trample under iron heel entire populations, buy, at the price of a
horrible martyrdom, the faculty of ruining themselves in some belief,
--rocks sublime, which await the touch of a wand that comes not to
bring the waters gushing from their far-off spring.

Led by a scheme of his restless, inquiring life to the shores of
Norway, the sudden arrival of winter had detained the wanderer at
Jarvis. The day on which, for the first time, he saw Seraphita, the
whole past of his life faded from his mind. The young girl excited
emotions which he had thought could never be revived. The ashes gave
forth a lingering flame at the first murmurings of that voice. Who has
ever felt himself return to youth and purity after growing cold and
numb with age and soiled with impurity? Suddenly, Wilfrid loved as he
had never loved; he loved secretly, with faith, with fear, with inward
madness. His life was stirred to the very source of his being at the
mere thought of seeing Seraphita. As he listened to her he was
transported into unknown worlds; he was mute before her, she
magnetized him. There, beneath the snows, among the glaciers, bloomed
the celestial flower to which his hopes, so long betrayed, aspired;
the sight of which awakened ideas of freshness, purity, and faith
which grouped about his soul and lifted it to higher regions,--as
Angels bear to heaven the Elect in those symbolic pictures inspired by
the guardian spirit of a great master. Celestial perfumes softened the
granite hardness of the rocky scene; light endowed with speech shed
its divine melodies on the path of him who looked to heaven. After
emptying the cup of terrestrial love which his teeth had bitten as he
drank it, he saw before him the chalice of salvation where the limpid
waters sparkled, making thirsty for ineffable delights whoever dare
apply his lips burning with a faith so strong that the crystal shall
not be shattered.