedish castle. With the childlike trustfulness of a true scholar +he had folded down the pages in which Jean Wier related authentic facts +which proved the possibility of the events that had happened the night +before,--for to learned men an idea is a event, just as the greatest +events often present no idea at all to them. By the time they had +swallowed their fifth cup of tea, these philosophers had come to think +the mysterious scene of the preceding evening wholly natural. The +celestial truths to which they had listened were arguments susceptible +of examination; Seraphita was a girl, more or less eloquent; allowance +must be made for the charms of her voice, her seductive beauty, her +fascinating motions, in short, for all those oratorical arts by which an +actor puts a world of sentiment and thought into phrases which are often +commonplace. + +“Bah!” said the worthy pastor, making a philosophical grimace as he +spread a layer of salt butter on his slice of bread, “the final word of +all these fine enigmas is six feet under ground.” + +“But,” said Wilfrid, sugaring his tea, “I cannot image how a young girl +of seventeen can know so much; what she said was certainly a compact +argument.” + +“Read the account of that Italian woman,” said Monsieur Becker, “who at +the age of twelve spoke forty-two languages, ancient and modern; also +the history of that monk who could guess thought by smell. I can give +you a thousand such cases from Jean Wier and other writers.” + +“I admit all that, dear pastor; but to my thinking, Seraphita would make +a perfect wife.” + +“She is all mind,” said Monsieur Becker, dubiously. + +Several days went by, during which the snow in the valleys melted +gradually away; the green of the forests and of the grass began to show; +Norwegian Nature made ready her wedding garments for her brief bridal +of a day. During this period, when the softened air invited every one +to leave the house, Seraphita remained at home in solitude. When at last +she admitted Minna the latter saw at once the ravages of inward fever; +Seraphita’s voice was hollow, her skin pallid; hitherto a poet might +have compared her lustre to that of diamonds,--now it was that of a +topaz. + +“Have you seen her?” asked Wilfrid, who had wandered around the Swedish +dwelling waiting for Minna’s return. + +“Yes,” answered the young girl, weeping; “We must lose him!” + +“Mademoiselle,” cried Wilfrid, endeavoring to repress the loud tones of +his angry voice, “do not jest with me. You can love Seraphita only +as one young girl can love another, and not with the love which she +inspires in me. You do not know your danger if my jealousy were really +aroused. Why can I not go to her? Is it you who stand in my way?” + +“I do not know by what right you probe my heart,” said Minna, calm +in appearance, but inwardly terrified. “Yes, I love him,” she said, +recovering the courage of her convictions, that she might, for once, +confess the religion of her heart. “But my jealousy, natural as it is +in love, fears no one here below. Alas! I am jealous of a secret feeling +that absorbs him. Between him and me there is a great gulf fixed which +I cannot cross. Would that I knew who loves him best, the stars or I! +which of us would sacrifice our being most eagerly for his happiness! +Why should I not be free to avow my love? In the presence of death we +may declare our feelings,--and Seraphitus is about to die.” + +“Minna, you are mistaken; the siren I so love and long for, she, whom +I have seen, feeble and languid, on her couch of furs, is not a young +man.” + +“Monsieur,” answered Minna, distressfully, “the being whose powerful +hand guided me on the Falberg, who led me to the saeter sheltered +beneath the Ice-Cap, there--” she said, pointing to the peak, “is not +a feeble girl. Ah, had you but heard him prophesying! His poem was the +music of thought. A young girl never uttered those solemn tones of a +voice which stirred my soul.” + +“What certainty have you?” said Wilfrid. + +“None but that of the heart,” answered Minna. + +“And I,” cried Wilfrid, casting on his companion the terrible glance of +the earthly desire that kills, “I, too, know how powerful is her empire +over me, and I will undeceive you.” + +At this moment, while the words were rushing from Wilfrid’s lips as +rapidly as the thoughts surged in his brain, they saw Seraphita coming +towards them from the house, followed by David. The apparition calmed +the man’s excitement. + +“Look,” he said, “could any but a woman move with that grace and +langor?” + +“He suffers; he comes forth for the last time,” said Minna. + +David went back at a sign from his mistress, who advanced towards +Wilfrid and Minna. + +“Let us go to the falls of the Sieg,” she said, expressing one of those +desires which suddenly possess the sick and which the well hasten to +obey. + +A thin white mist covered the valleys around the fiord and the sides +of the mountains, whose icy summits, sparkling like stars, pierced the +vapor and gave it the appearance of a moving milky way. The sun was +visible through the haze like a globe of red fire. Though winter still +lingered, puffs of warm air laden with the scent of the birch-trees, +already adorned with their rosy efflorescence, and of the larches, +whose silken tassels were beginning to appear,--breezes tempered by the +incense and the sighs of earth,--gave token of the glorious Northern +spring, the rapid, fleeting joy of that most melancholy of Natures. +The wind was beginning to lift the veil of mist which half-obscured the +gulf. The birds sang. The bark of the trees where the sun had not yet +dried the clinging hoar-frost shone gayly to the eye in its fantastic +wreathings which trickled away in murmuring rivulets as the warmth +reached them. The three friends walked in silence along the shore. +Wilfrid and Minna alone noticed the magic transformation that was taking +place in the monotonous picture of the winter landscape. Their companion +walked in thought, as though a voice were sounding to her ears in this +concert of Nature. + +Presently they reached the ledge of rocks through which the Sieg had +forced its way, after escaping from the long avenue cut by its waters +in an undulating line through the forest,--a fluvial pathway flanked +by aged firs and roofed with strong-ribbed arches like those of a +cathedral. Looking back from that vantage-ground, the whole extent of +the fiord could be seen at a glance, with the open sea sparkling on the +horizon beyond it like a burnished blade. + +At this moment the mist, rolling away, left the sky blue and clear. +Among the valleys and around the trees flitted the shining fragments,--a +diamond dust swept by the freshening breeze. The torrent rolled on +toward them; along its length a vapor rose, tinted by the sun with every +color of his light; the decomposing rays flashing prismatic fires along +the many-tinted scarf of waters. The rugged ledge on which they stood +was carpeted by several kinds of lichen, forming a noble mat variegated +by moisture and lustrous like the sheen of a silken fabric. Shrubs, +already in bloom, crowned the rocks with garlands. Their waving foliage, +eager for the freshness of the water, drooped its tresses above the +stream; the larches shook their light fringes and played with the pines, +stiff and motionless as aged men. This luxuriant beauty was foiled by +the solemn colonnades of the forest-trees, rising in terraces upon the +mountains, and by the calm sheet of the fiord, lying below, where the +torrent buried its fury and was still. Beyond, the sea hemmed in this +page of Nature, written by the greatest of poets, Chance; to whom the +wild luxuriance of creation when apparently abandoned to itself is +owing. + +The