Mr. Alcott said, "Swedenborg was in such fine relations with nature and
spirit, that many things seemed revealed to him beyond the apprehension
of ordinary men. He was a seer rather of supernatural than of spiritual
things; a preternaturalist, rather than spiritualist. He had wonderful
insights into nature, also, which science was almost every day
confirming."
"His followers claimed that he anticipated important discoveries, both
in natural as in spiritual science, and that his merits were enhanced
by his claim to supernatural illumination. And whatever his gifts,
how assisted, whether by agencies supernatural or preternatural,
their operations were of wonderful sweep, his insights surpassing,
transcending the comprehension of any successor; of a kind that have
led some to suspect that he staggered down under the weight of his
endowments. Certainly, he stands, like Boehme, an exceptional mind, in
the order of nature, and awaits an interpreter to determine his place
in the world of thought. He is the most eminent example furnished in
modern biography of the possibilities of the metempsychosis, as if
we saw in him an ability to translate himself at will, personally,
wheresoever he would, taking his residence for the while in plant,
animal, mineral, atom, with the superadded faculty of ravishing its
secret. Nor content with this, he ransacks the primeval elements, the
limbos of chaos and night. What burglaries he perpetrates! picking of
locks, slitting of mysteries, opening rents into things sacred and
profane,--of these no end. Then such edifices rising from regions of
vagary and shadow, a goblin world, grand, grotesque, seldom lighted
from above, or tipped with azure. His heavens had no prospects; no
perspective; his hells were lurid; the pit bottomless, a Stygian
realm throughout. His genius plunges, seldom soars; is not fledged,
but footed; his heaven but the cope of the abyss in plain sight of
the doomed. His angels are spectral, unwholesome; his celestials too
knowing to be innocent.
"It were a fruitless task to follow him from starting-point to goal,
if goal there be, in his restless racing throughout nature. The
ghost-seer of shadow-land, whereinto he smuggled all natural things
as spiritual phantoms; he needs be studied with due drawback of
doubt, as to the veracity of his claim to divine illumination. Still
with every abatement, here is a body of truth none can gainsay nor
resist; abysses not yet fathomed by any successor, naturalist, or
spiritualist."
After this surprising statement of his views of Swedenborg, Miss Bremer
asked more questions about Mr. Alcott's definition of an Enthusiast,
adding: "Christ, then, if we speak of him as a man, was an enthusiast."
Mr. Alcott, smiling, said, "Yes, the divinest of enthusiasts,
surrendering himself entirely to the instincts of the Spirit; might
safely do so, being holy, whole, inspired throughout all his gifts, his
whole Personality,--the divine fire pervaded every part; therefore he
was the celestial man."
The conversation here turned upon Nature, in some way which I do not
now recollect, and Mr. Alcott spoke of the great mission of the prophet
of nature.
"The public child of earth and sky."
"Nature," he said, "was more to some persons than others; they standing
in closer relations to it."
"But nature," said Miss Bremer, "is not wholly good."
"No," said Mr. Alcott; "there is something of Fate in her, too, as in
some persons. She, too, is a little bitten."
The expression seemed to amuse her, for she repeated it several times,
laughing.
Mr. Alcott then said, "that nature was not wholly sane. It was given
to the celestial man alone to take from it only what was salutary, as
it was the Nemesis of the demonic man to take what was hurtful. Bees
gathered honey from all flowers."
James Russell Lowell asked "if bees did not sometimes secrete poisonous
honey?"
Mr. Alcott said "he believed they did, but only when wholesome flowers
were denied them."
Miss Littlehale suggested that "honey was not poisonous to the bees,
but to men only, and Mr. Lowell allowed that it was not."
Miss Bremer now returned to the word Enthusiast. She said Mr. Alcott
had defined it well as "divine intoxication."
I do not follow the order of time in what follows, but record some
scattered sayings of the conversation.
Mr. Alcott spoke of "the celestial, or unfallen man, as not making
choice of good; he was chosen rather; elected, deliberation presupposed
a mixed will, a temptation and a lapse. Then, opening Plotinus, he read
this beautiful passage:--
"Every soul is a Venus. And this, the nativity of Venus, and Love
who was born at the same time with her, obscurely signify. The soul,
therefore, when in a condition conformable to nature, loves God,
wishing to be united to him, being, as it were, the desire of a
beautiful virgin to be conjoined with a beautiful love. When, however,
the soul descends into generation, then being, as it were, deceived
by spurious nuptials, and associating herself with another and mortal
love, she becomes petulant and insolent, through being absent from her
father. But when she again hates wantonness and injustice, and becomes
purified from the defilements which are here, and again returns to
her father, she is affected in the most felicitous manner. And those,
indeed, who are ignorant of this affection, may from worldly love form
some conjecture of divine love, by considering how great a felicity the
possession of a most beloved object is conceived to be; and also, by
considering that those earthly objects of love are mortal and noxious;
that the love of them is nothing more than the love of images, and that
they lose their attractive power because they are not truly desirable,
nor our real good, nor that which we investigate. In the ideal world,
however, the object of love is to be found, with which we may be
conjoined, which we may participate and truly possess, and which is not
externally enveloped with flesh. He, however, who knows this, well knew
what I say, and will be convinced that the soul has another life."
Miss Bremer seemed puzzled by this reading as questioning in her mind a
distinction between virtue and innocence, or holiness, which Mr. Alcott
had discriminated clearly.
Some one inquired, "How can we trust our instincts since these have
been so differently educated?"
Mr. Alcott said "they had rather been overborne by the appetites and
passions. It was the tragedy of life that these were obscured so soon,
and the mind left in confusion. The child was more of an enthusiast
than the man ordinarily. And then so many were born old; even in the
babe one sometimes sees some ancient sinner. Youth is so attractive
because still under the sway of instinct. The highest duty is musical
and sings itself. Business, lusts, draw men downwards. Yet were life
earnest and true to the instincts, it would be music and song. Life
was too much for most. No one was always an enthusiast. It was in the
golden moments that he was filled with the overflowing divinity. The
blissful moments were those when one abandons himself to the Spirit,
letting it do what it will with him. True, most persons were divided,
there were two or more of them,--a Deuce distracting them and they in
conflict with evils, or devils. But what is the bad but lapse from the
good,--the good blindfolded?"
"Ah! Mr. Alcott," said Miss Bremer, laughing, "I am desperately afraid
there is a little bit of a devil, after all."
"One's foes are of his own household," said Mr. Alcott. "If his house
is haunted it is by himself only. Our Choices were our Saviours or
Satans."
Speaking of the temperaments, Mr. Alcott discriminated these in their
different elements.
The celestial man was composed more largely of light and ether. The
demonic man combined more of fire and vapor. The animal man more of
embers and dust.[13]
[Footnote 13: THE TEMPERAMENTS AND COMPLEXIONS.
The Sanguine or Aeriform is Fair;
The Choleric or Fiery is Florid;
The Lymphatic or Aqueous is Olive;
The Melancholic or Earthy is Dark.
The four are mostly blended in life, the fusion being frequently
indeterminable.]
The sacraments might be considered symbolically, as Baptism, or
purification by water.
Fasting, or temperance in outward delights.
Continence, or chastity in personal indulgences.
Prayer, or aspiring aims.
Labor, or prayer in act or pursuits.
These he considered the regimen of inspiration and thought.
Mr. Alcott closed the conversation by reading from the Paradise
Regained a description of the banquet spread by Satan for Christ;
also, the lines in praise of Chastity, from the Comus, whose clear
statue-like beauty always affects one powerfully.