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SERAPH IT A THE ALKAHEST I I t^ni/^S Jules Girajde CoD-vTl&hl i8g6 Vv Roberls Br Froccde Goupil rr A-rr.- " She drew the flower from her bosom and showed it to them." BO 5^1^ilo^opl)ical ^tudie^ LA COMEDIE HUMAINE OF HONORE DE BALZAC TRANSLATED BY KATHARINE PRESCOTT WORMELEY SERAPHITA THE ALKAHEST 3llustratfB bg JULES GIRARDET BOSTON LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY Copyright, 1887, 1889, 1896, By Roberts Brothers. Copyright, 1916, By Little, Brown, and Company. AU rights reserved. PQ lux MADAME EVELINE DE HANSKA, ir^E 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 re- proached 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 I 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 1 They would know how to oive 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 chiu-ch, to think upon the end of man. I am, madame, with respect, Your devoted servant, DE BALZAC. 1052738 CONTENTS. ^crapfjita. PASS IXTRODUCTION vii I. Seraphitus 1 11. Seraphita 31 III. Seraphita-Seraphitus 56 IV. The Clouds of the Sanctuary .... 114 V. Farewell 165 VI. The Path to Heaveii 171 VII. The Assumption 186 INTRODUCTION. It is highh' probable that " Seraphita " cost its author more than anj' other of his intellectual offspring. The evidence of this appears in his correspondence. Writing to Madame Zulma Carraud in January, 1834, he sajs, " Seraphita is a work more severe than any other upon the writer." What he thought of it ma}- be gathered from another passage in the same letter, in which he speaks of it as "a work as much beyond ' Louis Lam- bert' as 'Louis Lambert' is be^'ond ' Gaudissart.' " As he proceeded with it his labor became more intense. In March, 1835, writing to the Duchesse de Castries, he savs : "The toil upon this work has been crushing and terrible. I have passed, and must still pass, days and nights upon it. I compose, decompose, and recom- pose it." He did not delude himself as to the kind of reception it was likely to encounter : '• In a few da^'S," he observes, " all will have been said. Either I shall have won fame or the Parisians will have failed to understand me. And inasmuch as, with them, mockery commonly takes the place of understanding, I can hope onh" for a remote and tardy success. Eventually appre- ciation will come, and at once here and there. For the viii Introduction. rest, I think this book will be a favorite with those souls that like to lose themselves in the spaces of infinity." There is a legend to the effect that Balzac first con- ceived the idea embodied in " Seraphita" while contem- plating a beautiful sculptured figure of an angel in the studio of a friend. It is possible that he himself may have made this statement, for he was fond of picturesque and dramatic incidents, and might easily have ascribed to a trivial occurrence a significance greater than it was entitled to. The true genesis of this, perhaps the most remarkable and unquestionably the most elevated work of fiction ever written, is fortunately not doubtful, for the proofs are in the book itself. " Seraphita" is the natural crowning flower of that philosophic exposition begun in the " Peau de Chagrin," and developed so much more fully in " Louis Lambert." The latter work moreover may be said both to have adumbrated and necessitated " Seraphita ; " and it is proper to state here that whoever wishes to grasp the full meaning of this book must first read "Louis Lambert," which intro- duces and to a considerable extent explains the present work. The profound system embodied in the oracular fragments which fell from the lips of the rapt young sage, and were taken down and preserved by the faith- ful and clear-sighted Pauline contains the interpretation of the marvellous being Balzac's genius has set in that most harmonious and appropriate frame of the Northern skies and snow-covered plains, frozen fiords and black, ice-clad mountains. Indeed there is nothing more striking in this masterpiece than the beauty and ex- Introduction. ix qnisite taste of its setting. Tlieophile Gautier without exaorg:eration styles it " one of the most astonishing productions of modern literature ; " and proceeds : "Never did Balzac approach, in fact almost seize, the ver}' Ideal of Beauty as in this book : the ascent of the mountain has in it something ethereal, supernatural, luminous, which lifts one above the earth. The onl^' colors employed are the blue of heaven and the pure white of the snow, with some pearly tints for the shadows. We know nothing more ravishing than this opening." It is all true. Nowhere have Balzac's artistic deli- cacy and spiritual subtlety been so victorious!}- em- ploj'ed as in the conception and execution of " Sera- phita." There is no change in it from lower to higher regions. The author launches himself like an eagle from a cliff, high upon the bosom of the loftier atmos- phere, and his powerful wings sustain him to the end at an elevation which enables the reader to separate him- self with facilit}' from the existence of vulgar common- place, if it does not help him to respire easil}' in air so rarefied as to be scarcely adequate to the expansion of gross and fleshly lungs. To Balzac himself, whose ver- satilit}' and sympathetic range were almost as broad and deep as those of Nature, this final flight of his philosophical and theosophical exposition was painful and laborious. Like Nature he could compass all forms of existence, but, like Nature too, he was most at home in the free working of tangible matter. In the " Com- edie Humaine " he had however undertaken to picture X Introduction. and to analj'ze life as it existed in his period, and to Lim this meant all life, from the lowest to the highest. Shakspeare is the only other writer who shows the same marvellous breadth of scope ; to whom every state and condition of humanity is sympathetic ; who sees into and apprehends every form of existence ; who can put himself in the place equally of the outcast and the saint, — the soul black with sin and shame, and the soul white with good deeds and noble aspirations. These two, Balzac and Shakspeare, have in common the' qualities which most emphatically denote the highest form of genius. Among those qualities the precious endowment of Intuition ranks perhaps the highest. It is this mysterious and magical gift which explains the influence upon the human mind of the few great souls — Specialists, as Louis Lambert st^'les them — that have appeared at long intervals through the ages and have left their mark upon generations and centuries. Louis Lambert declares that Jesus Christ was a Spe- cialist, and the interpretation of this is that he possessed the power of striking that chord which vibrates in all hearts, of embodying in words those thoughts whose expression appeals to the largest audience and awakes the deepest and purest emotions. The great Mother of us all, from whom we proceed, in whose bosom we must lie, has the same characteristics, the same fecundity, elasticity, comprehensiveness, and sympathy. Jesus, indeed, came at a time when there was little laughter in the world. Life was very stern and grim when Rome was the mistress of the known habitable globe. It could Introduction. xi fiardly have been deemed worth living if measured by modern gauges. As in the time of Gautama Buddha, five centuries before, the central problem was the wretched- ness of existence. "We who, surrounded bv the comforts and luxuries of the nineteenth century, stand perplexed at the dark and gloomy views which those old races seem to have held in so matter-of-course a wa\', fail sufficiently to realize the actual pressure of misery upon the great majority of human beings at those periods. In sad truth, life was to them a painful puzzle. They were not, like us, chiefl}' occupied in determining how best to employ it and derive from it the greatest happi- ness or usefulness. Most of them were born into con- ditions escape from which was hopeless and continuance in which was intolerable. The}- were helpless and the}' suflcred. What wonder if the}' looked bewildered to the unanswering sky, questioned the dumb face of Nature, and lost themselves in sombre speculations as to the why and wherefore of their existence, and the causes of the seemingly purposeless chain of being. To them deliverance from incarnation was the first requisite of a rational gospel ; and this deliverance was oflTered, though in different ways, by the two great Teachers whose wisdom and promises have been respectively the Light of Asia and of Christendom. To understand ' ' Seraphita " it is necessary to take a somewhat wide preliminary survey. We must begin by fixing in our minds the scheme of evolution which it is intended to illustrate and to carry to its farthest mun- dane development, while projecting the vision even xii Introduction. be} ond this point, and foreshadowing the outlines of a higher and an incorporeal state of existence. Human destin}', according to this theory, is a painful course of elevation and emancipation ; a working out of what we call Matter into what we call Spirit, — but which really is merely different conditions of one primal substance. There are three worlds : the Material, the Spiritual, and the Divine. These three worlds must be traversed in turn by the souls of men, which in these journeyings must pass through three stages, namely the Instinctive, the Abstractive, and the Specialist. Now the soul is guided on its way and raised gradually by the influence of Love. First, Self-Love stimulates and urges it onward and upward until the clogging stagnation of Savager}' is escaped, and progress toward Barbarism and thence to what is now termed Civilization, is se- cured. Second, the love of others. Altruism, supersedes Self-Love in the most advanced men and women, and then the time is ripe for the establishment of those great religions which in their infancj^, when the central doc- trine is pure and fresh and full of magnetism, sways peoples and countries so powerfully, and changes the direction of the age. It is Altruism which has produced all the highest and noblest works the human race pos- sesses to-day. It is that which is at the root of Duty, Honor, Faithfulness, Loyalty, Self-Sacrifice. It did not indeed have to be invented anew for modern humanity as the lost arts in many cases have been, for Altruism was never dead. But for long ages it was overlooked by man, for its hiding-place was then in the breast of Introduction. xiii "Woman, whose tender heart served as tlie Shechinah — the SanctuaiT of exiled Unselfish Love. Woman practised the long- forgotten virtue while suffering in silence the tyrannj- to which her constitu- tional weakness condemned her. From the beginning: she has been the chief conservator of this indispensable aid to the higher life. If she has not succeeded in manifesting so strikingl}- as advanced men the service- ableness of Altruism to material progress, it is because the repression from which she suffered through so pro- tracted a period stunted her intellectual growth, and thus rendered her deficient in the capacity to apply practically what she cultivated almost instinctively'. On the other hand, her aptitude was greater in the direction of the Divine. There her facility in renuncia- tion assisted her greatly. Her experience in sorrow and self-sacrifice through daily life, her culture in the philosophy of patient endurance, her habit of expending herself upon others, all fitted her in an especial way for ascent towards those lofty heights of emotion, aspira- tion, and ecstasy, which are as a rule known only by name to men. It is b}' the Love of God — the Divine Love — that the soul must be guided and supported in its passage through the third sphere, which is called the Divine World ; and to this cult the woman-nature ad- dresses itself with less reluctance and repugnance than the masculine spirit, so deepl}' attached to material interests, so unaccustomed to what seem the cold abstractions of divinit}'. As the Abstractive condition prevails more and more it carries with it a scepticism xiv Introduction. which to the timid spectator appears to threaten Reli- gion with total extinction ; and as the tide of materi- alism flows ever deeper and wider the cult of the Supreme, of the Unmanifest, of the Spiritual generally, is maintained by women almost single-handed. The French Revolution might have banished Faith from the soil of France had not the women refused to aban- don their altars. Even to-day, in the same country, the spiritual elements of its civilization are being sup- plied mainly by the same humble believers in the Over- Soul. As to the men, materialism has smothered their higher feelings, and caused them for the time to imagine that they are or can be content with a world from which spirituality is excluded. The function of the Specialist, following Balzac's theosophy, is to stimulate and develop the higher cul- ture while working out his own enfranchisement. When the world has proceeded so far upon the path of purely material evolution as to threaten a fatally one-sided outcome, one of these advanced souls is incarnated and lifts the divine standard anew. The very fact of the close commixture between Spirit and Matter renders it impossible that the inclination and tendency toward the loftier mysteries of life should ever be wholly lost, and when the wave of materialism seems at its height the reaction is nearest and the spirit of the age is best prepared for fresh impregnation by the Logos. No more poetical or striking picture of one of these spirit- ual transmutations can be found than that which the late Matthew Arnold embodied in " Obermann once Introduction. xv More." This was the world of ''some two thousand years " since : " Like ours it looked in outward air, Its head was clear and true, Sumptuous its clothing, rich its fare, No pause its action knew ; " Stout was its arm, each thew and bone Seemed puissant and alive, But, ah! its heart, its heart was stone, And so it could not thrive ! •' On that hard Pagan world disgust And secret loathing fell; Deep weariness and sated lust Made human life a hell. " In his cool hall, with haggard eyes, The Roman noble lay ; He drove abroad, in furious guise, Along the Appian way. " He made a feast, drank fierce and fast, And crowned his hair with flowers ; No easier nor no quicker passed The impracticable hours. " The brooding East with awe beheld Her impious younger world , The Roman tempest swelled and swelled, And on her head was hurled. " The East bowed low before the blast In patient, deep disdain; She let the legions thunder past, And phinged in thought again. xvi Introduction. '* So well she mused, a morning broke Across her spirit gray ; A conquering, new-born joy awoke And filled her life with day. " ' Poor world,' she cried, ' so deep accurst, That runn'st from pole to pole To seek a draught to slake thy thirst, — Go, seek it in thy soul ! ' " She heard it, the victorious West, In crown and sword arrayed, She felt the void which mined her breast, She shivered and obeyed. " She veiled her eagles, snapped her sword, And laid her sceptre down; Her stately purple she abhorred, And her imperial crown. " Lust of the eye and pride of life She left it all behind. And hurried, torn with inward strife. The wilderness to find. " Tears washed the trouble from her face I She changed into a child ! 