Louis Lambert — Honoré de Balzac, trans. Katharine Prescott Wormeley

She drew the flower from her bosom and showed it to him. They all three fixed their eyes on the pretty saxifrage, still quite fresh, which under the gleam of the lamps shone amid the clouds of smoke like another light.

‘“This is supernatural,’’ said the old man, seeing a flower in bloom in the winter.

‘‘An abyss!’ cried Wilfrid, fevered by the perfume.

“The flower fills me with rapture,’ said Minna. “I fancy I can still hear his speech, which is the music of the mind, as I still see the light of his gaze, which is love.”’

‘“‘Tet me entreat you, my dear Pastor Becker, to relate the life of Seraphita—that enigmatical flower of humanity whose image I see in this mysterious blossom.”’

‘““My dear guest,’’ said the minister, blowing a puff of tobacco smoke, ‘‘to explain the birth of this being, it will be necessary to disentangle for you the obscurest of all Christian creeds; but it is not easy to be clear when discussing the most incomprehensible of all revelations, the latest flame of faith, they say, that has blazed on our ball of clay.—Do you know anything of Swedenborg?”’

“Nothing but his name. Of himself, his writings, his religion, [ am wholly ignorant.”’

‘Well, then, I will tell you all about Swedenborg.”’

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Ifl
SERAPHITA—SERAPHITUS

FTER A PAUSE, while the pastor seemed to be collecting his thoughts, he went on as follows:

‘‘Hmanuel von Swedenborg was born at Upsala, in Sweden, in the month of January, 1688, as some authors say, or, according to his epitaph, in 1689. His father was bishop of Skara. Swedenborg lived to the age of eightyfive, and died in London on the 29th March, 1772. I use the word ‘died’ to express a change of condition only. <According to his disciples, Swedenborg has been at Jarvis and in Paris since that time.—Permit me, my dear friend,’’ said the pastor, with a gesture to check interruption, ‘‘I am relating the tale without affirming or denying the facts. Listen, and when I have done you can think what you choose. I will warn you when I myself judge, criticise, or dispute the doctrines, so as to show my intellectual neutrality between reason and the man himself.

‘‘Hmanuel Swedenborg’s life was divided into two distinct phases,’’ Becker went on. ‘‘From 1688 till 1745 Baron Emanuel von Swedenborg was known in the world as a man of vast learning, esteemed and beloved for his virtues, always blameless, and invariably heipful. While filling important public posts in Sweden, he published, between 1709 and 1740, several important books on ‘mineralogy, physics, mathematics, and astronomy, which were of value in the scientific world. He invented a method

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of constructing docks to receive vessels; he treated many very important questions, from the height of the flood-tide to the position of the earth in space. He discovered the way to construct more efficient locks on canals, as well as simpler methods for the smelting of metals. In short, he never took up a science without advancing it.

‘In his youth he studied Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and the Oriental languages, and became so familiar with these tongues that several celebrated professors constantly consulted him, and he was enabled to discover in Tartary some traces of the earliest book of God’s Word, called the ‘Book of the Wars of Jehovah,’ and of the Judgments mentioned by Moses (Numbers xxi. 14, 15), by Joshua, Jeremiah, and Samuel. The wars of the Lord are said to be the historical portion, and the Judgments the prophetic portion, of this book, written prior to Genesis. Swedenborg even asserted that the Book of Jasher, or of the Upright, mentioned by Joshua, existed in Hastern Tartary with the worship by Correspondences. A Frenchman, I have been told, has recently confirmed Swedenborg’s anticipations by announcing the discovery at Bagdad of several parts of the Bible unknown in Hurope.