DR. HESSELIUS PICKS UP SOMETHING IN LATIN BOOKS.
Well, I have called at Blank street.
On inquiring at the door, the servant told me that Mr. Jennings was
engaged very particularly with a gentleman, a clergyman from Kenlis, his
parish in the country. Intending to reserve my privilege and to call
again, I merely intimated that I should try another time, and had turned
to go, when the servant begged my pardon, and asked me, looking at me a
little more attentively than well-bred persons of his order usually do,
whether I was Dr. Hesselius; and, on learning that I was, he said,
“Perhaps then, sir, you would allow me to mention it to Mr. Jennings,
for I am sure he wishes to see you.”
The servant returned in a moment, with a message from Mr. Jennings,
asking me to go into his study, which was in effect his back
drawing-room, promising to be with me in a very few minutes.
This was really a study—almost a library. The room was lofty, with two
tall slender windows, and rich dark curtains. It was much larger than I
had expected, and stored with books on every side, from the floor to the
ceiling. The upper carpet—for to my tread it felt that there were two
or three—was a Turkey carpet. My steps fell noiselessly. The book-cases
standing out, placed the windows, particularly narrow ones, in deep
recesses. The effect of the room was, although extremely comfortable,
and even luxurious, decidedly gloomy, and aided by the silence, almost
oppressive. Perhaps, however, I ought to have allowed something for
association. My mind had connected peculiar ideas with Mr. Jennings. I
stepped into this perfectly silent room, of a very silent house, with a
peculiar foreboding; and its darkness, and solemn clothing of books, for
except where two narrow looking-glasses were set in the wall, they were
everywhere, helped this sombre feeling.
While awaiting Mr. Jennings’ arrival, I amused myself by looking into
some of the books with which his shelves were laden. Not among these,
but immediately under them, with their backs upward, on the floor, I
lighted upon a complete set of Swedenborg’s Arcana Cælestia, in the
original Latin, a very fine folio set, bound in the natty livery which
theology affects, pure vellum, namely, gold letters, and carmine edges.
There were paper markers in several of these volumes, I raised and
placed them, one after the other, upon the table, and opening where
these papers were placed, I read in the solemn Latin phraseology, a
series of sentences indicated by a pencilled line at the margin. Of
these I copy here a few, translating them into English.
“When man’s interior sight is opened, which is that of his spirit, then
there appear the things of another life, which cannot possibly be made
visible to the bodily sight.”...
“By the internal sight it has been granted me to see the things that are
in the other life, more clearly than I see those that are in the world.
From these considerations, it is evident that external vision exists
from interior vision, and this from a vision still more interior, and so
on.”...
“There are with every man at least two evil spirits.”...
“With wicked genii there is also a fluent speech, but harsh and grating.
There is also among them a speech which is not fluent, wherein the
dissent of the thoughts is perceived as something secretly creeping
along within it.”...
“The evil spirits associated with man are, indeed, from the hells, but
when with man they are not then in hell, but are taken out thence. The
place where they then are is in the midst between heaven and hell, and
is called the world of spirits—when the evil spirits who are with man,
are in that world, they are not in any infernal torment, but in every
thought and affection of the man, and so, in all that the man himself
enjoys. But when they are remitted into their hell, they return to their
former state.”...
“If evil spirits could perceive that they were associated with man, and
yet that they were spirits separate from him, and if they could flow in
into the things of his body, they would attempt by a thousand means to
destroy him; for they hate man with a deadly hatred.”...
“Knowing, therefore, that I was a man in the body, they were continually
striving to destroy me, not as to the body only, but especially as to
the soul; for to destroy any man or spirit is the very delight of the
life of all who are in hell; but I have been continually protected by
the Lord. Hence it appears how dangerous it is for man to be in a living
consort with spirits, unless he be in the good of faith.”...
“Nothing is more carefully guarded from the knowledge of associate
spirits than their being thus conjoint with a man, for if they knew it
they would speak to him, with the intention to destroy him.”...
“The delight of hell is to do evil to man, and to hasten his eternal
ruin.”
A long note, written with a very sharp and fine pencil, in Mr. Jennings’
neat hand, at the foot of the page, caught my eye. Expecting his
criticism upon the text, I read a word or two, and stopped, for it was
something quite different, and began with these words, _Deus misereatur
mei_—“May God compassionate me.” Thus warned of its private nature, I
averted my eyes, and shut the book, replacing all the volumes as I had
found them, except one which interested me, and in which, as men
studious and solitary in their habits will do, I grew so absorbed as to
take no cognisance of the outer world, nor to remember where I was.
I was reading some pages which refer to “representatives” and
“correspondents,” in the technical language of Swedenborg, and had
arrived at a passage, the substance of which is, that evil spirits,
when seen by other eyes than those of their infernal associates, present
themselves, by “correspondence,” in the shape of the beast (_fera_)
which represents their particular lust and life, in aspect direful and
atrocious. This is a long passage, and particularises a number of those
bestial forms.