village of Jarvis was a lost point in the landscape, in this +immensity of Nature, sublime at this moment like all things else of +ephemeral life which present a fleeting image of perfection; for, by a +law fatal to no eyes but our own, creations which appear complete--the +love of our heart and the desire of our eyes--have but one spring-tide +here below. Standing on this breast-work of rock these three persons +might well suppose themselves alone in the universe. + +“What beauty!” cried Wilfrid. + +“Nature sings hymns,” said Seraphita. “Is not her music exquisite? Tell +me, Wilfrid, could any of the women you once knew create such a glorious +retreat for herself as this? I am conscious here of a feeling seldom +inspired by the sight of cities, a longing to lie down amid this +quickening verdure. Here, with eyes to heaven and an open heart, lost in +the bosom of immensity, I could hear the sighings of the flower, scarce +budded, which longs for wings, or the cry of the eider grieving that it +can only fly, and remember the desires of man who, issuing from all, +is none the less ever longing. But that, Wilfrid, is only a woman’s +thought. You find seductive fancies in the wreathing mists, the +light embroidered veils which Nature dons like a coy maiden, in this +atmosphere where she perfumes for her spousals the greenery of her +tresses. You seek the naiad’s form amid the gauzy vapors, and to your +thinking my ears should listen only to the virile voice of the Torrent.” + +“But Love is there, like the bee in the calyx of the flower,” replied +Wilfrid, perceiving for the first time a trace of earthly sentiment in +her words, and fancying the moment favorable for an expression of his +passionate tenderness. + +“Always there?” said Seraphita, smiling. Minna had left them for a +moment to gather the blue saxifrages growing on a rock above. + +“Always,” repeated Wilfrid. “Hear me,” he said, with a masterful glance +which was foiled as by a diamond breast-plate. “You know not what I am, +nor what I can be, nor what I will. Do not reject my last entreaty. +Be mine for the good of that world whose happiness you bear upon your +heart. Be mine that my conscience may be pure; that a voice divine +may sound in my ears and infuse Good into the great enterprise I have +undertaken prompted by my hatred to the nations, but which I swear to +accomplish for their benefit if you will walk beside me. What higher +mission can you ask for love? what nobler part can woman aspire to? I +came to Norway to meditate a grand design.” + +“And you will sacrifice its grandeur,” she said, “to an innocent girl +who loves you, and who will lead you in the paths of peace.” + +“What matters sacrifice,” he cried, “if I have you? Hear my secret. I +have gone from end to end of the North,--that great smithy from whose +anvils new races have spread over the earth, like human tides appointed +to refresh the wornout civilizations. I wished to begin my work at some +Northern point, to win the empire which force and intellect must ever +give over a primitive people; to form that people for battle, to drive +them to wars which should ravage Europe like a conflagration, crying +liberty to some, pillage to others, glory here, pleasure there!--I, +myself, remaining an image of Destiny, cruel, implacable, advancing like +the whirlwind, which sucks from the atmosphere the particles that make +the thunderbolt, and falls like a devouring scourge upon the nations. +Europe is at an epoch when she awaits the new Messiah who shall destroy +society and remake it. She can no longer believe except in him who +crushes her under foot. The day is at hand when poets and historians +will justify me, exalt me, and borrow my ideas, mine! And all the while +my triumph will be a jest, written in blood, the jest of my vengeance! +But not here, Seraphita; what I see in the North disgusts me. Hers is +a mere blind force; I thirst for the Indies! I would rather fight a +selfish, cowardly, mercantile government. Besides, it is easier to stir +the imagination of the peoples at the feet of the Caucasus than to argue +with the intellect of the icy lands which here surround me. Therefore am +I tempted to cross the Russian steps and pour my triumphant human tide +through Asia to the Ganges, and overthrow the British rule. Seven men +have done this thing before me in other epochs of the world. I will +emulate them. I will spread Art like the Saracens, hurled by Mohammed +upon Europe. Mine shall be no paltry sovereignty like those that govern +to-day the ancient provinces of the Roman empire, disputing with their +subjects about a customs right! No, nothing can bar my way! Like Genghis +Khan, my feet shall tread a third of the globe, my hand shall grasp +the throat of Asia like Aurung-Zeb. Be my companion! Let me seat thee, +beautiful and noble being, on a throne! I do not doubt success, but live +within my heart and I am sure of it.” + +“I have already reigned,” said Seraphita, coldly. + +The words fell as the axe of a skilful woodman falls at the root of a +young tree and brings it down at a single blow. Men alone can comprehend +the rage that a woman excites in the soul of a man when, after showing +her his strength, his power, his wisdom, his superiority, the capricious +creature bends her head and says, “All that is nothing”; when, unmoved, +she smiles and says, “Such things are known to me,” as though his power +were nought. + +“What!” cried Wilfrid, in despair, “can the riches of art, the riches of +worlds, the splendors of a court--” + +She stopped him by a single inflexion of her lips, and said, “Beings +more powerful than you have offered me far more.” + +“Thou hast no soul,” he cried,--“no soul, if thou art not persuaded by +the thought of comforting a great man, who is willing now to sacrifice +all things to live beside thee in a little house on the shores of a +lake.” + +“But,” she said, “I am loved with a boundless love.” + +“By whom?” cried Wilfrid, approaching Seraphita with a frenzied +movement, as if to fling her into the foaming basin of the Sieg. + +She looked at him and slowly extended her arm, pointing to Minna, who +now sprang towards her, fair and glowing and lovely as the flowers she +held in her hand. + +“Child!” said Seraphitus, advancing to meet her. + +Wilfrid remained where she left him, motionless as the rock on which he +stood, lost in thought, longing to let himself go into the torrent +of the Sieg, like the fallen trees which hurried past his eyes and +disappeared in the bosom of the gulf. + +“I gathered them for you,” said Minna, offering the bunch of saxifrages +to the being she adored. “One of them, see, this one,” she added, +selecting a flower, “is like that you found on the Falberg.” + +Seraphitus looked alternately at the flower and at Minna. + +“Why question me? Dost thou doubt me?” + +“No,” said the young girl, “my trust in you is infinite. You are +more beautiful to look upon than this glorious nature, but your mind +surpasses in intellect that of all humanity. When I have been with you I +seem to have prayed to God. I long--” + +“For what?” said Seraphitus, with a glance that revealed to the young +girl the vast distance which separated them. + +“To suffer in your stead.” + +“Ah, dangerous being!” cried Seraphitus in his heart. “Is it wrong, oh +my God! to desire to offer her to Thee? Dost thou remember, Minna, +what I said to thee up there?” he added, pointing to the summit of the +Ice-Cap. + +“He is terrible again,” thought Minna, trembling with fear. + +The voice of the Sieg accompanied the thoughts of the three beings +united on this platform of projecting rock, but separated in soul by the +abysses of the Spiritual World. + +“Seraphitus! teach me,” said Minna in a