Some weeks later the sculptor receives another letter, and learns that the other figures have fallen from their pedestals and been broken, without the managers being able to say how it has happened. Consequently the unfortunate artist has lost a year, not counting the costs of production, and he finds himself struck out of the list of exhibitors. In his despondency he comforts himself by attributing it to accident, which means nothing, and yet which saves a man's pride, while bowing to blind Chance. One stoops one's head before a stone flung at one, but what of the flinger whom one is not conscious of having seen? * * * * * Meanwhile I obtain Swedenborg's works, one after another, and always at some favourable moment. In his "Dreams" I find all the symptoms of my illness, the nightly attacks and the difficulty in breathing. The facts which he records in these notes belong to the time before he had his revelations. That was for Swedenborg the period of "desolation," when he was delivered over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh. This helps me to understand the beneficent purposes of the invisible powers, without, however, bringing me comfort. Not till I read _Heaven and Hell_ do I begin to get help. There is, then, an object in these mysterious sufferings--the improvement and development of my personality to something greater, something like Nietzsche's imaginary ideal, but differently conceived. The Devil is not an independent being, equal to God, and His opponent. The invisible power which plagues us is the Spirit of discipline. A great step is taken when we see that evil does not exist for evil's sake, and we conceive a new hope of finding peace through penitence and conscientious watchfulness over our thoughts and actions. As I watch the events of daily life, a new method of education begins to operate upon me, and I learn to recognise, the system of signs which the invisible powers use. But my difficulties are great because of my age and the inveteracy of evil habits, and in consequence of a certain yieldingness of disposition I am all too prone to suit myself to my surroundings. It is so hard to be the first to quit a merry carouse; if I try to insist on my own way, my intimate friends call me "a bad boon-companion." But one has to learn to do everything in this world. For instance, at dinner, which I take at two o'clock, I had been accustomed to remain behind for coffee. One day at the beginning of February I am sitting there with my back against the outer wall, when my friends begin to discuss whether they shall order a bowl of punch. Instantly there comes a direct answer in the form of a terrible noise behind my back, so that the cups of coffee on the tray jump. It can be imagined what kind of a face I make. The cause of the noise is quite simple,--a workman is repairing the decoration of the wall outside.