Minna suspected the galley-slave of glory in the man; Seraphita recognized him.

Both admired and both pitied him.

Whence came their prescience?
Nothing could be more simple nor yet more extraordinary.
As soon as we seek to penetrate the secrets of Nature, where nothing is secret, and where it is only necessary to have the eyes to see, we perceive that the simple produces the marvellous.
"Seraphitus," said Minna one evening a few days after Wilfrid's arrival in Jarvis, "you read the soul of this stranger while I have only vague impressions of it.

He chills me or else he excites me; but you seem to know the cause of this cold and of this heat; tell me what it means, for you know all about him." "Yes, I have seen the causes," said Seraphitus, lowing his large eyelids.
"By what power ?" asked the curious Minna.
"I have the gift of Specialism," he answered.

"Specialism is an inward sight which can penetrate all things; you will only understand its full meaning through a comparison.