silvery voice, soft as the +motion of a sensitive plant, “teach me how to cease to love you. Who +could fail to admire you; love is an admiration that never wearies.” + +“Poor child!” said Seraphitus, turning pale; “there is but one whom thou +canst love in that way.” + +“Who?” asked Minna. + +“Thou shalt know hereafter,” he said, in the feeble voice of a man who +lies down to die. + +“Help, help! he is dying!” cried Minna. + +Wilfrid ran towards them. Seeing Seraphita as she lay on a fragment of +gneiss, where time had cast its velvet mantle of lustrous lichen and +tawny mosses now burnished in the sunlight, he whispered softly, “How +beautiful she is!” + +“One other look! the last that I shall ever cast upon this nature in +travail,” said Seraphitus, rallying her strength and rising to her feet. + +She advanced to the edge of the rocky platform, whence her eyes took in +the scenery of that grand and glorious landscape, so verdant, flowery, +and animated, yet so lately buried in its winding-sheet of snow. + +“Farewell,” she said, “farewell, home of Earth, warmed by the fires of +Love; where all things press with ardent force from the centre to the +extremities; where the extremities are gathered up, like a woman’s hair, +to weave the mysterious braid which binds us in that invisible ether to +the Thought Divine! + +“Behold the man bending above that furrow moistened with his tears, +who lifts his head for an instant to question Heaven; behold the woman +gathering her children that she may feed them with her milk; see him +who lashes the ropes in the height of the gale; see her who sits in the +hollow of the rocks, awaiting the father! Behold all they who stretch +their hands in want after a lifetime spent in thankless toil. To all +peace and courage, and to all farewell! + +“Hear you the cry of the soldier, dying nameless and unknown? the wail +of the man deceived who weeps in the desert? To them peace and courage; +to all farewell! + +“Farewell, you who die for the kings of the earth! Farewell, ye people +without a country and ye countries without a people, each, with a mutual +want. Above all, farewell to Thee who knew not where to lay Thy head, +Exile divine! Farewell, mothers beside your dying sons! Farewell, ye +Little Ones, ye Feeble, ye Suffering, you whose sorrows I have so often +borne! Farewell, all ye who have descended into the sphere of Instinct +that you may suffer there for others! + +“Farewell, ye mariners who seek the Orient through the thick darkness of +your abstractions, vast as principles! Farewell, martyrs of thought, +led by thought into the presence of the True Light. Farewell, regions +of study where mine ears can hear the plaint of genius neglected and +insulted, the sigh of the patient scholar to whom enlightenment comes +too late! + +“I see the angelic choir, the wafting of perfumes, the incense of the +heart of those who go their way consoling, praying, imparting celestial +balm and living light to suffering souls! Courage, ye choir of Love! +you to whom the peoples cry, ‘Comfort us, comfort us, defend us!’ To you +courage! and farewell! + +“Farewell, ye granite rocks that shall bloom a flower; farewell, flower +that becomes a dove; farewell, dove that shalt be woman; farewell, +woman, who art Suffering, man, who art Belief! Farewell, you who shall +be all love, all prayer!” + +Broken with fatigue, this inexplicable being leaned for the first time +on Wilfrid and on Minna to be taken home. Wilfrid and Minna felt +the shock of a mysterious contact in and through the being who thus +connected them. They had scarcely advanced a few steps when David +met them, weeping. “She will die,” he said, “why have you brought her +hither?” + +The old man raised her in his arms with the vigor of youth and bore her +to the gate of the Swedish castle like an eagle bearing a white lamb to +his mountain eyrie. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. THE PATH TO HEAVEN + + +The day succeeding that on which Seraphita foresaw her death and bade +farewell to Earth, as a prisoner looks round his dungeon before leaving +it forever, she suffered pains which obliged her to remain in the +helpless immobility of those whose pangs are great. Wilfrid and Minna +went to see her, and found her lying on her couch of furs. Still veiled +in flesh, her soul shone through that veil, which grew more and more +transparent day by day. The progress of the Spirit, piercing the last +obstacle between itself and the Infinite, was called an illness, the +hour of Life went by the name of death. David wept as he watched +her sufferings; unreasonable as a child, he would not listen to his +mistress’s consolations. Monsieur Becker wished Seraphita to try +remedies; but all were useless. + +One morning she sent for the two beings whom she loved, telling them +that this would be the last of her bad days. Wilfrid and Minna came in +terror, knowing well that they were about to lose her. Seraphita smiled +to them as one departing to a better world; her head drooped like a +flower heavy with dew, which opens its calyx for the last time to waft +its fragrance on the breeze. She looked at these friends with a sadness +that was for them, not for herself; she thought no longer of herself, +and they felt this with a grief mingled with gratitude which they were +unable to express. Wilfrid stood silent and motionless, lost in thoughts +excited by events whose vast bearings enabled him to conceive of some +illimitable immensity. + +Emboldened by the weakness of the being lately so powerful, or perhaps +by the fear of losing him forever, Minna bent down over the couch and +said, “Seraphitus, let me follow thee!” + +“Can I forbid thee?” + +“Why will thou not love me enough to stay with me?” + +“I can love nothing here.” + +“What canst thou love?” + +“Heaven.” + +“Is it worthy of heaven to despise the creatures of God?” + +“Minna, can we love two beings at once? Would our beloved be indeed our +beloved if he did not fill our hearts? Must he not be the first, the +last, the only one? She who is all love, must she not leave the world +for her beloved? Human ties are but a memory, she has no ties except to +him! Her soul is hers no longer; it is his. If she keeps within her +soul anything that is not his, does she love? No, she loves not. To +love feebly, is that to love at all? The voice of her beloved makes her +joyful; it flows through her veins in a crimson tide more glowing far +than blood; his glance is the light that penetrates her; her being melts +into his being. He is warm to her soul. He is the light that lightens; +near to him there is neither cold nor darkness. He is never absent, he +is always with us; we think in him, to him, by him! Minna, that is how I +love him.” + +“Love whom?” said Minna, tortured with sudden jealousy. + +“God,” replied Seraphitus, his voice glowing in their souls like fires +of liberty from peak to peak upon the mountains,--“God, who does not +betray us! God, who will never abandon us! who crowns our wishes; who +satisfies His creatures with joy--joy unalloyed and infinite! God, +who never wearies but ever smiles! God, who pours into the soul fresh +treasures day by day; who purifies and leaves no bitterness; who is all +harmony, all flame! God, who has placed Himself within our hearts to +blossom there; who hearkens to our prayers; who does not stand aloof +when we are His, but gives His presence absolutely! He who revives us, +magnifies us, and multiplies us in Himself; _God_! Minna, I love thee +because thou mayst be His! I love thee because if thou come to Him thou +wilt be mine.” + +“Lead me to Him,” cried Minna, kneeling down; “take me by the hand; I +will not leave thee!” + +“Lead us, Seraphita!” cried Wilfrid, coming to Minna’s