'Mid weeds and wrecks she stood, — a place Of ruin, — but she smiled! " The poet intimates that the influences brought by Christianity are now exhausted, that they have ceased to operate because faith is dead. Yet he is not without hope for the future. Human expectation, raised in modern times to great heights by the promise of the Introduction. xvii French Revolution, has indeed been sadly disappointed. Nevertheless, " The world's great order dawns in sheen After long darkness rude, Divinelier imaged, clearer seen. With happier zeal pursued." Despite all premature confidence and too sanguine anticipation, there is warrant for the inspiration which leads men to labor for the attainment of " One common wave of thought and joy Lifting mankind again ! " When the Hour arrives the Man will appear. That is the teaching of history and that is the doctrine of the sages. The darkest moments are those which pre- cede the dawn, and it is at what seems the ver}' point of desperation that relief is given. There is indeed nothing occult in this view. It is founded upon ob- servation and experience. The m5'ster3^ lies in the causes of these opportune and portentous events : in the evolution of the Avatars who in turn appear to change a world's course and to rekindle the pure flame of Religion and Spirituality. Balzac, however, has not encumbered his subtle and profound study, as an in- ferior artist would have been apt to do, by showing the Specialist in the discharge of his function of Deliverer. His purpose was to exhibit and analyze, as far as pos- sible, that rare and precious form of existence in which the progress of the spirit toward the Divine has been carried so far as to render continued toleration of earthly xviii Introduction. life impossible. Seraphita is the Specialist upon whom no world-mission has been laid ; a final efRorescence of long-cultivated spiritualitj^ ; the last, most delicate and fragile link between Mortality and Immortality. In the androgynous symbolism under which Seraphita is pre- sented, the author has embodied an archaic and profound doctrine. The male and female qualities and character- istics are so manifestly complementary that human thought at a comparatively early stage arrived at the idea of the original union of the sexes in one relativel}' perfect and self-sufficient being. In the Divine World, according to Swedenborg, such a union consummates the attachment of those souls which during their cor- poreal life have been in complete sympathy. The Angel of Love and the Angel of Wisdom combine to form a single being which possesses both their qualities. To the theory of spiritual evolution taught by Swe- denborg the doctrine of metempsychosis, or as it is more commonly termed at present, the doctrine of re-incar- nation, is necessary. This doctrine may be traced to a remote antiquity, and while it is still comparatively unfamiliar to the Western world, it has for ages been at the very foundation of all Eastern religion and phi- losophy. The Rev. William R. Alger, in his "Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life," observes upon this subject: "No other doctrine has exerted so extensive, controlling, and permanent an influence upon mankind as that of the metempsychosis, — the notion that when the soul leaves the body it is born anew in another bodj', its rank, character, circum- Introduction. xix stances, and experience in each successive existence depending on its qualities, deeds, and attainments in its preceding lives. Such a theorj*, well matured, bore unresisted sway through the great Eastern world long before Moses slept in his little ark of bulrushes on the shore of the Eg3ptian river ; Alexander the Great gazed with amazement on the self-immolation by fire to which it inspired the Gymnosophists ; Caesar found its tenets propagated among the Gauls beyond the Rubicon ; and at this hour it reigns despotic, as the learned and travelled Professor of Sanscrit at Oxford tells us, ' without any sign of decrepitude or deca}-, over the Burman, Chinese, Tartar, Tibetan, and Indian nations, including at least six hundred and fifty millions of mankind.' There is abundant evidence to prove that this scheme of thought prevailed at a very earl}' period among the Egyptians, all classes and sects of the Hindus, the Persian disciples of the Magi, and the Druids, and, in a later age, among the Greeks and Romans as represented by Musseus, P^'thagoras, Plato, Plotinus, Macrobius, Ovid, and many others. It was generally adopted by the Jews from the time of the Babylonian captivity. Traces of it have been discov- ered among the ancient Scj'thians, the African tribes, some of the Pacific Islanders, and various aboriginal nations both of North and of South America." In fact there is scarcely a division of the human family, advanced at all beyond the stage of savagery, in which either the germs of this theory or the fully developed belief may not be discovered. The form in XX. Introduction. which it has been held differs. Thus the Platonists and Pythagoreans supposed that human souls might inhabit the bodies of animals, birds, etc. The Mani- cheans went further, and taught that such spirits might be reborn in vegetable forms ; and some have even imagined that sin and degradation could condemn hu- man souls to imprisonment in rocks, stones, or the dust of the field. The Talmudists, the teachers of Oriental esotericism, and generally speaking the older and more authoritative exponents of the wisdom- religion, maintained that human souls transmigrated through human bodies alone, rising, step by step, to higher planes. A very convenient collection of opiuions upon re-incarnation has lateU' been published by Mr. E. D. Walker, and this work may be commended to those who desire to realize something of the extent to which the doctrine has been held both in the past and the present. By abundant quotations Mr. Walker shows, not only that it was a cardinal tenet of the so-called Pagan religions, but that many of the early Christians — notably Origen — maintained it ; while the array of modern philosophers, poets, men of science, and theologians who have even in recent times received it is well calculated to give pause to reflective minds. Such names as Kant, Schelling, Leibnitz, Schopenhauer, Bruno, Herder, Lessing, Goethe, Boehme, Fichte, and others, are found in the list, and even the sceptical Hume, in his essay on the Immortality of the Soul, observes: "The metempsychosis is therefore the only ©ystem of this kind that philosophy- can hearken to." Introduction. xxi Schopenhauer declares that " the belief in nietem- ps^xhosis presents itself as the natural conviction of man, whenever he reflects at all in an unprejudiced manner. It would reall}' be that which Kant falsely asserts of his three pretended Ideas of the reason, a philosopheme natural to human reason, which proceeds from its forms ; and when it is not found it must have been displaced by positive religious doctrines coming from a different source. I have also remarked that it is at once obvious to everj' one who hears of it for the first time." The same writer observes further: " In Chris- tianity, however, the doctrine of original sin, that is, the doctrine of punishment for the sins of another in- dividual, has taken the place of the transmigration of souls and the expiation in this way of all the sins com- mitted in an earlier life. Both identify, and that with a moral tendency, the existing man with one who has existed before ; the transmigration of souls does so directly, original sin indirectly." This venerable doc- trine, proceding in an unbroken line from the pre-Vedic period to the present time, and held even now by the larger moiety of the earth's inhabitants, is, as Schopen- hauer remarks, a natural belief; for it is that which most rationally and plausibly accounts for the most perplexing mysteries of existence. As developed by the subtle Hindu intellect it is full of attraction and persuasion to unprejudiced minds, and when the so- called law of Karma is applied to it, the resulting scheme may well seem to embrace and explain the most formidable considerations and objections. xxii Introduction. Schopenhauer, it is true, raises the objection that in the Buddhist (or Hindu) doctrine of metempsychosis the discontinuousness of memory between re-births prac- ticalk renders the process palingenesis and not metem- psychosis. The German philosopher, however, but imperfectly apprehended the doctrine which he adapted so closely; for his substitution of the "will to live" for ' ' Karma " is really little more than a change of terminology, his theory of the functions of Will being at bottom a Germanization of the law of Karma. Had he lived to stud}' the later developments of Asiatic philosoph}' and metaphysics, it cannot be doubted that so open and clear an intelligence would have recognized the force of those deeper implications which round out and give consistenc}- and completeness to the Oriental scheme of thought, and dissipate the surface difficulties of the subject. The advances made recently in Western psychology have contributed to the growth of a better understanding on many points, and among the most suggestive and illuminating studies ma}' be cited those of Ribot on disease of the memory, and on double and other abnormal conditions of personality. The per- sistence of memory was held to be indispensable to a true metempsychosis by Schopenhauer because he had no conception of the refinements of Hindu speculation, which postulate the deathless principle of man as a congeries of separable parts, to the perishable among which physical recollection belongs. The Hindu posits, however, an undying psychical memory, which is incog- nizable by the incarnate soul, but which, nevertheless, Introduction. xxiii stores up ever}- event of the numerous transmigrations through which it passes, to bring the whole series into the consciousness of the persistent spirit when it has accomplished all its educational changes, and has at- tained an elevation which enables it full}' to comprehend itself and its evolution. Science, nay, common experience and observation, throw some hght upon this difficult subject. The phenomena of normal sleep serve to show how the persistence of ph3'sical life is maintained notwithstand- ing periodical, frequent, and continuous lapses of con- sciousness. The rarer phenomena of double personality, so carefully studied b}- Charcot, Azam, Biuet, Ribot, Liegois, and others, emphasize the lessons of everj'-day experience in this direction. The remarkable cases in which, memor}- having been lost for considerable periods of time, it has been recovered as suddenh- as it had disappeared, point out the lines of reasoning upon which the apparent change of personalit}' maj' be reconciled with latent persistence and continuation of individu- ality. And indeed Schopenhauer might have perceived that the action of the Hindu law of Karma would be futile and purposeless if, as he concluded, each re-birth involved, to all practical intents, the creation of a new person. For to what end should the results of acts done in a former life follow and modif}' the succeeding incarnation if the two existences had no connection? Schopenhauer's misapprehension on this point was indeed far-reaching in its effect ; for it led him to postulate a contradiction in terms, — an uuoonscious xxiv Introduction. Will-force, namely. Volition implies consciousness, and unconscious volition is unthinkable, a mere ar- rangement of words representing no comprehensible idea. Swedenborg, with all his crudities and anthropo- morphic fancies, was far more logical in his theory- of metempsychosis, which is in fact in many particulars accordant with the Hindu doctrine. Re-incarnation, according to the Swedish Sage, is a process whereby- the evolution of the higher faculties is made possible. In common with many of the most profound and lucid thinkers, he perceived the inadequacy of a single life- time to the work of ps^-chical evolution, and he adopted, or attained b}- independent or intuitional methods, the Oriental explanation of that lapse of consciousness which Tennyson refers to in the lines : — " Or, if through lower lives I came, Though all experience past became Consolidate in mind and frame, " I might forget my weaker lot ; For is not our first year forgot ? The haunts of memory echo not. " Some draught of Lethe doth await As old mythologies relate, The slipping through from state to state." As with the Hindus, he held that the break in memory which signalized the completion of a ph^'sical existence was itself a physical phenomenon ; but that the psjx-hical processes of evolution went on unaffected by the changes Introduction. xxv of death and re-birth, and that among these processes was the transmission, across the gap caused by death, of the quaUties and tendencies and spiritual attainments belonging to the individual undergoing re-incarnation. In Oriental terminology Swedenborg's embryo Angels were the products of continued operation of good Karma. They represented the best results of human aspiration faithfully maintained until the upward yearn- ing had destroyed the strong attachments to earth and qualified the spirit to breathe the rarefied atmosphere of the Divine World. In this evolutionary process, more- over, the highest examples of human development were reached, and in these a type was attained which ex- hibited the ideal of humanity as it was or as it might have been immediately after the descent of Spirit into Matter, and before that Fall which in the symbolism of the occultists signifies the victory of Materialism over Spirituality, the beginning of that long course of mun- dane and gross development which men call civiliza- tion, and which has blinded them, by its material gains, to the extent of the divergence of the race from its only permanent and worthy interests. Seraphita was conceived by Balzac in a moment of supreme insight and inspiration, to embody Sweden- borg's noblest ideas. Not that Swedenborg can be regarded as the originator of the theory which he ex- panded and modified and stamped with his own in- dividuality and his own imperfectly developed spiritual perceptions. For it must be admitted by all candid Btudents of the Seer that his supposed revelations are XX vi Introduction. often clogged and overlaid with the most palpable anthropomorphism ; that he derives his notions of celes- tial phenomena and existences from his personal envi- ronment with a curious childish simplicitj' at times ; that he exhibits in many waj-s his inadequac}^ as the vehicle of supra-mundane communications ; and his in- ability, partly through ph3'sical, partly through intel- lectual conditions, to transmit with fidelity or even to observe with accuracy that which was presented to his internal vision. Indeed it may be said that whoever wishes to enjoy the beauties which undoubtedly subsist in his writings must be prepared to submit them to a certain analytic and refining process. For they may be likened to the great world-religions, which, issuing clearly and nobly from their sources, have in time become discolored and polluted and changed sometimes into quite unsavory- and ignoble streams b}' the opera- tion upon them, during long periods, of all the gross- ness, perversity, materialism, selfishness, mendacity, and iniquity which men bring to the amelioration of their condition and the improvement of the creeds upon which the}' profess to rel}' for the securitj' of their future well-being. Not to carry the parallel too far, it should be distinctly stated that Swedenborg assuredly infused no elements of evil into his representations and interpre- tations. He erred solely through temperament, and it may be surmised that the first period of his life, which was devoted to stud}- in the phj-sical sciences, strength- ened in him that unconscious tendency to materialize spiritual things which is characteristic of his writino:s, Introduction. xxvii and which imparts to much of his description of the higher spheres so strange and infelicitous an atmosphere of earthly commonplace. To penetrate to the heart of his subject it is therefore necessary to clear awaj' a good deal of obstructive and non-essential matter. Had the Sage been a poet he would certainly have written more interestingly, and it may even be thought perhaps, more accurately, con- cerning many minor details. But the broad outlines, the firm framework of his system, remain entirely un- affected by his lack of imagination and grace of fancy ; and it is upon the body of doctrine itself, and not upon the narrative powers of the Seer, that his reputation and the vitalit}' of his teaching must rest. Here there is no defect of nobility, no sign of narrowness, no sub- servience to inherited beliefs, no undue elevation of sj'mbolic or ceremonial hypotheses. From the volu- minous theological library given out by him during his life and added to hy posthumous publications, may be obtained a perfectly harmonious, essentially lofty, and intellectually attractive religious scheme and cosmo- logical theory, though the latter is less easil.y cleared from its impediments than the former. It would not be possible, even were it desirable, to indicate more than the outlines of this s^'stem here. Balzac himself has presented all that he thought necessary to the com- prehension of " Seraphita," in the following pages, and it is the purpose of this introduction principally to supply explanations which he omitted, perhaps because, coming fresh from mystical and occult studies which had xxviii Introduction. filled his mind to saturation, he took too much for granted the intellectual preparation of his readers. One interesting consideration related to the pecu- liarities of Swedenborg's writings remains to be pointed out, and it has a wide bearing. All who are sufflcienth' interested in spiritual things to have examined what may be called the literature of revelation, have prob- abl}- been perplexed and possibl}'^ discouraged, by the innumerable contradictions and discrepancies which are apparent in this branch of mysticism. Relations purporting to embodj' truthful presentations of the unseen universe, and believed by the Seers to be faith- ful records of true visions, offer, when compared, ap- parently hopeless and inexplicable divergencies. One consequence of this striking lack of harmony and con- sistency has natural!