impatience; they were constantly beneficent and gentle, full of

courtesy and loving-kindness; their marriage was the harmony of two
souls indissolubly united. Two eiders winging the same flight, the

sound in the echo, the thought in the word,--these, perhaps, are true
images of their union. Every one here in Jarvis loved them with an

affection which I can compare only to the love of a plant for the sun.
The wife was simple in her manners, beautiful in form, lovely in face,

with a dignity of bearing like that of august personages. In 1783,
being then twenty-six years old, she conceived a child; her pregnancy

was to the pair a solemn joy. They prepared to bid the earth farewell;
for they told me they should be transformed when their child had

passed the state of infancy which needed their fostering care until
the strength to exist alone should be given to her.

"Their child was born,--the Seraphita we are now concerned with. From
the moment of her conception father and mother lived a still more

solitary life than in the past, lifting themselves up to heaven by
Prayer. They hoped to see Swedenborg, and faith realized their hope.

The day on which Seraphita came into the world Swedenborg appeared in
Jarvis, and filled the room of the new-born child with light. I was

told that he said, 'The work is accomplished; the Heavens rejoice!'
Sounds of unknown melodies were heard throughout the house, seeming to

come from the four points of heaven on the wings of the wind. The
spirit of Swedenborg led the father forth to the shores of the fiord

and there quitted him. Certain inhabitants of Jarvis, having
approached Monsieur Seraphitus as he stood on the shore, heard him

repeat those blissful words of Scripture: 'How beautiful on the
mountains are the feet of Him who is sent of God!'

"I had left the parsonage on my way to baptize the infant and name it,
and perform the other duties required by law, when I met the baron

returning to the house. 'Your ministrations are superfluous,' he said;
'our child is to be without name on this earth. You must not baptize

in the waters of an earthly Church one who has just been immersed in
the fires of Heaven. This child will remain a blossom, it will not

grow old; you will see it pass away. You exist, but our child has
life; you have outward senses, the child has none, its being is always

inward.' These words were uttered in so strange and supernatural a
voice that I was more affected by them than by the shining of his

face, from which light appeared to exude. His appearance realized the
phantasmal ideas which we form of inspired beings as we read the

prophesies of the Bible. But such effects are not rare among our
mountains, where the nitre of perpetual snows produces extraordinary

phenomena in the human organization.
"I asked him the cause of his emotion. 'Swedenborg came to us; he has

just left me; I have breathed the air of heaven,' he replied. 'Under
what form did he appear?' I said. 'Under his earthly form; dressed as

he was the last time I saw him in London, at the house of Richard
Shearsmith, Coldbath-fields, in July, 1771. He wore his brown frieze

coat with steel buttons, his waistcoat buttoned to the throat, a white
cravat, and the same magisterial wig rolled and powdered at the sides

and raised high in front, showing his vast and luminous brow, in
keeping with the noble square face, where all is power and

tranquillity. I recognized the large nose with its fiery nostril, the
mouth that ever smiled,--angelic mouth from which these words, the

pledge of my happiness, have just issued, "We shall meet soon."'
"The conviction that shone on the baron's face forbade all discussion;

I listened in silence. His voice had a contagious heat which made my
bosom burn within me; his fanaticism stirred my heart as the anger of

another makes our nerves vibrate. I followed him in silence to his
house, where I saw the nameless child lying mysteriously folded to its

mother's breast. The babe heard my step and turned its head toward me;
its eyes were not those of an ordinary child. To give you an idea of

the impression I received, I must say that already they saw and
thought. The childhood of this predestined being was attended by

circumstances quite extraordinary in our climate. For nine years our
winters were milder and our summers longer than usual. This phenomenon

gave rise to several discussions among scientific men; but none of
their explanations seemed sufficient to academicians, and the baron

smiled when I told him of them. The child was never seen in its nudity
as other children are; it was never touched by man or woman, but lived

a sacred thing upon the mother's breast, and it never cried. If you
question old David he will confirm these facts about his mistress, for

whom he feels an adoration like that of Louis IX. for the saint whose
name he bore.

"At nine years of age the child began to pray; prayer is her life. You
saw her in the church at Christmas, the only day on which she comes

there; she is separated from the other worshippers by a visible space.
If that space does not exist between herself and men she suffers. That

is why she passes nearly all her time alone in the chateau. The events
of her life are unknown; she is seldom seen; her days are spent in the

state of mystical contemplation which was, so Catholic writers tell
us, habitual with the early Christian solitaries, in whom the oral

tradition of Christ's own words still remained. Her mind, her soul,
her body, all within her is virgin as the snow on those mountains. At

ten years of age she was just what you see her now. When she was nine
her father and mother expired together, without pain or visible

malady, after naming the day and hour at which they would cease to be.
Standing at their feet she looked at them with a calm eye, not showing

either sadness, or grief, or joy, or curiosity. When we approached to
remove the two bodies she said, 'Carry them away!' 'Seraphita,' I

said, for so we called her, 'are you not affected by the death of your
father and your mother who loved you so much?' 'Dead?' she answered,

'no, they live in me forever-- That is nothing,' she pointed without
emotion to the bodies they were bearing away. I then saw her for the

third time only since her birth. In church it is difficult to
distinguish her; she stands near a column which, seen from the pulpit,

is in shadow, so that I cannot observe her features.
"Of all the servants of the household there remained after the death

of the master and mistress only old David, who, in spite of his
eighty-two years, suffices to wait on his mistress. Some of our Jarvis

people tell wonderful tales about her. These have a certain weight in
a land so essentially conducive to mystery as ours; and I am now

studying the treatise on Incantations by Jean Wier and other works
relating to demonology, where pretended supernatural events are

recorded, hoping to find facts analogous to those which are attributed
to her."

"Then you do not believe in her?" said Wilfrid.
"Oh yes, I do," said the pastor, genially, "I think her a very

capricious girl; a little spoilt by her parents, who turned her head
with the religious ideas I have just revealed to you."

Minna shook her head in a way that gently expressed contradiction.
"Poor girl!" continued the old man, "her parents bequeathed to her

that fatal exaltation of soul which misleads mystics and renders them
all more or less mad. She subjects herself to fasts which horrify poor

David. The good old man is like a sensitive plant which quivers at the
slightest breeze, and glows under the first sun-ray. His mistress,

whose incomprehensible language has become his, is the breeze and the
sun-ray to him; in his eyes her feet are diamonds and her brow is

strewn with stars; she walks environed with a white and luminous
atmosphere; her voice is accompanied by music; she has the gift of

rendering herself invisible. If you ask to see her, he will tell you
she has gone to the ASTRAL REGIONS. It is difficult to believe such a

story, is it not? You know all miracles bear more or less resemblance
to the story of the Golden Tooth. We have our golden tooth in Jarvis,

that is all. Duncker the fisherman asserts that he has seen her plunge
into the fiord and come up in the shape of an eider-duck, at other

times walking on the billows of a storm. Fergus, who leads the flocks
to the saeters, says that in rainy weather a circle of clear sky can

be seen over the Swedish castle; and that the heavens are always blue
above Seraphita's head when she is on the mountain. Many women hear

the tones of a mighty organ when Seraphita enters the church, and ask
their neighbors earnestly if they too do not hear them. But my