side with an +impetuous movement. “Yes, thou hast given me a thirst for Light, a +thirst for the Word. I am parched with the Love thou hast put into my +heart; I desire to keep thy soul in mine; thy will is mine; I will do +whatsoever thou biddest me. Since I cannot obtain thee, I will keep thy +will and all the thoughts that thou hast given me. If I may not unite +myself with thee except by the power of my spirit, I will cling to thee +in soul as the flame to what it laps. Speak!” + +“Angel!” exclaimed the mysterious being, enfolding them both in +one glance, as it were with an azure mantle, “Heaven shall by thine +heritage!” + +Silence fell among them after these words, which sounded in the souls of +the man and of the woman like the first notes of some celestial harmony. + +“If you would teach your feet to tread the Path to heaven, know that +the way is hard at first,” said the weary sufferer; “God wills that you +shall seek Him for Himself. In that sense, He is jealous; He demands +your whole self. But when you have given Him yourself, never, never will +He abandon you. I leave with you the keys of the kingdom of His Light, +where evermore you shall dwell in the bosom of the Father, in the heart +of the Bridegroom. No sentinels guard the approaches, you may enter +where you will; His palaces, His treasures, His sceptre, all are +free. ‘Take them!’ He says. But--you must _will_ to go there. Like +one preparing for a journey, a man must leave his home, renounce his +projects, bid farewell to friends, to father, mother, sister, even +to the helpless brother who cries after him,--yes, farewell to them +eternally; you will no more return than did the martyrs on their way to +the stake. You must strip yourself of every sentiment, of everything to +which man clings. Unless you do this you are but half-hearted in your +enterprise. + +“Do for God what you do for your ambitious projects, what you do in +consecrating yourself to Art, what you have done when you loved a human +creature or sought some secret of human science. Is not God the whole +of science, the all of love, the source of poetry? Surely His riches +are worthy of being coveted! His treasure is inexhaustible, His poem +infinite, His love immutable, His science sure and darkened by no +mysteries. Be anxious for nothing, He will give you all. Yes, in His +heart are treasures with which the petty joys you lose on earth are not +to be compared. What I tell you is true; you shall possess His power; +you may use it as you would use the gifts of lover or mistress. Alas! +men doubt, they lack faith, and will, and persistence. If some set their +feet in the path, they look behind them and presently turn back. Few +decide between the two extremes,--to go or stay, heaven or the mire. All +hesitate. Weakness leads astray, passion allures into dangerous paths, +vice becomes habitual, man flounders in the mud and makes no progress +towards a better state. + +“All human beings go through a previous life in the sphere of Instinct, +where they are brought to see the worthlessness of earthly treasures, +to amass which they gave themselves such untold pains! Who can tell how +many times the human being lives in the sphere of Instinct before he +is prepared to enter the sphere of Abstractions, where thought expends +itself on erring science, where mind wearies at last of human language? +for, when Matter is exhausted, Spirit enters. Who knows how many fleshly +forms the heir of heaven occupies before he can be brought to understand +the value of that silence and solitude whose starry plains are but the +vestibule of Spiritual Worlds? He feels his way amid the void, makes +trial of nothingness, and then at last his eyes revert upon the Path. +Then follow other existences,--all to be lived to reach the place +where Light effulgent shines. Death is the post-house of the journey. A +lifetime may be needed merely to gain the virtues which annul the +errors of man’s preceding life. First comes the life of suffering, whose +tortures create a thirst for love. Next the life of love and devotion +to the creature, teaching devotion to the Creator,--a life where the +virtues of love, its martyrdoms, its joys followed by sorrows, its +angelic hopes, its patience, its resignation, excite an appetite for +things divine. Then follows the life which seeks in silence the traces +of the Word; in which the soul grows humble and charitable. Next the +life of longing; and lastly, the life of prayer. In that is the noonday +sun; there are the flowers, there the harvest! + +“The virtues we acquire, which develop slowly within us, are +the invisible links that bind each one of our existences to the +others,--existences which the spirit alone remembers, for Matter has no +memory for spiritual things. Thought alone holds the tradition of the +bygone life. The endless legacy of the past to the present is the secret +source of human genius. Some receive the gift of form, some the gift +of numbers, others the gift of harmony. All these gifts are steps of +progress in the Path of Light. Yes, he who possesses a single one of +them touches at that point the Infinite. Earth has divided the Word--of +which I here reveal some syllables--into particles, she has reduced it +to dust and has scattered it through her works, her dogmas, her poems. +If some impalpable grain shines like a diamond in a human work, men cry: +‘How grand! how true! how glorious!’ That fragment vibrates in their +souls and wakes a presentiment of heaven: to some, a melody that +weans from earth; to others, the solitude that draws to God. To all, +whatsoever sends us back upon ourselves, whatsoever strikes us down and +crushes us, lifts or abases us,--_that_ is but a syllable of the Divine +Word. + +“When a human soul draws its first furrow straight, the rest will follow +surely. One thought borne inward, one prayer uplifted, one suffering +endured, one echo of the Word within us, and our souls are forever +changed. All ends in God; and many are the ways to find Him by walking +straight before us. When the happy day arrives in which you set your +feet upon the Path and begin your pilgrimage, the world will know +nothing of it; earth no longer understands you; you no longer understand +each other. Men who attain a knowledge of these things, who lisp a few +syllables of the Word, often have not where to lay their head; hunted +like beasts they perish on the scaffold, to the joy of assembled +peoples, while Angels open to them the gates of heaven. Therefore, your +destiny is a secret between yourself and God, just as love is a secret +between two hearts. You may be the buried treasure, trodden under the +feet of men thirsting for gold yet all-unknowing that you are there +beneath them. + +“Henceforth your existence becomes a thing of ceaseless activity; each +act has a meaning which connects you with God, just as in love your +actions and your thoughts are filled with the loved one. But love and +its joys, love and its pleasures limited by the senses, are but the +imperfect image of the love which unites you to your celestial Spouse. +All earthly joy is mixed with anguish, with discontent. If love ought +not to pall then death should end it while its flame is high, so that +we see no ashes. But in God our wretchedness becomes delight, joy lives +upon itself and multiplies, and grows, and has no limit. In the Earthly +life our fleeting love is ended by tribulation; in the Spiritual life +the tribulations of a day end in joys unending. The soul is ceaselessly +joyful. We feel God with us, in us; He gives a sacred savor to all +things; He shines in the soul; He imparts to us His sweetness; He stills +our interest in the world viewed for ourselves; He quickens our interest +in it