}' been to reinforce scejiticism, and to give ground for the facile explanation of all such representations upon the theory of hallucination or dis- ordered imagination. Such as are content with that explanation cannot be expected to make an}' farther inquiry- into the subject ; and this is the case with the majoritj', who regard with concealed or open dissatis- faction any hj'pothesis which b}' broadening the area of existence threatens to increase its responsibilities and extend its obligations. On the other hand, there will always be a considerable minority' the character of whose minds leads them to explore the unknown, and the dominant influence of whose spiritual elements com- pels them to accept the possibilitj- of a higher life be- yond the grave, and under conditions difficult alike of Introduction. XXIX conception and comprehension. These inquirers are aware that according to analogy the problem referred to is not incapable of solution. Even in purely- material life, for example, observation is invariably colored and modified by the personality of the observer. Every court of justice is a perpetual reminder of this. Human evidence concerning the most ordinary matters differs radically according to the character of the witnesses. Six men seeing the same thing will each give a differ- ent account of it, and they will rarely be found in agreement even as to essentials. Put six men into new and strange conditions, let them witness something the like of which none of them has ever seen before, and which is in itself seemingly opposed to all their expe- rience, and we must expect still more divergent and irreconcilable reports. In such a case the evidence would be practically of no use in forming a conclusion. In the researches by which men have sought to ob- tain knowledge of the supra-mundane the inherent diffi- culties must necessarily be very much greater. Supposing, for the purpose of the argument, that it is possible for cer- tain peculiarly spiritual persons, by mental and physical discipline and preparation, or by natural aptitude, to pene- trate behind the veil of Matter and obtain glimpses into the- region of Spirit, it is nevertheless not credible that such persons should, while in the body, be capable either c»f clearly seeing or correctly repeating what they have seen. For however their spiritual perception may have been strengthened and clarified, it is obvious that its vehicle is ill adapted to the work of observation in so xxxii Introduction. qualified to do much more harm than good by dissemi- nating views which perhaps his personal character in- vests with a factitious authorit}'. Nevertheless, the possibility- of a certain insight to the phenomena of other conditions of existence is unaffected b}- these considerations, which after all only go to show the urgent need of caution both in essaying such excursions into the supra-mundane, and in dealing with the repre- sentations subsequently offered concerning discoveries made in them. It is perhaps scarcely necessar3' to point out that the novelist who undertakes such a theme ae that of "Seraphita" must work under unfamiliar condi- tions. He is not free to give the reins to his imagina- tion. He must be careful to maintain communication with his base, to use a military figure. He cannot em- plo3' machinery wholly unknown to his public, but must confine his efforts to embellishing and expanding those popular conceptions of spiritual phenomena reference to which is readil}' understood, even though the prevail- ing ideas maj^ be poor, or grotesque, or gross. In " Seraphita" Balzac has followed this course with the success to have been expected from the versatility and subtlety of his genius. He has produced the most lofty and beautiful spiritual fiction to be found in literature. Brief reference has been made alread}' to a striking peculiarit}' in the portrait of Seraphita, — the fact, namely, that to Minna she conveys the impression of masculinit}' and to "Wilfrid that of womanhood. So strange a confusion of sex, or perhaps it would be more exact to say so strange a dualism, certainly required Introduction. xxxiii more explanation than Balzac has seen fit to offer ; and as the ideas involved relate to very ancient and recon- dite doctrines, it is necessary to treat the subject some- what fully. Seraphita is intended to typify the nearest approach to physical and psychical perfection possible under the limitations of human existence. The whole narrative of her birth and training indicates this. Her parents are devout followers of Swedenborg, to whom they are related. There is much more of mystical spiritualit}' than of material relations about their union and married life. In fact, the chief aim and end of both their lives seems to have been the securing of the proper conditions for the generation of a being who should be so pure and so in harmony with celestial things from her birth as to be capable of accomplishing in one incar- nation the transition from the mortal to the divine. Seraphita as here represented offers curious analogies with Oriental theosophy. One might say that in Eastern terminology she was born to Arhatship ; and that though for her, as for all merely human beings, temptation and trial were unavoidable, her triumph was no less certain than that which Gotama Buddha attained to as the cul- mination of his vigil under the Bodhi tree. But the North- ern ideal of human perfection embraced some conceptions which were less congenial to the Oriental intellect. It is one of the central merits of Christianity that it did much to recover for Woman the position too long denied her in the psychical scheme. Buddha indeed went far beyond his Asiatic predecessors in this direction. He admitted women to all the spiritual gains open to men, with one xxxiv Introduction. exception. Xo woman could be a Buddha, according to him, though an}' woman might elevate herself to Arhatship. Christianity raised woman to the highest celestial dignities, and if in process of time superstition and bigotry warped and travestied the original pure symbolism and the earh' doctrines of the creed, much solid good remained from the mere familiarizing of men's minds with the higher view of womanly excel- lences and capacities. In the esoteric creeds of many peoples, but chiefly those of European habitat, the place of Woman has for ages been, not merelj* among the highest, but literally the highest. She symbolized the Soul in the beautiful mj'th of Ps3'che. She was the spiritual element in humanity, lacking union with which mankind must be chained forever to the material, and waste his energies in struggles and labors which, even when most suc- cessful, onl}' carried him farther from the true purpose of life., and rendered emancipation from carnal con- ditions more tedious and difficult. Something of this venerable doctrine may be gathered from the following citations, which occur in that beautifully written but mystical work called " The Perfect Way." Speaking of the " substance of existence," the authors say : " As Living Substance, God is One, As Life and Sub- stance, God is Twain. He is the Life, and She is the Substance. And to speak of Her is to speak of Woman in her supremest mode. She is not ' Nature ; ' Nature is the manifestation of the qualities and prop- erties with which, under suflFusion of the Life and Spirits Introduction. xxxv of God, Substance is endowed. She is not Matter, but is the potential essence of Matter. She is not Space, but is the within of Space, its fourth and original dimension, that from which all proceed, the containing element of Deity, and of which Space is the manifestation. As original Substance, the sub- stance of all other substance. She underUes that whereof all things are made ; and, like life and mind, is inte- rior, m3'stical, spiritual, and discernible only when manifested in operation." The elucidation of the femi- nine principle is carried much further, and the whole passage will repay study, for it throws new light upon the mythologies and occult systems of many ages and peoples, and tends to exhibit a continuity of thought and a unity of conception regarding fundamentals, such as few would suspect who examine these ques- tions hastily or without due preparation. The follow- ing passage relates to the concrete question in hand more directly: "As on the plane physical, man is not Man, — but only Bo}-, rude, froward, and solicitous only to exert and exhibit his strength, — until the time comes for him to recognize, appreciate, and appro- priate Her as the woman ; so on the plane spiritual, man is not Man, — but only Materialist, having all the deficiencies, intellectual and moral, the term im- plies, until the time comes for him to recognize, appre- ciate, and appropriate Her as the Soul, and counting Her as his better half, to renounce his own exclusively centrifugal impulsions, and yield to her centripetal at- tractions. Doing this with all his heart, he finds that xxxvi Introduction. she makes him in the highest sense, Man. For, adding to his intellect Her intuition, she endows him with that true manhood, the manhood of Mind. Thus, by Her aid obtaining cognition of substance, and from the phenomenal fact ascending to the essential idea, he weds understanding to knowledge, and attains to cer- titude of truth, completing thereby the sj^stem of his thought." In rejecting, as the present age has virtualh' done, the soul and her intuition, " man excludes from the system of his humanity the ver}' idea of woman, and renounces his proper manhood." This it is which determines the wholl}^ materialistic bent of modern physical science, and the coarse, callous, and corrupt tendencies which, as the centur3' declines to its close, appear to charac- terize the prevailing civilization more strongl}*, and to emphasize with greater distinctness even the faintest reactionary movements and impulses. Balzac, in draw- ing Seraphita, was wholly true to the best received occult doctrine in endowing her with duality of sexual attributes, and the subtletj^ of his delineatioh is espe- cially exhibited in the dominance of her womanly side. For though Minna is apparently misled by the mas- culine vigor and the self-contained resolution of her companion, the reader is permitted to see clearl}^ enough that the impression which Seraphita produces upon Wilfrid is not only b}' far the stronger but b}' far the most natural ; and this impression is that which the highest t^'pe of womanliood can alone create. But there is another s3'mbol in this phase of Seraphita's nature. Introduction. xxxvii For it is held that in truth and fact the duahsm exas:- gerated for the sake of effect in her case is inherent in all human beings ; that, to quote the same work once more, '• whatever the sex of the person, ph^sicalh', each individual is a dualism, consisting of exterior and interior, manifested personalit}' and essential individu- ality, body and soul, which are to each other masculine and feminine, man and woman ; he the without, she the within. And all that the woman, on the planes physi- cal and social is to the man, that she is also on the planes intellectual and spiritual. For, as Soul and Intuition of Spirit, she withdraws him, phj'sicall}' and mentally, from dissipation and perdition in the outer and material ; and by centralizing and substantializing hrm redeems and crowns him, — from a phantom con- verting him into an entit}*, from a mortal into an im- mortal, from a man into a god." For, without Love,\\\ Force can work only evil. It is the union of these two from which springs true progress, — the progress which overlooks the material and plants discovering feet in the permanent region of the spiritual. Woman is the symbol and the vehicle of the Divine Life. She is the one stable principle of human evolution, — the principle without which man's development would be in the line of decomposition instead of toward a higher vitality ; his restless energies would wear themselves away in making the conditions of his existence more and more impossible of endurance. And this is the doctrine of all Hermetic Scriptures, including tlie Book of Genesis. It is to be observed that Balzac does not follow xxxviii Introduction. Swedenborg closely here. He goes rather to the sources of esoteric doctrine from which all students of occultism, from the earliest recorded times, have drawn their principles and the guiding outlines of their schemes of thought. It is also deserving of notice that however the personal element ma}" and does alter and not infrequently disguise or pervert the de- tails of such teachings, there is in the general form and character of them a certain harmony and close affinitj* which indicate community of origin ; and as in the genesis of language philologists argue from root like- nesses affiliation of several tongues which time has separated widely, with one mother tongue lost perhaps in the mists of antiquit}', so from these indications of a common focus of knowledge may be inferred the pre- existence of such a spring and source ; and not less rationall}' may be assumed in it a purity and approxi- mation to absolute truth superior to the representations which have descended through defective vehicles, ex- posed to all the sophisticating influence of time and ignorance and materialism. Swedenborg was an agent in some respects peculiarly susceptible to these distort- ing influences. It does not appear that he at any time rose to the height of spiritual perception attained in the thoughts last quoted. Yet he recognized somewhat of the importance of the Womanhead in spiritual ex- istence, and though he did not escape from the narrow and material views of Woman common to his age, he brought from his visions a reflection of the truth too exalted to be understood b}' his contemporaries. Introduction. xxxix "Man," he ssiys in one place, "is born an under- standing, and woman a love." And speaking again of marriage he saj-s : "The wife cannot enter into the proper duties of the man ; nor the man, on the other hand, into the proper duties of the wife ; because the}' differ, as wisdom and its love, or thought and its affection, or understanding and its will. In the proper duties of men the understanding, thought, and wisdom act the chief part ; but in the proper dut ies of wives the jwill, affection, and love act the chief part." He recognizes also the necessit}' of harmonious conjunctions between the two natures to make the perfect man ; but he does not realize the superior importance, the higher spiritu- ality, of the woman's nature. Here Balzac's knowledge, intuitive or acquired, surpasses that of the teacher whose doctrine he has undertaken to illustrate, and in his con- ception of Seraphita he rises to the level of the loftiest mj'stical doctrine to which human faculty has ever attained. Ooethe, like Balzac, penetrated to the heart_of_the vjrl gre at problem in the last sce ngjof thp {^^pnnfj_|jfljf, of "Faust." His Ewig-Weibliche is the divine element which Woman both embodies and typifies, and to th« purifying and stimulating emanations from which Man is indebted for whatever degree of enfranchisement from the clogging embraces of materialism he is en- abled to accomplish. This is the force which zieht uns hinan, which lifts us toward higher spheres and in- spired us with nobler aims ; which on the physical plane keeps before our dull and earth-drawn eyes constant xl Introduction. examples of self-sacrifice, altruism, patience, compas- sion, and love stronger than death ; which is most effective in subduing and extirpating the sordid animal tendencies and inclinations from our nature, and in substituting impulses and aspirations which may give us foothold in the path that leads toward a life better worth living. In the figure of Seraphita we contem- plate the final efflorescence of such endeavor, the cul- minating product of a long chain of incarnations, during which the dominant impulse has been uniformly spirit- ual, and through which the carnal elements have been gradually subdued until at length they suffice only to give the mortal form coherenc}', and to supply the physical means of that inevitable agony of temptation which is the price of translation to the Divine, exacted equall}' from all who bear the conditions of earthl}' life, under whatever name they ma}' be known. For when the day of Deliverance is about to dawn, the hosts of Mara assemble, or Satan calls his legions together, and the supreme test of the aspirant is undergone. Not for naught did the devisers of the mj'steries of Eleusis subject the neophite to a series of ordeals requiring mental and physical resolution and intre- pidity. These ordeals symbolized the difficulties and pains which must be endured by all who seek to pass directly from the natural to the celestial. When — to employ for a moment the terminology of Schopenhauer — the mortal resolves upon exercising "tne denial of the will to live," all the forces of life marshal themselves in battle array against him. The Introduction. xli Temptation, which figures in so man}- religious, is the exoteric S3-mbol of this inevitable conflict. Nature, ■which knows only the conditioned, revolts in ever}- fibre against the unconditioned. The Mephistopheles of the material world, she cannot sufl!er an}' of her children to escape her, and when she perceives that they are bent upon renunciation she summons her Lemures to guard all the outlets and prevent the flight of the soul to higher spheres. Nor is purification, innocence, in- herited elevation of spirit, preparedness for the taking on of more lofty conditions, an}^ defence against these attacks. On the contrary, the greater the refinement the greater the sensibility. So the red Indian, bound to the stake, endures with stolidity torture which would destroy life in the highly strung nervous system of a civilized man. When Sir Robert Peel received the injuries from which he died, so acute was his sensitive- ness that he could not tolerate the gentlest surgical examination, even the pressure of the bandages occa- sioning him so much pain that it was found necessary to remove them. It is true that great mental excite- ment may so completely dominate pain as to render those injured insensible to it. Thus in battle men desperately wounded will go on fighting sometimes until loss of blood causes them to faint. So also strong spiritual excitement ma}' operate as an anaesthetic, as is shown in the case of martyrs who, while their bodies were burning, are reported to have spoken with all the indications of religious rapture or ecstas}-. It is known that in the h3'pnotic state complete physical insensi- xlii Introduction. bility may be induced, so that needles or knives can be plunged deep into the tissues without causing the least sensation. Similar phenomena have been observed in many phases of the m^^sterious and Protean condi- tions called hysterical. Thus the Convulsionnaires of St. Medard actually found satisfaction in being beaten with the utmost violence b}' strong men, and suffered themselves to be struck with heavy iron bars, expe- riencing no pain or injury from assaults which were quite severe enough to have killed persons in the normal state. But none of these instances affect the fact that as a rule sensibility increases with the gradual predomi- nance of the nervous s^'stem, which is one of the most marked concomitants of civilization. There is indeed one consideration which at first sight may appear not to be in accord with this theory*. It has long been observed that women commonl}' bear pain better than men ; and it is perhaps generallj' supposed that the sensibility of women is greater than that of men. Of course no conclusion of an^^ value on such a point can be established in the absence of trustworthy data, and statistics here are unattainable. While, however, it may be admitted, as a deduction from general ex- perience, that women are usually- more patient under I^ain than men are, it is by no means so certain that their sensibilitj- is greater than men's, nor should it be too hastily' assumed that it is even equal to the latter. Reasoning from analogy it might be supposed that the capacity of women to bear pain would be greater than Introduction. xliii that of men, because the performance of their natural functions requires them to bear more pain, and Nature alwaj'S makes provision for special requirements of the kind. Endurance ma}' be confounded with insensi- tiveness, moreover, and this renders it more