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1SERAPHITA Louis Lambert The Exiles Dolume Chwenty-Fibe WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM DRAWINGS ON THE WOOD BY FAMOUS FRENCH ARTISTS Spew Pork PETER FENELON COLLIER & SON *“MCM:* VAN CONTENTS DIG Ea Pltila vas cesncesesscccssacscmtestiess shone aeoear ace ssectepesessescessises Sosbecceeese ces Eeseesed we HPOUAS IAT DELL ccccacseoies cas swiss oentcareccaavens coseses cocevsewstsmpansesdsesennereccisenteee PCRS tleSieacusstccuscassess acces conrecrsesssepescssecescasccececcseceretansscecescene itoceresee $1531 sae han i SERAPHITA To Madame Eveline de Hanska, née Countess Rzewuska
2MaApAME-—Here is the work you desired of me; in dedicating it to you 1am happy to offer you some token of the respectful affection you allow me to feel for you. If I should be accused of incapacity after trying to extract from the depths of mysticism this book, which demanded the glowing poetry of the Hast under the transparency of our beautiful language, the blame be yours! Did you not compel me to the effort—such an effort as Jacob’s—by telling me that even the most imperfect outline of the figure dreamed of by you, as it has been by me from my infancy, would still be something in youreyes? Here, then, is that something.— Why cannot this book be set apart exclusively for those lofty spirits who, like you, are preserved from worldly pettiness by solitude! They might impress on it the melodious rhythm which it lacks, and which, in the hands of one of our poets, might have made it the glorious epic for which France still waits. Still, they will accept it from me as one of those balustrades, carved by some artist full of faith, on which the pilgrim leans to meditate on the end of man, while gazing at the choir of a fine church. I remain, Madame, with respect, your faithful servant, De Bauzac. (7) Paris, August 23, 18365. i SERAPHITUS
3N SEEING the Norwegian coast as outlined on the map, what imagination can fail to be amazed at its fantastic contour—long tongues of granite, round which the surges of the North Sea are forever moaning? Who has not dreamed of the majestic spectacle of these beachless shores, these endless creeks, and inlets, and little bays, no two of which are alike, and each a pathless gulf? Would it not seem as though Nature had amused herself by representing, in an indestructible hieroglyphic, the symbol of life in Norway, by giving its coast the configuration of the bones of an enormous fish? For fishing is the staple of commerce, and almost the sole article of food toa handful of men who cling, like a tuft of lichen, to those barren rocks. Ona land extending over fourteen degrees of longitude there are scarcely seven hundred thousand souls. Owing to the inglorious dangers and the perpetual snow that these Norwegian peaks offer to the traveller—the very name of Norway makes one cold—their sublime beauty remains inviolate and harmonizes with certain human phenomena, which took place there—equally unknown, at least to romance, and of which this is the story. When one of these inlets, a mere fissure in the sight of the eider-ducks, is wide enough to prevent the sea from freezing over in the rocky prison it tosses and struggles in, the inhabitants call such a little gulf a. fjord, a word (8) SERAPHITA 9
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
1SERAPHITA Louis Lambert The Exiles Dolume Chwenty-Fibe WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM DRAWINGS ON THE WOOD BY FAMOUS FRENCH ARTISTS Spew Pork PETER FENELON COLLIER & SON *“MCM:* VAN CONTENTS DIG Ea Pltila vas cesncesesscccssacscmtestiess shone aeoear ace ssectepesessescessises Sosbecceeese ces Eeseesed we HPOUAS IAT DELL ccccacseoies cas swiss oentcareccaavens coseses cocevsewstsmpansesdsesennereccisenteee PCRS tleSieacusstccuscassess acces conrecrsesssepescssecescasccececcseceretansscecescene itoceresee $1531 sae han i SERAPHITA To Madame Eveline de Hanska, née Countess Rzewuska
2MaApAME-—Here is the work you desired of me; in dedicating it to you 1am happy to offer you some token of the respectful affection you allow me to feel for you. If I should be accused of incapacity after trying to extract from the depths of mysticism this book, which demanded the glowing poetry of the Hast under the transparency of our beautiful language, the blame be yours! Did you not compel me to the effort—such an effort as Jacob’s—by telling me that even the most imperfect outline of the figure dreamed of by you, as it has been by me from my infancy, would still be something in youreyes? Here, then, is that something.— Why cannot this book be set apart exclusively for those lofty spirits who, like you, are preserved from worldly pettiness by solitude! They might impress on it the melodious rhythm which it lacks, and which, in the hands of one of our poets, might have made it the glorious epic for which France still waits. Still, they will accept it from me as one of those balustrades, carved by some artist full of faith, on which the pilgrim leans to meditate on the end of man, while gazing at the choir of a fine church. I remain, Madame, with respect, your faithful servant, De Bauzac. (7) Paris, August 23, 18365. i SERAPHITUS
3N SEEING the Norwegian coast as outlined on the map, what imagination can fail to be amazed at its fantastic contour—long tongues of granite, round which the surges of the North Sea are forever moaning? Who has not dreamed of the majestic spectacle of these beachless shores, these endless creeks, and inlets, and little bays, no two of which are alike, and each a pathless gulf? Would it not seem as though Nature had amused herself by representing, in an indestructible hieroglyphic, the symbol of life in Norway, by giving its coast the configuration of the bones of an enormous fish? For fishing is the staple of commerce, and almost the sole article of food toa handful of men who cling, like a tuft of lichen, to those barren rocks. Ona land extending over fourteen degrees of longitude there are scarcely seven hundred thousand souls. Owing to the inglorious dangers and the perpetual snow that these Norwegian peaks offer to the traveller—the very name of Norway makes one cold—their sublime beauty remains inviolate and harmonizes with certain human phenomena, which took place there—equally unknown, at least to romance, and of which this is the story. When one of these inlets, a mere fissure in the sight of the eider-ducks, is wide enough to prevent the sea from freezing over in the rocky prison it tosses and struggles in, the inhabitants call such a little gulf a. fjord, a word (8) SERAPHITA 9
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
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