laced the
matter before her father, and secured from him a written warrant for the
damsel, returnable in three years' time. This document he carried with
him, pored over it, slept with it under his pillow. As for the girl,
timid, sensitive, aged fifteen, she fled on his approach, and shook with
fear if he looked at her. He made his love plain by logical formulas and
proved his passion by geometrical permutations--by charts and diagrams.
A seasoned widow might have broken up the icy fastness of his soul and
melted his forbidding nature in the crucible of feeling, but this poor
girl just wanted some one to hold her little hand and say peace to her
fluttering heart. How could she go plump herself in his lap, pull his
ears and tell him he was a fool? Finally, the girl's brother, seeing her
distress, stole the precious warrant from Swedenborg's coat, tore it up,
and Swedenborg knew his case was hopeless. He brought calculus to bear,
and proved by the law of averages that there were just as good fish in
the sea as ever were caught.

* * * * *

At twenty-one Swedenborg graduated at the University of Upsala. He took
the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, and was sent on a tour of the
European capitals to complete his education. He visited Hamburg, Paris,
Vienna and then went to London, where he remained a year. He bore
letters from the King of Sweden that admitted him readily into the best
society, and as far as we know he carried himself with dignity, filled
with a zeal to know and to become.

One prime object in his travel was to learn the language of the country
that he was in, and so we hear of his writing home, "In Hamburg I speak
only German; at Paris I talk and think in French; in London no one
doubts but that I am an Englishman." This not only reveals the young
man's accomplishments, but shows that sublime confidence in himself
which never forsook him.

The desire of his father was that he should enter the diplomatic service
of the government, and the interest the King took in his welfare shows
that the way was opening in that direction. But in the various cities
where he traveled he merely used his consular letters to reach the men
in each place who knew most of mathematics, anatomy, geology, astronomy
and physics. He hunted out the thinkers and the doers, and it seems he
had enough specific gravity of soul so he was never turned away.

When big men meet for the first time, they try con