difficult to arrive at the actual state of the case. "Woman has been disciplined hy centuries of servitude and oppression to a patience which man has not, save in certain subject races, learned to exhibit. The American Indian, trained from infanc}' to conceal his feelings, and especialh' to repress all signs of suffering, could face torture with firmness. The modern citj'-bred man undoubtedly dreads the dentist's chair more, and perhaps actually suffers more in it, than did the savage in the hands of his enemies. Women, however, without any prep- aration but that of heredity, endure prolonged and poignant suffering, and often, if not always, with a composure which men at least are prone to impute to inferior sensitiveness. This inferiorit}', if indeed it exists, is merely physical, for there can be no doubt as to the superior spiritual sensibility of women ; and there is room for considerable hesitation regarding the other branch of the subject. In regard, however, to the capacity for bearing the psychical agon}- inseparable from such struggles as have to be borne by all who attain to the great Deliver- •ance, the higher resolution must be accorded to the woman, and this Balzac recognized in drawing the character of Seraphita. "We see her, as the final change approaches, plunged in the horrors of a supreme con- xliv Introduction. flict with all the earthly desires and longings and ambi- tions. This pure and nearly perfect creature is indeed beyond the reach of the gross animal passions and coarse lusts which sway and control the merely natural man. She has been relieved by her resolute and austere progenitors from those burdens. But still she is not exempt from the common destiny. "When Gotama took his station under the Bodhi tree — " He who is the Prince Of Darkness, Mara — knowing this was Buddh Who should deliver man, and now the hour When he should find the Truth and save the worlds — Gave unto all his evil powers command. Wherefore there trooped from every deepest pit The fiends who war with Wisdom and the Light, Arati, Trishna, Raga, and their crew Of passions, horrors, ignorances, lusts, The brood of gloom and dread ; all hating Buddh» Seeking to shake his mind : nor knoweth one, Not even the wisest, how those fiends of Hell Battled that night to keep the truth from Buddh. "^ Even so the pure Seraphita was assailed ; and if not perhaps with all the sensual temptations which Mara deployed under the eyes of the indomitable Tathagata, with enticements not less powerful, and seductions not less insidious. For such is the constitution of human nature that it is unable to pass even to a state the in- finite superiority of which it is fully assured of, without experiencing reluctance and sadness. Introduction^ xlv " For who to dumb Forgetfulness a prey, This pleasing anxious being e'er resigned, Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, Nor cast one longing, ling'ring look behind? " or, as the poet of" The Light of Asia" puts a like thought : *' Sorrow is Shadow to life, moving when life doth move; Not to be laid aside until one lays Living aside, with all its changing states, Birth, growth, decay, love, hatred, pleasure, pain, Being, and doing. How that none strips off These sad delights and pleasant griefs who lacks Knowledge to know them snares." Even the possession of that knowledge cannot avail to release the mortal from the pain of conflict. He may triumph over Mara in the end ; he may realize the illu- siveness of material existence ; he may attain to Nir- vana the blessed, the peaceful ; but he must wan his I way through the hosts of the tempter and prove his right to the crown b}' bearing the cross. ■■ In this great ordeal Seraphita finds no help in her sin- k>ssness, because her spiritual development has brought w.ith it not only increase of sensitiveness, but an expan- sicm of the perceptive faculties which enables her to coi nprehend to the fullest extent the attractions and delights of the material opportunities and enjo3'ments she is required to renounce. The sacrifice demanded of h ler moreover embraces the slaying of Self. It is not onl.^' earthly desh-es that she must surrender, but all xlvi Introduction. desires ; for the yearning for the Divine, pure as it may seem, is capable of perversion into a disguised form of selfishness. She cannot cease to aspire, for all her nature is attuned heavenward ; but she must be pre- pared for any event, even for the disappointment of her dearest hopes- And that she is so prepared is shown in her reply to the inquiry of one of her companions as to whether, in dying, she expects to enter the Divine sphere at once. " I do not know," she replies. "It may be but one more step in advance ; " that is to say, she may not have reached the end of incarnation. But she must suffer temptation none the less for being un- certain of the future. She must demonstrate her fitness for translation independently of any guarantee. The reader is not admitted to the solemn spectacle of the agonized soul's passion ; and this is a fresh illustration of the delicacy and subtlety which characterize this masterpiece. It is Seraphita's old servant David who describes the contest between the Celestial and Infernal powers, in exalted and mystical terms appropriate to the theme. The interest and impressiveness of the situation are deepened by the contrasting discord of thf 3 sceptical pastor's sarcastic and incredulous comments^. To him mistress and servant are alike mad. The e;x- citement of David, which finds vent in the most ultr^a- Swedenborgian language, only amuses him. It is tr-ue that he is unable to explain, even to himself, many' of the phenomena which he witnesses, but he fitly rej' )re- sents the natural world in getting rid of insoluble pr^-ob- lems by the simple method of denying their existen .ce. Introduction. xlvii There are crises in the night-long struggle, at which David seems almost to fear that Seraphita will succumb to her tempters ; but it is clearly- impossible that she should do so, having reached the elevation at which she is arrested in order that she ma}' purge herself of the last earthly ties. The whole episode is full of beauty and suffsestiveness, and it is so skilfully executed that no touch of bathos mars its deep spiritual charm. The scene which follows the Temptation of Seraphita is intended to illustrate at once the clairvoyant and the intellectual powers of this marvellous creature. It is the final manifestation of the masculine elements in her nature, the demonstration of a superiority of knowledge and understanding not less marked than that of her spirituality. Wilfrid, who represents a soul in a state of unstable equilibrium, poised so insecurely that a compix'-atively feeble impulse may alter its direction upward or downward, is possessed by a strong but wholly carnal passion for the beautiful and mysterious maiden, and he is the vehicle — on the physical plane — of those material powers which are leagued in the endeavor to ■drag her back to earth. But Seraphita's spirituality is t,oo strong for Wilfrid's materialism. She sees through his design, reads his character, and at once determines th.at he shall be saved from himself, and by marriage wit!h Minna — the typical union between Understanding and Love — be set in the path of aspiration, and assisted toward the attainment of divine enfranchise- ment. At the same time Seraphita resolves to open the eyes of the sceptical pastor as far as may be pos- xlviii Introduction. sible, and to lift him out of his gross and paralyzing carnalit}'. To these ends she addresses herself in the remarkable exposition and arguments which she de- livers at a length which would be wearisome but for the luciditj-, force and closeness of the reasoning, and the profound interest which attaches to the problems brought under discussion. This speech is also to be regarded as a vindication of Intuition, for Seraphita is represented as having been reared entirely without education after the usual meth- ods, and the pastor Becker naturally insists that she must be phenomenally ignorant, and quite incapable of showing a reason for her faith, however fanatical tliat faith may be. His object, therefore, is to test and ex- pose her want of information, and so to convince Wil- frid, whose infatuation for her vexes him, that she is merely a self-deluded visionary, who probably inherits a strong tendency toward mysticism from her Swedenbor- gian parents. Seraphita at once perceives the mixed purposes of her visitors, and loses no time in showing that she understands the situation. Then she proceeds to dissect Becker's mind, to anal3'ze his scepticism, to state his positions with care and candor, to allow all his objections and difficulties their full weight, and finally to retort upon him with a defence and expo'si- tion of the spiritual in the universe, which leaves him amazed and dumb. In concluding the review of M. Becker's doubts and the reasonings upon which they rest, it is to be noted that the feminine element in Sera- phita again comes to the front. The understanding Introduction. xlix does not suffice for the elucidation of the spiritual truths which are next to be dealt with. The Woman- Soul is at this point called upon to expound those highest mysteries which are involved in the apprehen- sion of the great scheme of things. The ke3'-note of this second and more elevated branch of Seraphita's discourse is struck in the opening words. '* Belief is a_gi£t. To believe is to feel. T o believe in G od it is nece^ss arj' to feel God. Is^this the language of Mys- ticism? Seraphita has in her opening remarks dwelt upon the fact — patent bcN'ond serious controversy — that Man unites, or is the point of junction for, two worlds, the Finite and the Infinite. But if this be so how is it possible to explain all his relations in terms of the Finite ; how can it be possible to com- prehend all his relations without taking account of those which link him with the Infinite? Nevertheless, neither explanation nor comprehension is to be attained 8 o long as the methods and the terminology of the in- ferior, the conditioned state, are alone emploj'ed in the investigation. The situation is precisely that of the men of science who involve themselves and others in hopeless confusion by discussing Spirit in terras of Matt.er. Neither can Matter be discussed in terms of Spirit. To each world its own terminology, its own methods and instruments of research. The Finite in Man oan never apprehend Infinity ; but the Infinite in Man i/nay approach realization of that to which it is by unity f )f nature allied. Belief, then, or Faith, is the key which alone opens 1 Introduction. the doorjofjii£_[nfinite, and it does so by lifting the soul above the material plane, ancl endowing it with percet^ive powers w] [iicli~carnmt' be at^quTred througl any mater ial educational methods. The Understanding caB^be cultivated to such an extent that it may explain and realize the meaning of the purely phenomenal ; but there the limit of its capacit}- is reached. It is the agent of material apprehension, perfectly fitted to that end, and supreme judge in its own court. But its jurisdic- tion ceases where the domain of Faith begins, and the latter must be the guide and interpreter throughout the spiritual regions. Th e Und erstanding refuses to believe what it cannot grasp, and the position is perfectly- nat- ural and perfectly just. But the Understanding is, after all, only one element in the constitution of Man, and it is the lower power of the two which are given him for guidance. According to the philosoph}' of Louis Lam- bert (of which " Seraphita " is the final fruition) the civil- ization of the world is supported and carried forwani in the main, and altogether so far as its material as- pects are concerned, b}^ what he terms the Abstrjiie- tive, — that is, by those who confine thei^ selves to the development of their intellectual faculties, and virtu^ally ignore their spiritual side. There is no height or splen- dor or glory of material civilization which cannctt be thus attained; but a purely material civilization, how- ever brilliant and outwardly prosperous and flouriishing it may appear, must contain the seeds of its own decay and overthrow, as all history teaches by the most preg- nant and impressive examples. Unassisted Reason Introduction. li shows the existence of many m3'steries bej'ond the power of Reason to solve ; yet Reason persists in re- jecting the agencies whereb}' if at all these mysteries may be explained, — and in so acting renounces the hope of ever penetrating be^'ond secondary causes and phenomenal appearances. This, according to Seraphita, is the explanation of what is now called Agnosticism. It may be of interest to see what Swedenborg teaches in this connection. Faith, according to the Swedish sage is "an internal acknowledgment of truth." Faith and truth, he declares, are one, and the angels know nothing of faith, but what men call faith they call truth. But he affirms that " by things known to explore the mysteries of faith is as impossible as for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, or for a rib to govern the purest fibrils of the chest and heart, — so gross, yea, much more gross, is the sensual and knowing relatively to the spiritual and celestial." And concern- ing the belief in and acceptance of things not compre- hended by the intellect, he says : " Every one ma}' see c*^^hat a man is governed by the principles he adopts, bie they ever so false, and that all his knowledge and re»asoning favor his principles ; for innumerable con- siu'erations tending to support them readil}- present theiTQselves to his mind, and thus he is confirmed in falsities. He, therefore, who assumes as a principle that nothing is to be believed until it is seen and under- ^tooii can never believe ; for spiritual and celestial things are neither seen with the eyes nor grasped by th( " magination." And again, he sa3's : "There are lii Introduction. two principles, one of which leads to all folly and mad- ness, the other to all intelligence and wisdom. The former principle is to deny all things, or to sa}' in one's heart that he cannot believe them nntil he is convinced by what he can comprehend or be sensible of; this principle is what leads to all folh' and madness, and ma}' be called the negative principle. . . . Those who think from the negative principle, the more they take counsel of matters of reason, of knowledge, and of philosophy, the more they plunge themselves into dark- ness, until at length they come to deny all things. The reason is that from things inferior no one compre- hends things superior, that is, things spiritual and celes- tial, — still less things diAdne, because they transcend all understanding ; and besides, everything is then involved in negatives from the beginning." The argument of Seraphita is to the same effect. Finite Reason, she contends, cannot comprehend Infin- ite purposes and orderings. The measuring instrument which man seeks to apply to the divine is inadequate. He might be more modest if he could be made to see^ how frequently he fails to comprehend, not -^i^lely th.e Infinite, but phenomena which lie, so to ispeak, at h'ls own door, and upon his own plane of existence. Agaim, this sceptical being ventures to deny God because- of His intangibility and invisibility, while at the sfime time he gives name and form to abstractions, — as for instance. Number. It is true that Number is a reallity, but the average man does not comprehend its sig-^nifi- cance, and the Number which he figures to himself, and Introduction. liii wherewith he amuses himself, is \Qxy ditfereut from the real Number. The same considerations applj- to the abstractive Time and Space, neither of which is more than a name, representing no noumenon, answering to no actual entity, being in fact no more than an inven- tion for the convenience of measuring those human relations which cannot be more trul}- and exacth' esti- mated, because — and onl}' because — the human mind is so inadequate to the work which it desires and attempts to perform. The human mind as confined and restricted b}- scepticism, that is ; for when opened b}' spiritual illumination it is capable of rising to great altitudes, and of apprehending many things in their true and ultimate significance. The staple objection to the form of argument em- ployed here b}' Seraphita is the futility of all modes of inquiry which transcend the Reason ; it being assumed tliat the human mind is incapable of receiving demon- stration of truth otherwise than through the operation of the reasoning faculty, which proceeds entireh' upon experience, and, where experience ends, ceases to have anv point d'^appui. A very fair example of this line of argument is to be found in Lotze's " Microcosmos." *' If," that author observes, " reason is not of itself capable of finding the highest truth, but on the contrary sttinds in need of a revelation which is either contained in some divine act of historic occurrence, or is con- tinually repeated in men's hearts, still reason must be able to understand the revealed truth at least so far as to recognize in it the satisfying and convincing conclu- liv Introduction. sion of those upward-soaring trains of thought which reason itself began, led by its own needs, but was not able to bring to an end. For all religious truth is a moral good, not a mere object of curiosity. It may therefore include some mysteries inaccessible to reason, but will only do so in as far as these are indispensable in order to combine satisfactorily other and obvious points of great importance ; the secrecy of sxij m3-sterv is in itself no reason for venerating it ; a secrecy that was permanent and in its nature eternal would only be a reason for indifference towards anything which should thus refuse to be brought into connection with mental needs ; and finall}-, above all things, to revel in secrets which are destined to remain secrets is necessarily not in accord with the notion of a revelation." The philosopher then proceeds to put these questions : " But