de on each side a continued
espalier. Through the avenue I entered the little garden, which breathed
a pleasant fragrance from its shrubs and flowers. The shrubs and flowers
were in pairs; and I was informed that such little gardens appear about
the houses where there are and have been nuptials, and hence they are
called nuptial gardens. I afterwards entered the house, where I saw the
two conjugial partners holding each other by the hands, and conversing
together from love truly conjugial; and as I looked, it was given me to
see from their faces the image of conjugial love, and from their
conversation the vital principle thereof. After I, with the rest of the
company, had paid them my respects, and wished them all happiness, I
went into the nuptial garden, and saw on the right side of it a company
of youths, to whom all who came out of the house resorted. The reason of
their resorting to them was, because they were conversing respecting
conjugial love, and conversation on this subject attracts to it the
minds (_animos_) of all by a certain occult power. I then listened to a
wise one who was speaking on the subject; and the sum of what I heard is
as follows: That the divine providence of the Lord is most particular
and thence most universal in respect to marriages in the heavens:
because all the felicities of heaven issue from the delights of
conjugial love, like sweet waters from the sweet source of a fountain;
and that on this account it is provided by the Lord that conjugial pairs
be born, and that these pairs be continually educated for marriage,
neither the maiden nor the youth knowing anything of the matter; and
after a stated time, when they both become marriageable, they meet as by
chance, and see each other; and that in this case they instantly know,
as by a kind of instinct, that they are pairs, and by a kind of inward
dictate think within themselves, the youth, that she is mine, and the
maiden, that he is mine; and when this thought has existed for some time
in the mind of each, they deliberately accost each other, and betroth
themselves. It is said, "as by chance," and "as by instinct," and the
meaning is, by the divine providence; since, while the divine providence
is unknown, it has such an appearance. That conjugial pairs are born and
educated to marriage, while each party is ignorant of it, he proved by
the conjugial likeness visible in the faces of each; also by the
intimate and eternal union of minds (_an