viewed for His sake, and grants us the exercise of His power upon +it. In His name we do the works which He inspires, we act for Him, we +have no self except in Him, we love His creatures with undying love, we +dry their tears and long to bring them unto Him, as a loving woman longs +to see the inhabitants of earth obey her well-beloved. + +“The final life, the fruition of all other lives, to which the powers +of the soul have tended, and whose merits open the Sacred Portals to +perfected man, is the life of Prayer. Who can make you comprehend the +grandeur, the majesty, the might of Prayer? May my voice, these words of +mine, ring in your hearts and change them. Be now, here, what you may +be after cruel trial! There are privileged beings, Prophets, Seers, +Messengers, and Martyrs, all those who suffer for the Word and who +proclaim it; such souls spring at a bound across the human sphere and +rise at once to Prayer. So, too, with those whose souls receive the fire +of Faith. Be one of those brave souls! God welcomes boldness. He loves +to be taken by violence; He will never reject those who force their way +to Him. Know this! desire, the torrent of your will, is so all-powerful +that a single emission of it, made with force, can obtain all; a single +cry, uttered under the pressure of Faith, suffices. Be one of such +beings, full of force, of will, of love! Be conquerors on the earth! Let +the hunger and thirst of God possess you. Fly to Him as the hart panting +for the water-brooks. Desire shall lend you its wings; tears, those +blossoms of repentance, shall be the celestial baptism from which your +nature will issue purified. Cast yourself on the breast of the stream in +Prayer! Silence and meditation are the means of following the Way. God +reveals Himself, unfailingly, to the solitary, thoughtful seeker. + +“It is thus that the separation takes place between Matter, which so +long has wrapped its darkness round you, and Spirit, which was in you +from the beginning, the light which lighted you and now brings noon-day +to your soul. Yes, your broken heart shall receive the light; the light +shall bathe it. Then you will no longer feel convictions, they will +have changed to certainties. The Poet utters; the Thinker meditates; the +Righteous acts; but he who stands upon the borders of the Divine World +prays; and his prayer is word, thought, action, in one! Yes, prayer +includes all, contains all; it completes nature, for it reveals to you +the mind within it and its progression. White and shining virgin of all +human virtues, ark of the covenant between earth and heaven, tender and +strong companion partaking of the lion and of the lamb, Prayer! Prayer +will give you the key of heaven! Bold and pure as innocence, strong, +like all that is single and simple, this glorious, invincible Queen +rests, nevertheless, on the material world; she takes possession of it; +like the sun, she clasps it in a circle of light. The universe belongs +to him who wills, who knows, who prays; but he must will, he must know, +he must pray; in a word, he must possess force, wisdom, and faith. + +“Therefore Prayer, issuing from so many trials, is the consummation +of all truths, all powers, all feelings. Fruit of the laborious, +progressive, continued development of natural properties and faculties +vitalized anew by the divine breath of the Word, Prayer has occult +activity; it is the final worship--not the material worship of images, +nor the spiritual worship of formulas, but the worship of the Divine +World. We say no prayers,--prayer forms within us; it is a faculty which +acts of itself; it has attained a way of action which lifts it outside +of forms; it links the soul to God, with whom we unite as the root of +the tree unites with the soil; our veins draw life from the principle of +life, and we live by the life of the universe. Prayer bestows external +conviction by making us penetrate the Material World through the +cohesion of all our faculties with the elementary substances; it bestows +internal conviction by developing our essence and mingling it with that +of the Spiritual Worlds. To be able to pray thus, you must attain to an +utter abandonment of flesh; you must acquire through the fires of the +furnace the purity of the diamond; for this complete communion with the +Divine is obtained only in absolute repose, where storms and conflicts +are at rest. + +“Yes, Prayer--the aspiration of the soul freed absolutely from the +body--bears all forces within it, and applies them to the constant and +perseverant union of the Visible and the Invisible. When you possess +the faculty of praying without weariness, with love, with force, with +certainty, with intelligence, your spiritualized nature will presently +be invested with power. Like a rushing wind, like a thunderbolt, it cuts +its way through all things and shares the power of God. The quickness +of the Spirit becomes yours; in an instant you may pass from region to +region; like the Word itself, you are transported from the ends of the +world to other worlds. Harmony exists, and you are part of it! Light is +there and your eyes possess it! Melody is heard and you echo it! Under +such conditions, you feel your perceptions developing, widening; the +eyes of your mind reach to vast distances. There is, in truth, neither +time nor place to the Spirit; space and duration are proportions created +for Matter; spirit and matter have naught in common. + +“Though these things take place in stillness, in silence, without +agitation, without external movement, yet Prayer is all action; but it +is spiritual action, stripped of substantiality, and reduced, like +the motion of the worlds, to an invisible pure force. It penetrates +everywhere like light; it gives vitality to souls that come beneath its +rays, as Nature beneath the sun. It resuscitates virtue, purifies and +sanctifies all actions, peoples solitude, and gives a foretaste of +eternal joys. When you have once felt the delights of the divine +intoxication which comes of this internal travail, then all is yours! +once take the lute on which we sing to God within your hands, and you +will never part with it. Hence the solitude in which Angelic Spirits +live; hence their disdain of human joys. They are withdrawn from those +who must die to live; they hear the language of such beings, but they no +longer understand their ideas; they wonder at their movements, at +what the world terms policies, material laws, societies. For them all +mysteries are over; truth, and truth alone, is theirs. They who have +reached the point where their eyes discern the Sacred Portals, who, not +looking back, not uttering one regret, contemplate worlds and comprehend +their destinies, such as they keep silence, wait, and bear their final +struggles. The worst of all those struggles is the last; at the zenith +of all virtue is Resignation,--to be an exile and not lament, no longer +to delight in earthly things and yet to smile, to belong to God and yet +to stay with men! You hear the voice that cries to you, ‘Advance!’ Often +celestial visions of descending Angels compass you about with songs +of praise; then, tearless, uncomplaining, must you watch them as they +reascent the skies! To murmur is to forfeit all. Resignation is a fruit +that ripens at the gates of heaven. How powerful, how glorious the calm +smile, the pure brow of the resigned human creature. Radiant is the +light of that brow. They who live in its atmosphere grow purer. That +calm glance penetrates and softens. More eloquent by silence than the +prophet by speech, such beings triumph by their simple presence. Their +ears are quick to hear as a faithful dog listening for his master. +Brighter than hope, stronger than love, higher than faith, that creature +of resignation is the virgin standing on the earth, who holds for a +moment the conquered palm, then, rising heavenward, leaves behind her +the imprint of her white, pure feet. When she has passed away men flock +around and cry, ‘See! See!’ Sometimes God holds her still in sight,--a +figure to whose feet creep Forms and Species of Animality to be shown +their way. She wafts the light exhaling from her hair, and they see; she +speaks, and they hear. ‘A miracle!’ they cry. Often she triumphs in the +name of God; frightened men deny her and put her to death; smiling, she +lays down her sword and goes to the stake, having saved the Peoples. +How many a pardoned Angel has passed from martyrdom to heaven! Sinai, +Golgotha are not in this place nor in that; Angels are crucified +in every place, in every sphere. Sighs pierce to God from the whole +universe. This earth on which we live is but a single sheaf of the great +harvest; humanity is but a species in the vast garden where the flowers +of heaven are cultivated. Everywhere God is like unto Himself, and +everywhere, by prayer, it is easy to reach Him.” + +With these words, which fell from the lips of another Hagar in the +wilderness, burning the souls of the hearers as the live coal of the +word inflamed Isaiah, this mysterious being paused as though to gather +some remaining strength. Wilfrid and Minna dared not speak. Suddenly HE +lifted himself up to die:-- + +“Soul of all things, oh my God, thou whom I love for Thyself! Thou, +Judge and Father, receive a love which has no limit. Give me of thine +essence and thy faculties that I be wholly thine! Take me, that I no +longer be myself! Am I not purified? then cast me back into the furnace! +If I be not yet proved in the fire, make me some nurturing ploughshare, +or the Sword of victory! Grant me a glorious martyrdom in which to +proclaim thy Word! Rejected, I will bless thy justice. But if excess +of love may win in a moment that which hard and patient labor cannot +attain, then bear me upward in thy chariot of fire! Grant me triumph, or +further trial, still will I bless thee! To suffer for thee, is not that +to triumph? Take me, seize me, bear me away! nay, if thou wilt, reject +me! Thou art He who can do no evil. Ah!” he cried, after a pause, “the +bonds are breaking. + +“Spirits of the pure, ye sacred flock, come forth from the hidden +places, come on the surface of the luminous waves! The hour now is; +come, assemble! Let us sing at the gates of the Sanctuary; our songs +shall drive away the final clouds. With one accord let us hail the Dawn +of the Eternal Day. Behold the rising of the one True Light! Ah, why may +I not take with me these my friends! Farewell, poor earth, Farewell!” + + + + +CHAPTER VII. THE ASSUMPTION + + +The last psalm was uttered neither by word, look, nor gesture, nor by +any of those signs which men employ to communicate their thoughts, but +as the soul speaks to itself; for at the moment when Seraphita revealed +herself in her true nature, her thoughts were no longer enslaved by +human words. The violence of that last prayer had burst her bonds. Her +soul, like a white dove, remained for an instant poised above the body +whose exhausted substances were about to be annihilated. + +The aspiration of the Soul toward heaven was so contagious that Wilfrid +and Minna, beholding those radiant scintillations of Life, perceived not +Death. + +They had fallen on their knees when _he_ had turned toward his Orient, +and they shared his ecstasy. + +The fear of the Lord, which creates man a second time, purging away his +dross, mastered their hearts. + +Their eyes, veiled to the things of Earth, were opened to the Brightness +of Heaven. + +Though, like the Seers of old called Prophets by men, they were filled +with the terror of the Most High, yet like them they continued firm +when they found themselves within the radiance where the Glory of the +_Spirit_ shone. + +The veil of flesh, which, until now, had hidden that glory from their +eyes, dissolved imperceptibly away, and left them free to behold the +Divine substance. + +They stood in the twilight of the Coming Dawn, whose feeble rays +prepared them to look upon the True Light, to hear the Living Word, and +yet not die. + +In this state they began to perceive the immeasurable differences which +separate the things of earth from the things of Heaven. + +_Life_, on the borders of which they stood, leaning upon each other, +trembling and illuminated, like two children standing under shelter +in presence of a conflagration, That Life offered no lodgment to the +senses. + +The ideas they used to interpret their vision to themselves were to +the things seen what the visible senses of a man are to his soul, the +material covering of a divine essence. + +The departing _spirit_ was above them, shedding incense without odor, +melody without sound. About them, where they stood, were neither +surfaces, nor angles, nor atmosphere. + +They dared neither question him nor contemplate him; they stood in the +shadow of that Presence as beneath the burning rays of a tropical sun, +fearing to raise their eyes lest the light should blast them. + +They knew they were beside him, without being able to perceive how it +was that they stood, as in a dream, on the confines of the Visible and +the Invisible, nor how they had lost sight of the Visible and how they +beheld the Invisible. + +To each other they said: “If he touches us, we can die!” But the +_spirit_ was now within the Infinite, and they knew not that neither +time, nor space, nor death, existed there, and that a great gulf lay +between them, although they thought themselves beside him. + +Their souls were not prepared to receive in its fulness a knowledge +of the faculties of that Life; they could have only faint and confused +perceptions of it, suited to their weakness. + +Were it not so, the thunder of the _Living Word_, whose far-off tones +now reached their ears, and whose meaning entered their souls as life +unites with body,--one echo of that Word would have consumed their being +as a whirlwind of fire laps up a fragile straw. + +Therefore they saw only that which their nature, sustained by the +strength of the _spirit_, permitted them to see; they heard that only +which they were able to hear. + +And yet, though thus protected, they shuddered when the Voice of the +anguished soul broke forth above them--the prayer of the _Spirit_ +awaiting Life and imploring it with a cry. + +That cry froze them to the very marrow of their bones. + +The _Spirit_ knocked at the _sacred portal_. “What wilt thou?” answered +a _choir_, whose question echoed among the worlds. “To go to God.” “Hast +thou conquered?” “I have conquered the flesh through abstinence, I +have conquered false knowledge by humility, I have conquered pride by +charity, I have conquered the earth by love; I have paid my dues by +suffering, I am purified in the fires of faith, I have longed for Life +by prayer: I wait in adoration, and I am resigned.” + +No answer came. + +“God’s will be done!” answered the _Spirit_, believing that he was about +to be rejected. + +His tears flowed and fell like dew upon the heads of the two kneeling +witnesses, who trembled before the justice of God. + +Suddenly the trumpets sounded,--the last trumpets of Victory won by the +_Angel_ in this last trial. The reverberation passed through space +as sound through its echo, filling it, and shaking the universe which +Wilfrid and Minna felt like an atom beneath their feet. They trembled +under an anguish caused by the dread of the mystery about to be +accomplished. + +A great movement took place, as though the Eternal Legions, putting +themselves in motion, were passing