must that which is a secret for cognition be alwa3's realh^ a secret? Does not the nature of faith consist in this, that it affords a certainty of that which no cognition can grasp, as well of lohat it is, as that it is? And does not all science itself, when it has finished its inves- tigations of particulars, come back to grasp, in a faith of which the certainty is indemonstrable and yet irref- ragable, those highest truths on which the evidence of other knowledge depends? There is certainly a germ of truth in this rejoinder ; but not the less clear is the essential difference that separates such scientific faith from religious faith." It is unnecessary to follow Lotze's argument further. Enough has been quoted to illustrate the common error of what Louis Introduction. Iv Lambert would have called the abstractive method of ratiocination. Scraphita tells Pastor Becker that he and she speak different languages in discussing these high questions, and the same may be said of all who take opposite sides on the question of psj-chologic capacities and poten- tialities. The position of Seraphita, who is a Specialist, should, however, be made clear. All knowledge is rela- tive. There are mysteries which no created being can ever comprehend. As Seraphita puts it, " To under- stand God would be to be God." Thus also the Asiatic occultists, who profess to derive their knowledge of the origin and destiny of the universe from higher intelli- gences, corresponding in many respects to the angels of the Chi-istian Church, affirm that neither their ex- alted cori-espondents and revelators nor the still higher beings with whom the latter are in relations, possess any knowledge of the Supreme Being. Science pre- tends no farther than to the origination of the universe by Motion ; the genesis of that Motion lies beyond its utmost reach of apprehension. But the contention of lialzac is that a much higher knowledge than is attain- able by the Reason is within the grasp of a duly trained and disciplined Humanit}', developed in one direction through many incarnations, as Seraphita is supposed to iiave been, and so purified from the materialism which in the race at large obstructs perception that to her strengthened and clarified vision mysteries cease to be obscure, and the sphere of cognition is indefinitely^ enlarged. Of course it is apparent that such a being Ivi Introduction. cannot argue on anything like equal terms with such a gross sceptic as Pastor Becker. In her, intellection has already come to operate angelically rather than humanly, and what to her opponent appears paradox and incomprehensibility is to her demonstrated and familiar truth. Nowhere is the tension of Balzac's thought and the resolute maintenance of his imagina- tion upon this elevated plane of imaginative creation more strikingly exhibited than in this long and subtle discourse of Seraphita. An inferior artist could not have borne so severe a test, but would have lapsed into commonplace before the end was reached. Seraphita, however, supports her high arguments with perfectly natural ease throughout. The philosophy of Louis Lambert will be recognized repeatedly in it. This is in accordance with the author's general scheme. Sera- phita herself is the culmination of the noble body of thought outlined in " Louis Lambert." In her we see the consummation of the long process of transformation and evolution through and by which the mortal puts on immortality, the merely Human blossoms into the. celestial. It is also to be obsers^ed that though Balzac has modernized the conception of this marvellous and beau- tiful process, he is in no way to be regarded as the inventor of that conception. As to its origin we shall perhaps seek it in vain, for the deeper we explore the occult and religious literature of antiquity the more evidence we find of the archaism of the central belief. The doctrine of metempsychosis is correlated with that Introduction. Ivii of iierfeetibilit}', vfliile the means bj which the latter end ma^' be attained have been so constantly and minutely discussed, tested, and analyzed by Eastern philosophers and psychologists as to furnish forth a complete code, the very terminolog}- of which has be- wildered and baffled Western philologists, men of science, and above all, theologians. Nevertheless, a belief in the possibility of realizing in the flesh a much higher knowledge and perception than materialist methods of education are capable of attaining to, has in various ways descended and persisted through all ages to the present time ; and in support of this belief there has been preserved and recorded a certain amount of what, in almost any other case, would generally be accepted as substantive evidence, but in this case is accepted or rejected with little regard to its true evi- dential value, and for the most part according as the individual to whom it is submitted is dominated by Spiritual or Materialist prepossessions. It is true that .in the West the credibility of all such phenomena has tteen weakened by the fading out of the doctrine of reincarnation ; for apart from that doctrine every ap- pr:oximation to the higher life recorded must savor so muich of miracle as to repel philosophic minds and cause consideration of the alleged facts to be refused or abandoned. In Oriental countries, where metem- psyc\iosis has never ceased to be accepted, it obviously supplies plausible explanations for man}* appearances whie, ' under other conditions would stronglv suefgest the sup- rnatural. Among Asiatics, reincarnation is con- Iviii Introduction. sidered the normal, nay, the inevitable, career, and in connection with the Law of Karma it affords a faith which is held by a large proportion of the earth's in- habitants. Thus it is clear that the idea of Seraphita would be at once understood b}' a Hindu, who would see nothing fanciful or extravagant in the personifica- tion, which he would probably classify in his own mind as that of a female Rishi. Swedenborg, whether con- sciously or unconsciousl}', derived many of his beliefs as to other states of existence, it is not necessary to sa}' from the Eastern sages, but at all events fx'om the same sources which were open to those sages. He altered some of these Oriental ideas strangely, beyond a question, and clothed them with material garments such as would have bewildered the Indian philosophers, whose theories were of the soul, without the alloy of earth which modern civilization has, natural!}' perhaps, given to them. In some respects Seraphita is more Oriental than Swedenborgian ; but in truth Balzac has put many occult principles together in fashioning lhi« unique creature, and in the end he has. perhaps wisely-, borrowed freely the imagery and the color as well as the general conceptions which characterize what are call'ed the ecstatic visions of the Christian saints, especially the mystics of comparative!}- modern times. The occult doctrine of Number is touched upoiti in Seraphita's discourse. As the subject has already been considered at some length in the Introduction to " I^ouis Lambert," and as Balzac makes his meaning compara- tively clear, perhaps it is not necessary to reopen that Introduction. lix question ; to a full understanding of which, moreover, some knowledge of the Kabbala is requisite. It may, however, be as well to point out that Balzac does not fol- low Pythagoras in materiaUzing Number ; the entities to which he refers are purely spiritual and mystical. But there is in this remarkable discourse of Seraphita a view of the straight line and the circle which it is necessary to examine carefully, for at first sight it appears to be in hopeless contradiction with all occult teaching. Hav- ing shown that the circle and the curve govern created forms, Seraphita proceeds thus: "Who shall decide between rectiUnear 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 curv^e, 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 spirit- ual worlds ; one is the theory of finite creations, the other the theory of the infinite. Man, who alone in this world has a knowledge of the Infinite, can alone know the straight line ; he alone has the sense of verti- eality 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 coa- Ix Introduction. joined 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." This doctrine is clearl}^ not derived from Sweden- borg, whose central theory of Correspondences is funda- mentally in conflict with it. According to the Swedish seer ever^-thing material is a type and representation of something spiritual. Swedenborg's philosophical hy- pothesis of vortices, moreover, has nothing in common with this intimation of the superior spirituality of the line. That the circle is the most perfect of all figures is never doubted by the author of the vortical theory. Professor Winchell has condensed this theory conven- ientlv, and from him a few sentences ma}' be quoted : "The first cause is the infinite or unlimited. This gives existence to the first finite or limited. That which produces a limit is analogous to motion. The limit produced is a point, the essence of which is mo- tion ; but being without parts, this essence is not act- ual motion but only a conatus to it. From this first proceed extension, space, figure, and succession, or time. As in geometr}' a point generates a line, a line a sur- face, and a surface a solid, so here the conatus of the point tends towards lines, surfaces, and solids. In other words, tlie universe is contained in ovo in the first natural point. The motion toward which the conatus tends is circular, smce the circle is the inost perfect of all figures, and tendency to motion impressed by the Infinite must be tendency to the most perfect figure.'' And again : " The most perfect figure of the motion Introduction. Ixi above described must be the perpetually circular. . . . It must necessarily be of a spiral figure, which is the most perfect of all figures," — and much more reasoning to the same eflfect. And in this view of the circle Sweden- borg does but follow the most ancient of occult doctrines, as may readily be perceived. The most venerable cosmo- gonic symbol is the point in the circle, — the point repre- senting the creating Logos, the Breath of the Absolute imparting Motion to Matter ; the circle t3'pifying the un- limited, the Infinite, which includes and controls all cre- ated things. Again, the Spirit of Life and Immortality have from the earliest times been symbolized b}' the circle. The whole Kabbala proceeds upon the theor}' of circles, which is the formulating principle of the doc- trine of Emanations. In all hermetic scriptures the same teaching will be found. The circle was the sym- bol of the most spiritual views. Thus Proclus says : " Before producing the material worlds which move in a circle, the Creative Power produced the invisible Circles." The Golden Egg of Brahma is another illus- tration of the universality of this doctrine. In fact, as is observed in "The Secret Doctrine," " In the secret doctrine the concealed unity — whether representing Parahrahmam, or the 'Great Extreme' of Confucius, or the Deity concealed by Phta, the Eternal light, or again, the Jewish En-Soph — is always found to be sym- bolized l)y a circle, or the 'nought' (absolute No — Thing and Nothing, because it is injlnite and the All) ; while the God-manifested (b^- its works) is re- ferred to as the diameter of that circle. The symbol- Ixiv Introduction. with Nature's noblest mood, and might well be the creation of these Devas with which the m3-thology of Hindustan peoples the unseen universe. No poet can fail to perceive and take delight in the beauties of the curve as exhibited in Nature ; and the poetical vision has never been more subtly or sweetly expressed than by Emerson : — " For Nature beats in perfect tune, And rounds with rhyme her every rune, Whether she work in land or sea, Or hide underground her alchemy. Thou canst not wave thy staff in air, Or dip thy paddle in the lake, But it carves the bow of beauty there, And the ripples in rhymes the oar forsake." So fond is Nature of the curve that it underlies all her work and gives to it the deepest charm and attraction. The straight line she does not greatly affect, naj-, she takes a mischievous pleasure, apparently*, in baffling man's efforts to establish it. Even her blindest forces resist its manifestations as bj' some law. " Thou canst not wave thy staff in air," but it " carves the bow of beauty there." The resistance of the tenuous atmos- phere thwarts the downright, rectilinear impulse, and forces the staff into the curves which symbolize the perfection of form. But Seraphita affirms that the curve is really the inferior S3'mbol ; that it belongs to and expresses the Finite ; whereas the straight line pertains to the Infi- nite. How shall this paradox be explained? To the merely mortal understanding, naj-, to that understand- Introduction. Ixv ing when raised to its highest power, the circle and the curve are and have ever been the symbols of the lofti- est conceptions, the kej-s to the profoundest systems of thought. No doubt the line may be regarded mathe- matically as the sign of infinite extension, but it surely has little connection with Idealism, with Poetry, with Imagination, or Beauty, or Religion. With Duty it as- suredly has clear and close affiliations, however, and that fact may well give us pause ; for to comprehend Duty thoroughly is indeed to penetrate into arcana which, if such vision be possible to the finite, extend to the very threshold of infinity. There is nothing which so synthesizes and embraces Matter and Spirit as this same apprehension of Duty ; and keeping fast hold of that idea we may perhaps be able to throw a little light upon Seraphita's meaning in the difficult passage under consideration. The ideal here concerned is indeed too little reverenced in these days. Yet it is as true as ever that " the path of duty is the way to glory," and that " He that, ever following her commands, On with toil of heart and knees and hands, \ Thro' the long gorge to the far light has won His path upward, and prevail'd, Shall find the toppling crags of Duty scaled Are close upon the shining table-lands ITo which our God himself is moon and sun." For " Duty, lov'd of Love " is the highest test of human aspiration, the surest measure of human progress, and it may well be that the straiglit line whicli is associated with and symbolizes it is in the final analysis an intima- Ixvi Introduction. tiou and a belonging of that supreme existence whose remoteness and majesty transcend conditioned thought, and on this plane can onl}- be dimly perceived as tlie Something which metaph^-sical analysis feels compelled to postulate in partial explanation of the Knowable. The Logos, the Point within the Circle, was not, as often mistakenly supposed, held bj^ the students of the archaic doctrine to be the Supreme or Absolute. It was really but the symbol of the Manifested, — that of which the human mind can in some way take cogni- zance. The old theogonies avoid the perplexities and contradictions so strongly presented by Seraphita when examining the doubts which assail the sceptical Pastor, bj' postulating a First Cause bej'ond the actual Artificer of the Universe. So Porphyrj- (cited by Taylor) saj's : " To that God who is above all things, neither external speech ought to be addressed, nor 3et that which is inward." Thus Proclus speaks of the highest principle as " more ineffable than all silence, and more occult than all essence," and as being " concealed amidst the intelligible gods." This is the Ain-Soph of the Kabbala, — the name given it there being almost s3-nonymous in meaning with the Unknowable of modern Agnos- ticism, though the latter professes to find the Logos equally inscrutable. Now it is conceivable that while the circle is, as Seraphita says, the s3'mbol of the Created, the line may be that of the Uncreated, that is to say, the Infinite. The fact that to us who exist on this earthly plane the circle presents the most perfect figure does not appear a reallj' serious obstacle to the Introduction. Ixvii reception of this view ; for the circle might \exy well be the most perfect figure as related to Matter in all its modifications, or even as related to the lower spir- itual spheres into which alone it ma}' be supposed that incarnated spirit is capable of penetrating ; and ^^et it might not be adapted to that highest form of existence which is altogether above and bej'ond human appre- hension. Either this is the interpretation to be put upon Seraphita's statement concerning the relations and symbolism of the line and the circle, or it must be concluded that Balzac has fallen into an error so gross that it is incredible it should have been committed by a student of occultism in every other particular so firml}' grounded. There is indeed no theory- advanced in either of the philosophical romances of Balzac which cannot be traced to authorities and co-ordinated with some accepted doc- trine. He never delivers himself over recklessly to his fanc}- in these works, and the smallest suggestion has a significance of its own. In the present instance he certainh' appears to traverse even wideh' adopted es- oteric teachings, but the more reasonable assumption must be that this contradiction is onlj- apparent and not fundamental. It moi'eover evidently encloses a bold conception, and one which is calculated to exalt the character and conve}' a lofty idea of the powers and perceptions of Seraphita. Never does she tower more majestically over her interlocutors and companions than when she is delivering herself of this masfnificent thought ; and nowhere are the capabilities and poten- Ixviii Introduction. tialities of humanit}' more strikingly and comprehen- sively suggested than in the intimation that man contains within himself an element which links him lot alone with the highest heavens, but with that in- scrutable, eternal power which transcends our concep- tion of the celestial as much as that surpasses our material experience. The thought involved is indeed most noble. It