Louis Lambert — Honoré de Balzac, trans. Katharine Prescott Wormeley
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The translator’s English as printed (Katharine Prescott Wormeley). The original-language text is not held; names are romanised as the translator printed them.
‘‘Whenever he had finished writing a treatise, he took ship to have it printed in London or in Holland, and never talked about it. He thus published twenty-seven works in all, written, as he declared, at the dictation of angels. Whether or no this be true, few men are capable of enduring this flaming language.
‘‘Here they all are,’’ said the minister, pointing to an upper shelf on which stood about sixty volumes. ‘‘The seven books on which the Spirit of God has shed its brightSERAPHITA 65 est light are:-—‘The Delights of Wisdom in Conjugal Love;’ ‘Meaven and Hell;’ ‘The Apocalypse Explained;’ ‘An Exposition of the Inward Sense;’ ‘On the Divine Love;’ ‘The True Christian Religion;’ ‘The Angelic Wisdom of the Omnipotence, Omniscience, and Omnipresence of those who share the Eternity and Immensity of God.’
‘His explanation of the ‘Apocalypse’ begins with these words,’’ said the pastor, opening the volume that was lying near him: ‘‘ ‘Herein I have written nothing of my own; I have spoken at the bidding of the Lord, who said to John, by the same angel, ‘‘Thou shalt not seal the words of this prophecy.
‘‘My dear sir,’’ the good man went on, looking at a3
Wilfrid, ‘‘many a winter night have I quaked in every limb while reading the tremendous works in which this man sets forth the greatest marvels in perfect good faith.
‘«*T have seen,’ says he, ‘the heavens and the angels. The spiritual man sees spiritual man far more clearly than the earthly man sees earthly man. I obey the command of the Lord who hath given it to me todo. Men are free not to believe me; I cannot put others into the state into, which God hath put me. It is not in my power to make them hold conversation with the angels, nor to work a miracle in predisposing their understanding; they themselves must be the agents of their angelical exaltation. For twenty-eight years now I have dwelt in the spiritual world with the angels, and yet on earth with men; for it hath pleased the Lord to open the eyes of my spirit as he opened the eyes of Paul, of Daniel, and of Elisha.’
‘Certain persons, however, have had visions of the spiritual world through the complete severance of theirp. 66 external body and their inner man by somnambulism. In that state, Swedenborg tells us in his ‘Treatise on Angelic Wisdom,’ man may be raised to celestial light, because, the physical senses being in abeyance, heavenly influences act on the inner man without interference.
‘‘A good many persons who do not doubt that Swedenborg had celestial revelations, still do not regard all his writings as equally stamped with Divine inspiration. Others insist on a complete acceptance of Swedenborg, while confessing his obscurities; but they think that it | was the imperfection of earthly language that hindered the prophet in expressing his spiritual visions, so that such obscurities disappear before the eyes of those who are regenerate by faith; to use a striking expression of his favorite disciple’s, the flesh is begotten externally.
“To poets and writers he is infinitely marvellous; to seers it is all absolute truth. His descriptions have been a matter of scandal to some Christians; critics have laughed at the ‘celestial substance’ of his temples, his golden palaces, his magnificent mansions where angels flutter and play; others have ridiculed his groves of mystical trees, and gardens where flowers have speech, where the air is white, and mystical gems—sardonyx, carbuncle, chrysolite, chrysoprase, cyanite, chalcedony, and beryl, the Urim and Thummim—are endowed with motion, express celestial truths, and may be questioned, since they reply by variations of light (‘True Religion,’ 217, 218). Some very good men will not recognize his worlds where colors are heard in delicious concerts, where words are flames, and the Word is written in inflected letters (‘True Religion,’ 278). Even in the North some writers have made fun of his gates of pearl, of the diamonds with which the houses of his New Jerusa-
“1D at Geep. 67 lem are paved and furnished, where the humblest utensils are made of the rarest materials.
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