upward in spiral columns. The worlds +revolved like clouds driven by a furious wind. It was all rapid. + +Suddenly the veils were rent away. They saw on high as it were a star, +incomparably more lustrous than the most luminous of material stars, +which detached itself, and fell like a thunderbolt, dazzling as +lightning. Its passage paled the faces of the pair, who thought it to be +_the Light_ Itself. + +It was the Messenger of good tidings, the plume of whose helmet was a +flame of Life. + +Behind him lay the swath of his way gleaming with a flood of the lights +through which he passed. + +He bore a palm and a sword. He touched the _Spirit_ with the palm, and +the _Spirit_ was transfigured. Its white wings noiselessly unfolded. + +This communication of _the Light_, changing the _Spirit_ into a _Seraph_ +and clothing it with a glorious form, a celestial armor, poured down +such effulgent rays that the two Seers were paralyzed. + +Like the three apostles to whom Jesus showed himself, they felt the +dead weight of their bodies which denied them a complete and cloudless +intuition of _the Word_ and _the True Life_. + +They comprehended the nakedness of their souls; they were able +to measure the poverty of their light by comparing it--a humbling +task--with the halo of the _Seraph_. + +A passionate desire to plunge back into the mire of earth and suffer +trial took possession of them,--trial through which they might +victoriously utter at the _sacred gates_ the words of that radiant +_Seraph_. + +The _Seraph_ knelt before the _Sanctuary_, beholding it, at last, face +to face; and he said, raising his hands thitherward, “Grant that these +two may have further sight; they will love the Lord and proclaim His +word.” + +At this prayer a veil fell. Whether it were that the hidden force which +held the Seers had momentarily annihilated their physical bodies, or +that it raised their spirits above those bodies, certain it is that they +felt within them a rending of the pure from the impure. + +The tears of the _Seraph_ rose about them like a vapor, which hid the +lower worlds from their knowledge, held them in its folds, bore them +upwards, gave them forgetfulness of earthly meanings and the power of +comprehending the meanings of things divine. + +The True Light shone; it illumined the Creations, which seemed to them +barren when they saw the source from which all worlds--Terrestrial, +Spiritual, and Divine-derived their Motion. + +Each world possessed a centre to which converged all points of its +circumference. These worlds were themselves the points which moved +toward the centre of their system. Each system had its centre in great +celestial regions which communicated with the flaming and quenchless +_motor of all that is_. + +Thus, from the greatest to the smallest of the worlds, and from the +smallest of the worlds to the smallest portion of the beings who compose +it, all was individual, and all was, nevertheless, One and indivisible. + +What was the design of the Being, fixed in His essence and in His +faculties, who transmitted that essence and those faculties without +losing them? who manifested them outside of Himself without separating +them from Himself? who rendered his creations outside of Himself fixed +in their essence and mutable in their form? The pair thus called to the +celestial festival could only see the order and arrangement of created +beings and admire the immediate result. The Angels alone see more. They +know the means; they comprehend the final end. + +But what the two Elect were granted power to contemplate, what they were +able to bring back as a testimony which enlightened their minds forever +after, was the proof of the action of the Worlds and of Beings; the +consciousness of the effort with which they all converge to the Result. + +They heard the divers parts of the Infinite forming one living +melody; and each time that the accord made itself felt like a mighty +respiration, the Worlds drawn by the concordant movement inclined +themselves toward the Supreme Being who, from His impenetrable centre, +issued all things and recalled all things to Himself. + +This ceaseless alternation of voices and silence seemed the rhythm of +the sacred hymn which resounds and prolongs its sound from age to age. + +Wilfrid and Minna were enabled to understand some of the mysterious +sayings of Him who had appeared on earth in the form which to each of +them had rendered him comprehensible,--to one Seraphitus, to the other +Seraphita,--for they saw that all was homogeneous in the sphere where he +now was. + +Light gave birth to melody, melody gave birth to light; colors were +light and melody; motion was a Number endowed with Utterance; all +things were at once sonorous, diaphanous, and mobile; so that each +interpenetrated the other, the whole vast area was unobstructed and the +Angels could survey it from the depths of the Infinite. + +They perceived the puerility of human sciences, of which he had spoken +to them. + +The scene was to them a prospect without horizon, a boundless space into +which an all-consuming desire prompted them to plunge. But, fastened to +their miserable bodies, they had the desire without the power to fulfil +it. + +The _Seraph_, preparing for his flight, no longer looked towards them; +he had nothing now in common with Earth. + +Upward he rose; the shadow of his luminous presence covered the two +Seers like a merciful veil, enabling them to raise their eyes and see +him, rising in his glory to Heaven in company with the glad Archangel. + +He rose as the sun from the bosom of the Eastern waves; but, more +majestic than the orb and vowed to higher destinies, he could not be +enchained like inferior creations in the spiral movement of the worlds; +he followed the line of the Infinite, pointing without deviation to the +One Centre, there to enter his eternal life,--to receive there, in his +faculties and in his essence, the power to enjoy through Love, and the +gift of comprehending through Wisdom. + +The scene which suddenly unveiled itself to the eyes of the two Seers +crushed them with a sense of its vastness; they felt like atoms, whose +minuteness was not to be compared even to the smallest particle which +the infinite of divisibility enabled the mind of man to imagine, brought +into the presence of the infinite of Numbers, which God alone can +comprehend as He alone can comprehend Himself. + +Strength and Love! what heights, what depths in those two entities, whom +the _Seraph’s_ first prayer placed like two links, as it were, to unite +the immensities of the lower worlds with the immensity of the higher +universe! + +They comprehended the invisible ties by which the material worlds are +bound to the spiritual worlds. Remembering the sublime efforts of human +genius, they were able to perceive the principle of all melody in the +songs of heaven which gave sensations of color, of perfume, of thought, +which recalled the innumerable details of all creations, as the songs of +earth revive the infinite memories of love. + +Brought by the exaltation of their faculties to a point that cannot +be described in any language, they were able to cast their eyes for an +instant into the Divine World. There all was Rejoicing. + +Myriads of angels were flocking together, without confusion; all alike +yet all dissimilar, simple as the flower of the fields, majestic as the +universe. + +Wilfrid and Minna saw neither their coming nor their going; they +appeared suddenly in the Infinite and filled it with their presence, as +the stars shine in the invisible ether. + +The scintillations of their united diadems illumined space like the +fires of the sky at dawn upon the mountains. Waves of light flowed from +their hair, and their