is that the destinj' of man connects him with an existence independent of and superior to all the changes which Matter can undergo ; with an existence indissoluble by the termination either of Material or Spiritual universes ; with an existence unaffected by pralayas and manvantaras, and which will bear him scathless through every catastrophe and cataclysm to which the formed and the formless worlds are said by Eastern occultism to be alike subject. The vista thus opened to the imagination is stupendous beyond question, but it may be explored boldly or timidly as the reader's inclinations and mental and spiritual tendencies determine. The strictures of Seraphita upon the half-truths and fallacies of physical science may be studied profitably in connection with that critical work of Judge Stallo, " The Concepts and Theories of Modern Physics," which is cited in the Introduction to Louis Lambert. But the real uncertainty of many alleged scientific certainties is perhaps best shown in the mercilessl}'' destructive criticism which rival men of science practise upon one another's theories and doctrines. The refer- ence to ' ' the greatest man among you " — who is said by Introduction. Ixix Seraphita, with rhetorical exaggeration, to have "died in despair " because toward the close of his life he realized the inadequacy of his favorite hypothesis to account for the universe — of course applies to Sir Isaac Newton, whose essay at interpretation of the Apocalypse caused his brother scientists to shrug their shoulders and lament the breaking down of that superb mind. Nor is it at all incredible that Newton should have been drawn to his Scriptural studies by recognition of the need for some such initiating and sustaining force in the universe as the old doctrine of the Logos supplies. It is certain, as has been pointed out before, that he was by no means so self-confident as his followers, and that in particular he entertained serious doubts as to the sufficiency of his theory of gi-avitation, — doubts, be it said, which modern research and scientific progress have strengthened instead of diminishing. Indeed, Seraphita might have reinforced her argument with many more instances of scientific mistakes and in- sufficient explanations. There are to-day few even of the theories commonly regarded as most firmly estab- lished which do not present difficulties hitherto in- soluble, and which are not cautiously held by men of truly open minds as at the best provisional. — con- venient working hypotheses, but not to be safely made the ground of definitive conclusions. At the close of Seraphita's harangue her auditors withdraw, confounded ; but the impression produced upon their minds rapidly fades, and the next morning the Pastor is once more prepared to find, in the pages Ixx Introduction. of his favorite Wier, a clue to the in3'stei'ious knowl- edge and argumentative powers of the 3'oung girl, whom he would fain regard as insane or under "pos- session." As Balzac cites Wier on several occasions in this book, and as he is an author probably not known to the generalit}' of readers, it may be well to giA^e some account of his writings, the more particu- larl}' as there is some special significance in the refer- ence to his once celebrated work on witchcraft. John Wier was a learned physician of Cleves, who was the first to publish a protest against the wild witchcraft panic that in the sixteenth and many preceding centu- ries, caused a frightful slaughter of deluded and inno- cent victims throughout Europe. Wier's book, entitled " De Praestigiis Daemonum," would not in the present day be regarded as anything but a grossly superstitious work. The author was indeed no less credulous than his contemporaries. He believed with them that the atmosphere swarmed with evil spirits, that a personal devil went around like a roaring lion, destro3ing souls, that all manner of miraculous events were continually occurring. In fact, he accepted all the evidence upon which Sprenger, Bodin, and the whole school of the In- quisition, founded their theories of witchcraft ; but he interpreted the alleged phenomena differentl}', and more in accord with the scientific spirit. His explanation was that many of the so-called witches were lunatics, and that the majority of those said to be bewitched, together with man}' accused of sorcery, were simply possessed b}' the devil. The latter, he argued, had no Introduction. Ixxi need to act iudireetlj' through witches, when he could dekide his victims directly', and he disposed of the witch theory by asserting that Satan put it into the heads of the possessed to denounce old women as witches, in order that as much mischief and suffering as possible might be caused. Wier was a humane man, — a rare phenomenon in his time, — and the tor- tures and burnings occurring ever3-where revolted him. He was careful to declare his opinion that all real witches deserved the most severe punishment ; but he was plainly doubtful whether there were an}- real witches. Conservative and credulous as his book appears now, it created intense indignation among the believers in witchcraft, who were not merely the majority of men then living, but, which seems far stranger, the majority of the educated and (relativelj-) intelligent class. In proof of this, the fact ma}' be cited that Wier's book was answered by John Bodin, in an equally remarkable work entitled " De la Demonomanie des Sorciers." Bodin attacked Wier with ferocity, upholding the au- thority of the indorsers of witchcraft and denouncing the kindly doctor of Cleves as little better than an athe- ist and a heretic. Now Bodin, as Lecky observes in his " History' of Rationalism," was " esteemed by many of his contemporaries the ablest man who had then arisen in France, and the verdict has been but littliC qualified by later writers. Amid all the distrac- tions of a dissipated and inti'iguing court, and all the labors of a judicial position, he had amassed an amount Ixxii Introduction. of learning so vast and so various as to place him in the very first rank of the scholars of his nation. He has also the far higher merit of being one of the chief founders of political philosophy and political histor}', and of having anticipated on these subjects many of the conclusions of our own day." Yet there is no superstition, no legend, no absurd and preposterous invention, no wild and grotesque imagination, too diffi- cult to be received and digested by this philosopher and sage. He relies absolutel}^ upon authority. He never questions traditions. He never reasons upon matters of fact. He never exhibits for a single moment a tendency toward scientific investigation, compari- son, and inference. He abuses Wier in the old-fash- ioned dogmatic, theological manner. He calls his book a " tissue of horrible blasphemies." He declares that it cannot be read "without righteous anger." Wier has " armed himself against God ; " he has done his best to disseminate witchcraft, to support the kingdom of Satan, and so forth through many pages. Yet Wier had truly not advanced very far before his age. He held to most of the old barbarous doctrines, and among them to that of the superior innate frailty and deprav- ity of women. He, in common with manj^ others, had asked himself why so large a proportion of alleged witches were women ; and he, in common with many others, explained the fact b}' asserting that they were so prone to evil that Satan found them an easj- pre}'. Perhaps it was especiall}' because of Wier's chapter upon the weaknesses and wickedness of women that Introduction. Ixxiii Balzac chose this author as the favorite authority of Pastor Becker. In the twenty-seventh chapter of his sixth book he cites a long array of classical writers in support of the contention that women have always been speciall}- ad- dicted to the employment of poison as an agent of re- venge or passion. In the sixth chapter of his third book he observes: " Le diable ennemi fin, ruze et cauteleux, induit volontiers le sexe feminin, lequel est inconstant k raison de sa complexion, de legere croy- ance, malicieux, impatient, melancolique pour ne pou- voir commander k ses afections ; et principaleraent les vieilles, debiles, stupides et d'esprit chancelant." This is why that Old Serpent addressed himself rather to Eve than to Adam ; and this is why he so easily seduced Eve. The holy Saint Peter also has denomi- nated them "weak vessels," and Saint Chrysostom has remarked, in his homily upon Matthew, that the female sex is imprudent and ductile, easily influenced and swayed, either from good to evil or from evil to good. He ventures into the difficult region of etymology in search of further proof, and discovers one in the deri- vation of the Latin muUer from mollier or molU, ' ' which signifies softness." It may be conjectured that when Pastor Becker sought in the treatise of John Wier con- firmation of his theory regarding Seraphita's inspiration, he had in mind the worth}' doctor's views concerning women, and their special fitness as vehicles of diaboli- cal influences. Pastor Becker refers, as a case in point, to the histoi-y of a young Italian girl who, at the age of Ixxiv Introduction. twelve, spoke forty-two languages, ancient and modern. Wier has a story of a Saxon woman, unable to read or write, who ' ' being possessed by the devil " spoke in Latin and Greek, and prophesied concerning future events, — all of which came to pass. He also tells of an idiotic Italian woman who, being under the same infernal influence, and asked which was Virgil's finest verse, replied suddenly — " Discite justitiam moniti et non temnere Divos." It is an interesting point in these old ideas that the mediaeval notions about women rested upon observa- tion of the essential differences between the masculine and feminine natures ; but external observation alone. To quote Leck^-'s admirable analj'sis of mediaeval per- secution again : ' ' The question why the immense majority of those who were accused of sorcery should be women early attracted attention ; and it was gener- ally answered, not by the sensibilit}' of their nervous constitution, and b}- their consequent liability to re- ligious monomania and epidemics, but by the inherent wickedness of the sex. There was no subject on which the old writers expatiated with more indignant elo- quence, or with more copious illustration," — of which we have just given an example in John "VVier. Another instance of the horrible perversion of ideas which characterized those dark ages may be found in the interpretation given to the superior constancy' of women in facing torture. The contemporary explanation of this was that the Devil provided all witches with means Introduction. Ixxv of withstanding the torment ; and the inevitable corol- lary of such reasoning was a stimulation of ingenuity in devising and apph'ing more searching and cruel tortures to women. There can be no question that had Seraphita lived in the time of Wier and Bodin the former would have considered her a demoniac, and the latter would have denounced her as a witch, the only fit destiny of whom was the stake : and it may be that Balzac intended to hint at the contrast between med iaeval and modern thought in introducing, in John Wier, the most signal, but at tbe same time narrow and feeble, illustration of sixteenth century liberalism. The sixth chapter of ' ' Seraphita " is chiefly occupied with the beautiful and noble discourse in which the dying m3-stic unfolds to her companions the secret of "the Path." Up to this time Wilfrid, who represents the Abstractive type, has failed to understand Seraphita. Earthl}' ambitions still burn fiercely in his breast. He cherishes what seem to him high thoughts of con- quest. He would go to Central Asia and plot against the British supremac}' in India. He would head such a formidable irruption of Asiatic tribes as Genghis Khan organized. He thinks that the prospect of sov- ereignty, of Oriental luxury and splendor, will tempt Seraphita, and he la^'s before her his far-reaching schemes and invites her to share his glory. But Sera- phita smiles. There is for her no temptation in such offers. As she says, beings more powerful than Wilfrid have alread}' sought to dazzle her with far greater gifts. Minna approaches with a more dangerous because a Ixxvi Introduction. purer and higher petition. She offers nothing but her< self as a vicarious sufferer. Love raises her above the sphere of the Abstractive. Already the divine is shin- ing through her envelope of flesh. Alread}* the tender loyal heart has found the entrance to the Path by which alone the celestial sphere can be attained. Then the prophetic vision of Seraphita recognizes in these two the elements of Force and Love which, when puri- fied by the discipline of patient suffering, will unite to constitute the relatively perfect Angelic entity. This is the meaning of the exclamation she utters in gazing upon Wilfrid and Minna before she begins her final address to them. That address may be regarded as in some sense a recapitulation of all the doctrines indicated and shad- owed forth in the preceding parts of the stor}'. Once more, and now witli large insistence, the doctrine of re- incarnation is dwelt upon, and referred to as the neces- sary and sole explanation of human evolution. Balzac here treats it more in detail than he has done elsewhere, although it is the basis of Seraphita's history, and makes intelligible the whole structure of her existence and theosophy. Seraphita traces existence from the Instinctive sphere upward. The lower life is occupied, she says, with exploitation of the purely material. It is there that the inevitable lust of possession has to be worked out. It is there that men toil and struggle to amass earthly treasures, and, having succeeded, slowly realize the uselessness of such riches. Matter must be exhausted before Spirit assumes control, and it may Introduction. Ixxvii happen that many existences are required to expend the craving for impermanent possessions. As a rule men indulge their lowest desires to satiety, and it is only when disgust overcomes them, when the emptiness of all mundane enjoyments is demonstrated b}' prolonged experiment, that they begin to seek a more excellent way. The long period of education is protracted still further by relapses and excesses. " A lifetime is often no more than sufficient to acquire virtues which balance the vices of the preceding existence." At length suffer- ing brings love, and love self-sacrifice, and that aspira- tion, and aspiration, prayer; which is the direct bond of union between the finite and the infinite. It is in- deed no new lesson. The directions for gaining the strait and narrow path have been vouchsafed to the sons of men in countless forms and ways, and with charac- teristic perseverance and malign ingenuity \hey have nullified their opportunities again and again by quarrel- ling over the phraseology and disputing the authority of the guide-books, while ignoring the significance of the essential harmony which subsists between all the rules laid down for the attainment of ultimate felicity and emancipation from evil. Yet the recognition of the superior attractions of the Divine can never be for all alike. For the souls still chained to Matter in the In- stinctive sphere, for the majority even of the Abstrac- tives, the allurements of the impermanent world must continue to be insuperable. It is only the minority who possess the courage to endure what follows every sin- cere movement of separation from the Material. The Ixxviii Introduction. latter, though in one sense but a condition of Spirit, is in its lower forms hostile to Spirit, and it resents its renunciation by the few who elect to enter the Path. Instinctive Man not only deliberatel}' prefers his inferi- ority, but regards with positive enmit}' all who evince a desire to ascend in the scale of existence. This enmity is in part automatic and literally instinctive, and resem- bles the resistance which an air-breathing creature offers to immersion in the water. Instinctive Man cannot breathe nor live in the rarified atmosphere of the Di- vine, and feeling this he fights with all his strength against ever}' attempt to raise him to that uninhabitable sphere. The Path once chosen, therefore, the pilgrim must make his account with persecution and scorn and ill-feeling. The world will not let him go at all will- ingl}', and if he tear himself away will surelj- follow him with its sharp displeasure. These two, however, — Wilfrid and Minna, — were, as Seraphita knows, prepared by previous incarnations to take the step which should separate them from the world ; and her final task is the application of the stimu- lus which shall determine them in entering upon their new and arduous career. As he listens to the se- raphic eloquence of the m3-sterious being he has in vain tried to entangle in the meshes of an earthly love, Wil- frid feels his carnal impulses dying, and a purer, loftier aspiration takes their place. For the first time he begins to comprehend who and what Seraphita is. For the first time he is made to perceive the delusive char- acter of his dreams of earthly glory and magnificence. Introduction. Ixxix For the first time, also, he looks upon the human girl beside him with a feeling of respect and sympathy-, and is drawn toward her by the attraction of a common yearning after the higher life. Then the work of Sera- phita on the plane of humauitj- is finished, and in a final burst of rapture and adoration her spirit breaks the last fragile bonds uniting it to the body, and she rises into the celestial spheres to receive judgment, reward, whatever is awaiting her. The final chapter, entitled "The Assumption" by Balzac, is an exqui- sitely imagined vision. Wilfrid and Minna, kneeling by the body of Seraphita, are rapt into the heavens. For a time their spirits are permitted to leave their shells and traverse the lower fields of space, whence they are enabled to witness the splendor and majesty of their late companion's divine initiation. There is no need to follow or interpret this closing scene. It is only necessary to say that it fitly concludes a marvel- lous work ; that notwithstanding the unavoidable em- ployment of some conventional forms, the elevation, nobilit}-, solemnity, and beauty of the whole picture render it a literary masterpiece, scarcely equalled and not surpassed by the most glowing conceptions of the greatest mj'stical poets. So ends Balzac's philosophical trilogy. The human imagination, stretched to the utmost in sustaining these last and loftiest creations, can proceed no farther. The author has traced the evolution of the spirit from the natural to the divine world. Beyond the threshold of the latter it is not given to incarnated souls to pene- j^xx Introduction. trate save in vision, but the path which leads upward has been indicated with equal skill and subtlety, and some intimation has been given of the glories which attend translation to the celestial sphere. As a literary experiment " Seraphita " stands alone. It is bold, — some may think even to rashness, — but its beauty and spirituality must be admitted, and it crowns a diffi- cult and laborious enterprise finely, harmoniously, and majestically. George Frederic Parsons. SERAPHITA. 