with the patient toils of science; you, who well-nigh dyed your hands in crime and wore the fetters of human justice.

She breathed softly on his forehead and he fell asleep at her feet. "Rest," she said, "I cannot show myself such as I am to thee who art strong."

The very strength of the purely rational nature prevents its grasp of what is nevertheless compelled to seek -- the higher spiritual ideal. It must rest from its labors, become as a little child, to enter the higher reality.

Seraphita continues to talk to him as he lies asleep, for then, as she says, the hour is come when the soul awakes into freedom.

How beautifully does Balzac teach, here, the need and possibility of revelation. Only when the clamoring reason is stilled can the highest of all truth enter the soul. Asleep to the outward, awake to the inward, it draws from that which its reason cannot comprehend. And the higher woman is the revelator. For the intuitive nature performs its office faithfully, when she, as the eternal feminine, ever virgin, is permitted to act according to her nature. She can never be coerced by the demands of her masculine mate, though through long years she may be held in subjection.

As Wilfred lies asleep at Seraphita's feet he is gaining glimpses of what his waking vision cannot show him. "Now," she says, "I may tell thee how I love