movements created tremulous undulations in space +like the billows of a phosphorescent sea. + +The two Seers beheld the _Seraph_ dimly in the midst of the immortal +legions. Suddenly, as though all the arrows of a quiver had darted +together, the Spirits swept away with a breath the last vestiges of the +human form; as the _Seraph_ rose he became yet purer; soon he seemed +to them but a faint outline of what he had been at the moment of his +transfiguration,--lines of fire without shadow. + +Higher he rose, receiving from circle to circle some new gift, while the +sign of his election was transmitted to each sphere into which, more and +more purified, he entered. + +No voice was silent; the hymn diffused and multiplied itself in all its +modulations:-- + +“Hail to him who enters living! Come, flower of the Worlds! diamond from +the fires of suffering! pearl without spot, desire without flesh, new +link of earth and heaven, be Light! Conquering spirit, Queen of the +world, come for thy crown! Victor of earth, receive thy diadem! Thou art +of us!” + +The virtues of the _Seraph_ shone forth in all their beauty. + +His earliest desire for heaven re-appeared, tender as childhood. +The deeds of his life, like constellations, adorned him with their +brightness. His acts of faith shone like the Jacinth of heaven, the +color of sidereal fires. The pearls of Charity were upon him,--a chaplet +of garnered tears! Love divine surrounded him with roses; and the +whiteness of his Resignation obliterated all earthly trace. + +Soon, to the eyes of the Seers, he was but a point of flame, growing +brighter and brighter as its motion was lost in the melodious +acclamations which welcomed his entrance into heaven. + +The celestial accents made the two exiles weep. + +Suddenly a silence as of death spread like a mourning veil from the +first to the highest sphere, throwing Wilfrid and Minna into a state of +intolerable expectation. + +At this moment the _Seraph_ was lost to sight within the _sanctuary_, +receiving there the gift of Life Eternal. + +A movement of adoration made by the Host of heaven filled the two Seers +with ecstasy mingled with terror. They felt that all were prostrate +before the Throne, in all the spheres, in the Spheres Divine, in the +Spiritual Spheres, and in the Worlds of Darkness. + +The Angels bent the knee to celebrate the _Seraph’s_ glory; the Spirits +bent the knee in token of their impatience; others bent the knee in the +dark abysses, shuddering with awe. + +A mighty cry of joy gushed forth, as the spring gushes forth to its +millions of flowering herbs sparkling with diamond dew-drops in the +sunlight; at that instant the _Seraph_ reappeared, effulgent, crying, +“_Eternal! Eternal! Eternal_!” + +The universe heard the cry and understood it; it penetrated the spheres +as God penetrates them; it took possession of the infinite; the Seven +Divine Worlds heard the Voice and answered. + +A mighty movement was perceptible, as though whole planets, purified, +were rising in dazzling light to become Eternal. + +Had the _Seraph_ obtained, as a first mission, the work of calling to +God the creations permeated by His Word? + +But already the sublime _hallelujah_ was sounding in the ear of the +desolate ones as the distant undulations of an ended melody. Already +the celestial lights were fading like the gold and crimson tints of a +setting sun. Death and Impurity recovered their prey. + +As the two mortals re-entered the prison of flesh, from which their +spirit had momentarily been delivered by some priceless sleep, they felt +like those who wake after a night of brilliant dreams, the memory +of which still lingers in their soul, though their body retains no +consciousness of them, and human language is unable to give utterance to +them. + +The deep darkness of the sphere that was now about them was that of the +sun of the visible worlds. + +“Let us descend to those lower regions,” said Wilfrid. + +“Let us do what he told us to do,” answered Minna. “We have seen the +worlds on their march to God; we know the Path. Our diadem of stars is +There.” + +Floating downward through the abysses, they re-entered the dust of the +lesser worlds, and saw the Earth, like a subterranean cavern, suddenly +illuminated to their eyes by the light which their souls brought with +them, and which still environed them in a cloud of the paling harmonies +of heaven. The sight was that which of old struck the inner eyes +of Seers and Prophets. Ministers of all religions, Preachers of all +pretended truths, Kings consecrated by Force and Terror, Warriors and +Mighty men apportioning the Peoples among them, the Learned and the Rich +standing above the suffering, noisy crowd, and noisily grinding them +beneath their feet,--all were there, accompanied by their wives and +servants; all were robed in stuffs of gold and silver and azure studded +with pearls and gems torn from the bowels of Earth, stolen from the +depths of Ocean, for which Humanity had toiled throughout the centuries, +sweating and blaspheming. But these treasures, these splendors, +constructed of blood, seemed worn-out rags to the eyes of the two +Exiles. “What do you there, in motionless ranks?” cried Wilfrid. They +answered not. “What do you there, motionless?” They answered not. +Wilfrid waved his hands over them, crying in a loud voice, “What do you +there, in motionless ranks?” All, with unanimous action, opened their +garments and gave to sight their withered bodies, eaten with worms, +putrefied, crumbling to dust, rotten with horrible diseases. + +“You lead the nations to Death,” Wilfrid said to them. “You have +depraved the earth, perverted the Word, prostituted justice. After +devouring the grass of the fields you have killed the lambs of the fold. +Do you think yourself justified because of your sores? I will warn my +brethren who have ears to hear the Voice, and they will come and drink +of the spring of Living Waters which you have hidden.” + +“Let us save our strength for Prayer,” said Minna. “Wilfrid, thy mission +is not that of the Prophets or the Avenger or the Messenger; we are +still on the confines of the lowest sphere; let us endeavor to rise +through space on the wings of Prayer.” + +“Thou shalt be all my love!” + +“Thou shalt be all my strength!” + +“We have seen the Mysteries; we are, each to the other, the only being +here below to whom Joy and Sadness are comprehensible; let us pray, +therefore: we know the Path, let us walk in it.” + +“Give me thy hand,” said the Young Girl, “if we walk together, the way +will be to me less hard and long.” + +“With thee, with thee alone,” replied the Man, “can I cross the awful +solitude without complaint.” + +“Together we will go to Heaven,” she said. + +The clouds gathered and formed a darksome dais. Suddenly the pair found +themselves kneeling beside a body which old David was guarding from +curious eyes, resolved to bury it himself. + +Beyond those walls the first summer of the nineteenth century shone +forth in all its glory. The two lovers believed they heard a Voice +in the sun-rays. They breathed a celestial essence from the new-born +flowers. Holding each other by the hand, they said, “That illimitable +ocean which shines below us is but an image of what we saw above.” + +“Where are you going?” asked Monsieur Becker. + +“To God,” they answered. “Come with us, father.” + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Seraphita, by Honore de Balzac + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SERAPHITA *** + +***** This file should be named 1432-0.txt or 1432-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/3/1432/ + +Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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