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, l ike a gr an- ite lacg j^ against which the surges of the North Sea roar incessantly? Who has not dreamed of the ma- jestic sights ever to be seen on those beachless shores, of that multitude of creeks and inlets and little baj's, 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 countr}', 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 £!even hundred thousand souls maintain existence. IChanks to perils devoid of glory, to year-long snows M'hich clothe the Norwa}' peaks and guard them from J profaning foot of traveller, these sublime beauties are 1 J 2 Seraphita. virgin still ; they will be seen to harmonize with human phenomena, also virgin — at least to poetr}- — which here took place, the history of which it is our purpose to relate. If one of these inlets, mere fissures to the ej'es 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_y?orc?, — a word which geographers of every nation have adopted into their respective languages. Though a certain resem- blance 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 diversel}' 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 ma}' have rounded a coquettish curve into a. lovel}' valley flanked in rising terraces with black- plumed pines. Truh' 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 displaj'ing the terrestrial grandeurs of Norway, and of enshrining the scenes of a history that is indeedx celestial. The general outline of the Strom-fiord seems at fir£-t sight to be that of a funnel washed out hy the sea... Seraphita. 3 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 b}' ceaseless mo- tion. Reefs of fantastic shape run out on either side, and bar the way of ships and forbid their entrance. The intrepid sons of Norwa}' cross these reefs on foot, springing from rock to rock, undismayed at the abyss — a hundred fathoms deep and only six feet wide — which 3'awns beneath them. Here a tottering block of gneiss falUng 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 moun- tain 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 3'ielding 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 4 Seraphita. 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 alwaj's 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 proximit}' 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 gi'owth 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 Sieg- dahlen, — a word which may be held to mean " the shed- ding 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 alJ Seraphita. 5 the varied tapestries which Nature in these northern regions spreads upon the surface of her rugged rocks. The e3e 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 popula- tion 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 in- habitants were bold enough to risk their lives among the reefs to reach the deep-sea fishing, — the staple in- dustry 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 6 Seraphita. 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 Chris- tiana 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 nearl}- as much separated from Christiana by inaccessible preci- pices. The village of Jarvis might perhaps have com- municated 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 actuall}' appear there, — a poet, a Swede of great reli- gious 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 scen- ery 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 Seraphita. 7 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-gra}- 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 ma}' 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 moss}' with the growths 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 end- lessly ; in short, where blend all colors, all perfumes of a flora whose wonders are still ignored. Widen the boundaries of this limited amphitheatre, spring upward to the clouds, lose yourself among the rocks where the seals are lying and even then 3'our thought cannot compass the wealth of beauty nor the poetr}' of this Norwegian coast. Can ^ur thou ght be a s vast as^JJifi, ocg an t hat bounds it? as weird as the fantastic forms drawn by these forests,"1these clouds, these shadowSj__thsaeIcEangierul 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 8 Seraphita. 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 grave- yard 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 con- dition. 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 courtj-ard. 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 63-6 could see the savage nudit}' of the Falberg, or com- pare the infinitude of the open sea with the tin}- 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 Seraphita. 9 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 in- deed could the people of Jarvis see the mirror of frozen waters reflecting the colors of the sky ; a won- drous sight in the bosom of these mountains when all other aspects of nature are levelled beneath succes- sive sheets of snow, and crests and valle3's 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, sud- denl}' 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 preci- pices, 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 al- ways gra}', gave tones of polished steel to the ice of 10 Seraphita. 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 gUtter 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. Ever}- 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 pa- tient people. A few tall pine-trees lifted their black Seraphita. 11 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 chimnej'-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 the}'' were beneath the snow, against the weight of which they were protected b}' 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 3'ear of the nineteenth centur}' 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 12 Seraphita. beings crossed the fiord and flew along the base of the Falberg, rising thence from ledge to ledge toward the summit. What were the^"? human creatures, or two arrows? The}' 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 safel}^ along the slender lines traced beneath the snow by the granite ledges, where yet this couple glided with the terrifying dexterity of somnambulists who, for- getting their own weight and the dangers of the slight- est deviation, hurrj' 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 3'ou, 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 sharpl}" beneath the long boards fastened to their feet, and soon the}' 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 SerapJiita. IS served to stop the wearer. Seraphitus drew in his left foot, furnished with another " skee," which was only two feet long, turned swiftl}' where he stood, caught his timid companion in his arms, lifted her in spite of the long boards upon her feet, and placed her on a project- ing rock from which he brushed the snow with his pelisse. "You are safe there, Minna; you can tremble at 3'our 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 b}' 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 j'oung 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 im- patient 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 14 Seraphita. accents were charming from the lips of a being who was still adolescent, "Keep yonv ejes on me; do not look below 3'ou." " Why not?" she asked. *' You wish to know why? then look ! " Minna glanced quickly at her feet and cried out suddenl}'^ like a child who sees a tiger. The awful sen- sation of ab3'sses seized her ; one glance sufficed to comnmnicate 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 de- vour 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 b}* a m3'sterious 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 b}' that caressing breath which penetrated her bodj' and filled it with balsamic essences as quickl}' as the breath itself had crossed the air. i SerapJiita. 15 *' Who ai-t 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. /I "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 fear- lessly 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 difierence ! " 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 com- panion, who made no reply. " Come ! let us go on," he said. The pair darted forward along tbe narrow paths traced back and forth upon the mountain, skimming 16 SerapMta. 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 shelter- « ing 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 match- 1 less flower in memory of this one matchless morning of ' your life. You will find no other guide to lead 3'ou again to this saeter." So saying, he gave her the hybrid plant his falcon eye had seen amid the tufts of gentian acaulis and saxi- frages, — a marvel, brought to bloom by the breath of 1 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 some- Seraphita. 17 thing as it were celestial to that mysterious flower, which Seraphitus sadh' contemplateci, as though it ut- tered plaintive thoughts which he alone could under- stand. 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 repro- duce 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 skv. See, the ice of the fiord is a tur- quoise, 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 involuntarih' 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 emo- tion, the solemn permanence of those frozen summits, to which words could give no adequate utterance. 2 18 Seraphita. "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 can- J/ not perceive are supernatural," replied her companion. ' " Your replies," she said, " always bear the stamp of some deep thought. When I am near you I under- stand 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 an}^ 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 3-ou for the first time face to face, while lower down T scarcely dared to give a furtive glance ? " Seraphita. 19 *• Perhaps because we are withdrawn from the petti-) f ness of earth," he answered, unfastening his pelisse. " Never, never have I seen j-ou so beautiful ! " cried Minna, sitting down on a moss}' 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 that can render the illu- mination 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 bod}' at the instant when exertion is arrested? Did it come from the sudden contrast be- tween 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 3'outh 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 lumi- nary, whose rays issued through the being of Seraphitus like a light through an alabaster vase. Soft and slen- 20 Serapliita. * der as were his hands, ungloved to remove his compan- ion's snow-shoes, 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 fairj-'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 jl 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 ap- pearance of a vision dreamed of in happy sleep. No known t3'pe conveys an image of that form so majes- tically male to Minna, but which to the ej'es of a man would have eclipsed in womanly grace the fairest of Raphael's creations. That painter of heaven has ever put a tranquil jo}', a loving sweetness, into the lines of his angelic conceptions ; but what soul, unless it con- templated 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 Seraphita. 21 some mysterious awe upon that brow, shining with in- tellect, which seemed to question Heaven and to pity Earth? The head hovered awhile disdainfully, as some majestic bird whose cries reverberate on the atmos- phere, then bowed itself resignedly, like the turtledove uttering soft notes of tenderness in the depths of the silent woods. His complexion was of marvellous white- ness, 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 emo- tion were reflected there, without hindrance or violence, with the majestic and natural gravit}' 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 com- prehending, a gulf between them ; then she turned awaj'' 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 conformit}-, led her to a spot whence they could see the radiant glories of the polar Nature. 22 Seraphita. "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 3'ours, for the riches of m}' heart are yours alread}'. I would that light came to my eyes only through j'our 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 3'our soul, the words of 3'our 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 j'ou would be pure in heart mingle the idea of the All-Powerful with j'our affections here below ; then yoM will love all creatures, and your heart will rise to heights indeed." "I will do all you tell me," she answered, lifting her ej'es to his with a timid movement. " I cannot be j-our companion," said Seraphitus sadh". 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 Hie visible world tSerapJiita. 23 enables us to apprehend the immensit}" of the worlds ff invisible. I know not if the time has come to speak thus to you, but I would, ah, I would communicate to 3'ou the flame of m}- hopes I Perhaps we ma}- one da}- 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 jo3-s more dura- ble ; 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 per- fect 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 ad- vancement and an End. Man himself is not a finished t'« creation ; if he were, God would not Be." *' How is it that in th}^ short life thou hast found the time to learn so many thmgs ? " said the young girl. " I remember," he replied. " Thou art nobler than all else I see." • " We are the noblest of God's great works. Has He 24 Seraphita. not given us the faculty of reflecting on Nature ; of * gathering it within us bj 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 1 lesser portion of heaven our souls contain. But do not be unjust, Minna ; behold the magnificence spread | before you. Ocean expands at yonv feet like a carpet ; the mountains resemble amphitheatres ; 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 ' t like a perfume. See ! the angvy billows which engulf the ships laden with men seem to us, where we are, mere bubbles ; and if we raise our e3'es and look above, all there is blue. Behold that diadem of stars ! Here . the tints of earthl}^ impressions disappear ; standing on this nature rarefied by space do yon not feel within 3'ou 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 jour pinions? Let us praj'." Seraphitus knelt down and crossed his hands upon his breast, while Minna fell, weeping, on her knees. Thus the}' 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. J j " They who are all spirit do not weep," replied Sera- phitus rising ; " Why should I weep? 1 see no longer Seraphita. 26 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 tem- pers them, and thus the}- color the petals of his beloved. I have not veils enough, I fear lest j'ou see me too closely ; you would tremble if j'ou 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 ; Jl 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. " Wh}' do you drive me to despair? " said Minna. "Go, go I " cried Seraphitus, "I have nothing that you want of me. Your love is too earthly for my love. Why do 30U 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 26 Seraphita. 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 mere}', have mere}', 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 sseter, whence he pointed downward to a scene that might well inspire a young girl full of enthusiasm with the fancj' that she stood above this earth. ' ' I longed for a companion to the kingdom of Light ; I wished to show 3'ou that morsel of mud, I find 3'ou bound to it. Farewell. Remain on earth ; enjo}' through the senses ; obey 3'our nature ; turn pale with pallid men ; blush with women ; sport with children ; pray with the guilt}' ; raise your ej'es to heaven when sor- rows overtake you ; tremble, hope, throb in all 3'our pulses ; 30U will have a companion ; 30U can laugh and weep, and give and receive. I, — I am an exile, far from heaven ; a monster, far from earth. I live of m3'self and by myself. I feel b3' the spirit ; I breathe through m}' brow ; I see by thought ; I die of impatience and of longing. No one here below can fulfil m}- desires or calm m}- griefs. I have forgotten how to weep. I am alone. I resign m3-self, and I wait." Seraphita. 27 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 j'ou 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 ? The}- bring refresh- ment 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 re fastened, and the pair descended the Falberg b}' the steep slopes which join the mountain to the valleys of the Sieg. Miracu- lous 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, lightl}' as a bird, over the crumbling causeways of the abj'ss. Sometimes, while propelling his companion, he devi- ated 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 28 Seraphita. 