low with their eyes
a third, whom they had greeted but who had passed without so much as a
glance in their direction. The face of one betrayed chagrin; but the
other smiled amusedly.

"You must not mind, dear fellow," said he; "that is only Swedenborg's
way, as you will discover when you know him better. His feet are on the
earth; but for the moment his mind is in the clouds, pondering some
solution to the wonderful problems he has set himself, marvelous man
that he is."

"Yet," objected the other, "he seems such a thorough man of the world,
so finely dressed, so courtly as a rule in speech and manner."

"He is a man of the world, a true cosmopolitan," was the quick response.
"I warrant few are so widely and so favorably known. He is as much at
home in London, Paris, Berlin, Dresden, Amsterdam, or Copenhagen as in
his native city of Stockholm. Kings and Queens, grand dames and gallant
wits, statesmen and soldiers, scientists and philosophers, find pleasure
in his society. He can meet all on their own ground, and to all he has
something fresh and interesting to say. But he is nevertheless, and
above everything else, a dreamer."

"A dreamer?"

"Aye. They tell me that he will not rest content until he has found the
seat of the soul in man. Up through mathematics, mechanics, mineralogy,
astronomy, chemistry, even physiology, has he gone, mastering every
science in turn, until he is now perhaps the most learned man in Europe.
But his learning satisfies him not a whit, since the soul still eludes
him,--and eludes him, mark you, despite month upon month of toil in the
dissecting room. If the study of anatomy fail him, I know not where he
will next turn. For my part, I fancy he need not look beyond the
stomach. The wonder is that his own stomach has not given him the clue
ere this; for, metaphysician though he be, he enjoys the good things of
earth. Let me tell you a story--"

Thus, chatting and laughing, the friends continued on their way, every
step taking them farther from the unwitting subject of their words. He,
for his part, absorbed in thought, pressed steadily forward to his
destination, a quiet inn in a sequestered quarter of the city. The
familiar sounds of eighteenth-century London--the bawling of apprentices
shouting their masters' wares, the crying of fishwives, the quarreling
of drunkards, the barking of curs, the bellowing of cattle on their way
to market and slaughter house--broke unheeded about him.

H