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 an- swered 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 flamed from his eyes. Presentl}^ 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 daj'light faded, the}' 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, lay- ing his spectacles on his book; "you must be very tired." Seraphita. 29 " 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, yon 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 courtA-ard of the Swedish villa. An old servant, over eight}- j-ears 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 ej'es 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 re- sembled 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 % 30 Seraphita. 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. Seraphita. 31 n. 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 suddenl3' presented him- self, 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 3'ou 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. 32 Seraphita. " Forgive me, have mercy ! " he cried, kneeling be- side her. " Speak to me harshly if you will ; exact all that the cruel fancies of a woman lead yoM 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 3"ou 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 into- nations produced upon his heart the same effect as that of her look. " Would I could help jovl ! " " Love me as I love 3'ou." " 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 j'ou like those Parisian women whose loves you tell of ? " Wilfrid sat down, crossed his arms, and looked gloomilj' at Seraphita. " I forgive you," he said ; "for 3'ou know not what j'ou do." "You mistake," she replied; "every woman from ff the days of Eve does good and evil knowingl}'." IJ " I believe it ; " he said. ' ' I am sure of it, Wilfrid. Our instinct is precisel}' thai which makes us perfect. What you men learn, we feel." f f Seraphita. 33 *' Wh}-, then, do you not feel how much I love you?" " Because a'Ou do not love me." "Good God!" "If you did, would j-ou complain of your own sufferinsrs? " " You are terrible to-night, Seraphita. You are a demon." "No, but I am gifted with the faculty of compre- hending, and it is awful. Wilfrid, sorrow is a lamp which illumines life." ' ' Why did you ascend the Falberg ? " " Minna will tell 3"ou. I am too weary to talk. You must talk to me, — you who know so much, who have learned all things and forgotten nothing ; j'ou who have passed through ever}- 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 inter- course with social life ; you trample on its conventions, its laws, its customs, sentiments, and sciences ; yoxx re- duce them all to the proportions such things take when viewed by you be3'ond 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 females of all species, that you may lift me up? and then, when I, helpless and broken, ask you for help, when I need j'our arm, you will repulse me ! No, we can never come to terms." 3 34 Seraphita. " 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 na 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 j'et must smile to please you ; you call that, methinks, your right. Poor women ! I pit}- them. Tell me, j'ou who abandon them when they grow old, is it because the}' have neither hearts nor souls? Wilfred, I am a hundred years old ; leave me ! leave me ! go ta 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?" "Certainl}^ I no longer find j'ou 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." Seraphita. 35 "Oh, Seraphita, be my star! stay where yo\x caa 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 disdain- fully 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 3'ou 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 wearj' me. If 3"ou had anj' real perception of my nature, yon 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 ej'es 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 suflfered much. Let me explain jour thoughts to 3'ou. You wished to take my hand just now ; " she rose to a sitting post- ure, and her graceful motions seemed to emit light. " When a 3'oung 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. 36 SerapTiita. A/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 de- sire 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 j'ou apply the dreadful knowledge with which you strip from all things human the proper- ties that time and space and form have given them, and consider them mathematically in the abstract, as geometry treats substances fi*om 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 grekaf 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 tan equal it?" she asked- Seraphita. 37 " 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 onlj- language I can use." " Wilfred, 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 3'ou 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 sta^-s at a distance, like courtiers before a king ! All I desire is to see you happy, and you refuse me ! Am I then powerless? — Wilfred, 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 j'ou with fascination, Seraphita. Your words are incomprehensible, but they charm me. What is it 3'ou mean to say ? " " You are right ; I forget to be foolish, — to be the poor creature whose weaknesses gratify yon. I torment you, Wilfrid. You came to these Northern lands for rest, 3-ou, 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 — " 38 SerapMta. Wilfred 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 bj-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 chastel}' la^'s upon End3'mion 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 m}' 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 be- trays not love. Him before whom we kneel in adoration? " Would I had wings to cover thee, Wilfred ; power to give thee strength to enter now into that world where SerapJiita. 39 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 be- yond 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 it 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, 40 Seraphita. 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 com- munications of the Spirit ? " Speed thy way through the luminous spheres ; behold, admire, hasten ! Flying thus thou canst pause or ad- vance 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. FI3' ! enjoj^ 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 th}' flight the less canst thou see the ab^'sses. 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 j'et 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 gentl}' 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 Seraphita. 41 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 ; bnt his face betrayed a deferential fear in its almost timid expression. " Yes, dear," he said at last, as though he were an- swering- 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 verj- 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 yon 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." 42 Seraphita. " 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 crea- tion. 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 e^'es before which the luminous space re- treated further and further indefinitely while the eyes followed it? The night is cold, yet my head is 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 e^^es could plunge into Seraphita's salon. The mysterious creature seemed to him the radiating centre of a lumi- nous 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 daz- zUng 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 Seraphita. 43 ^is freedom of will, walked rapidlj- towards the par- sonage, and was soon beneath the high wooden arch which formed a sort of perist3'le 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 bands 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 con- templations. 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, bod}' and mind, — one of which partakes of the unseen qualities of a thunder- bolt, while the other shares with sentient nature that soft resistant force which defies destruction, ff- this shock, this struggle, or, rather let us say, this painful 44 Seraphita. meeting and co-mingling, gives rise to frightful suffer- ings. 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 convul- sions, explosions, tortures ; analogous and visible signs of which may be seen in chemistry, when two antago- nistic substances which science has united separate. For the last few davs whenever Wilfrid entered Sera- phita'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 medi- tation leads the learned man, pra^'er 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 suffer- ings 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 re- vealed. 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 Seraphita. 45, 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 awakes 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 Norwa}'. These curiosities, ad- mirably aiTanged on a background of the yellow pine which panelled the room, formed, as it were, a rich tap- estry 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-ii'on stove, care- fully 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 e3'es, set in wrinkles and sur- mounted by thick gray eyebrows ; the same white hair escaping in snow}' 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 46 Seraphita. the possession of some inward power, be it the su- premacy bestowed by money, or the magisterial in- fluence 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 emploj'ed, no doubt, in assimi- lating 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 in- finite purity which harmonized with the candor of the white brow and the clear blue e^'es. She sat erect, turning slightly toward the lamp for better light, uncon- sciously showing as she did so the beauty of her waist and bust. She was already dressed for the night in a .'ong 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 Seraphita. 47 napkins or the meshes of her socks. Sitting thus, she presented the most complete image, the truest t^'pe, of the woman destined for terrestrial labor, whose glance may pierce 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 in- toxication 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 heav}' folds. Nothing in the room was picturesque, nothing bi'illiant ; €ver3'thing 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, harmo- nious in tone, diffused the patriarchal ideas of a full and self-contained existence. The silence was unbroken save b}^ 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 accord- ing to the custom of the country. " Will you smoke a pipe? " said the pastor, seizing a moment when he thought that Wilfrid might Hsten to him. " Thank you, no, dear Monsieur Becker," replied the visitor. 48 Seraphita. *' You seem to suffer more to-day than usual," said Minna, struck by the feeble tones of the strangers 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 tl^at 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 ad- mitted 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 pos- Seraphita. 49 sibility 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 obe3's laws the order and exercise of which cannot be in- terfered with b}' the hand of man. But after fulfil- ling, 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 in- commensurable 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, namel}', the grain of rice, from which a creation issues and in which al- ternately creation again is held, presented to their minds so perfect an image of the creative word, and 1 50 Seraphita. 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 compli- cated 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 canying 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 won- drous faculties, comparable only to the terrible power of certain gases in the physical world, beings who com- bine 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 phosphorus Seraphita. 51 which stimulates life and accelerates its propulsion ; or again, like opium, which puts to sleep corporeal nature, disengages the spirit from ever}' 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, witch- crafts, 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 m3-s- terious 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 bv 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 guar- dian. Whenever I have tried to speak, a burning seal has been laid upon my lips, and I myself have become 52 Seraphita. the involuntary minister of these raj'steries. 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 ia insupportable. I skirt the borders of the abyss of mad- ness 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 conjunc- tion of ice and sun ? She burns and 3'et she freezes ; she shows herself and then withdraws ; she attracts me and repulses me ; she brings me life, she gives me death ; I love her and j^et 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 m^-sterious 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. Seraphita. 53 *' This is certainly the language of a man in love," said the good pastor, innocenth". " In love ! " cried Wilfrid, " 3'es, 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 extraordinarj' agitation "when I see her, and such deep sadness when I see her no more, that in any other man what 1 feel would be called love. But that sentiment draws those who feel it ardenth' together, whereas between her and me a great gulf lies, whose icy coldness penetrates my very being in her presence ; though the feeling dies awa}' 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 onlj" 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 yoxx say is true," replied the young girl, artlessl}'. " How can j-ou know, Minna? " asked the old pastor. " Ah ! m}' father, had you been with us this morning on the summit of the Falberg, had you seen him pray- ing, you would not ask me that question. You would say, like Monsieur Wilfrid, when he saw his Seraphita for the first time in our temple, ' It is the Spirit of Prayer.' " 54 Seraphita. These words were followed by a moment's silence. "Ah, trul^M" 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 ta 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 luminarj'. " 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 m usic of though t ; 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 pufl" of smoke, " to explain the birth of that being it is absolutel}' 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 efl'ulgence of Seraphita. 55 faith that has shone upon our lump of mud. Do you know Swedenborg? " "B}' name only, —of him, of his books and his religion I know nothing." "Then I must relate to you the whole chronicle of Swedenborg." 56 iSeraphita, in. SERAPHITA-SERAPHITUS. After a pause, during which the pastor seemed to be gathering his recollections, he continued in the fol- lowing words : — " Emmanuel Swedenborg was born at Upsala in Sweden, in the month of Januar}', 1688, according to various authors, — in 1689, according to his epitaph. His father was Bishop of Skara. Swedenborg lived eightj'-five years ; his death occurred in London, March 29, 1772. I use that term to conve}' 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, mj' dear Monsieur Wilfrid," said Monsieur Becker, making a gesture to prevent all interruption, " I relate these facts without either affirming or den\'ing 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 di^^ded into two parts," continued the pastor. ' ' From 1 688 to 1 745 Baron Eman- uel Swedenborg appeared in the world as a man of vast learning, esteemed and cherished for his virtues, always irreproachable and constantly useful. While fulfilling SerapJiita. 57 high public functions in Sweden, he published, between 1709 and 1740, several important works on mineralog}-, physics, mathematics, and astronomy, which enlight- ened 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 ques- tions, 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 Col- lege 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 Corres- pondences. A Frenchman has latel}', so they tell me, justified these statements of Swedenborg, b}' the dis- covery at Bagdad of several portions of the Bible 58 SerapUta. hitherto unknown in 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 inves- tigate the subject. These gentlemen declared that no theory of magnetism existed, whereas Swedenborg had studied and promulged it ever since the year 1720. Monsieur de Thome seized this opportunity to show the reason why so many men of science relegated Sweden- borg 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 Thom(5, alludmg 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 masterl}' quotations drawn from the en- C3'clop9edic 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 m3-steries and deprives Mesmer of the honors of a first knowledge of them. SerapTiita. 59 " 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 Sweden- borg, 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 earthl}' occupations ; after which his thoughts turned exclu- sivelj^ to the Spiritual Life. He received the first com- mands 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 j'ou what to write.' The vision lasted but a few moments. The Angel was clothed in purple. During that night the ej'es 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 60 Seraphita. 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 scep- tical Englishman, determined to know the truth, fol- lowed 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 sus- picion 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 da3-s 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 monej- which she was certain her husband had paid before his death, went to Swedenborg and begged him to ask her hus- SerapJiita. 61 band where she coald find proof of the payment. Toe following day Swedenborg, having done as the lady requested, pointed cot the place where the receipt woold be found. He also b^^ed tiie deceased to appear to his wife, and the latter saw her husband in a dream, wrapped in a dressing-gown whidi 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 Lond