France -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction; French fiction -- Translations into English
The scintillations of their united diadems illumined space like the
fires of the sky at dawn upon the mountains. Waves of light flowed from
their hair, and their movements created tremulous undulations in space
like the billows of a phosphorescent sea.
The two Seers beheld the _Seraph_ dimly in the midst of the immortal
legions. Suddenly, as though all the arrows of a quiver had darted
together, the Spirits swept away with a breath the last vestiges of the
human form; as the _Seraph_ rose he became yet purer; soon he seemed
to them but a faint outline of what he had been at the moment of his
transfiguration,--lines of fire without shadow.
Higher he rose, receiving from circle to circle some new gift, while the
sign of his election was transmitted to each sphere into which, more and
more purified, he entered.
No voice was silent; the hymn diffused and multiplied itself in all its
modulations:--
“Hail to him who enters living! Come, flower of the Worlds! diamond from
the fires of suffering! pearl without spot, desire without flesh, new
link of earth and heaven, be Light! Conquering spirit, Queen of the
world, come for thy crown! Victor of earth, receive thy diadem! Thou art
of us!”
The virtues of the _Seraph_ shone forth in all their beauty.
His earliest desire for heaven re-appeared, tender as childhood.
The deeds of his life, like constellations, adorned him with their
brightness. His acts of faith shone like the Jacinth of heaven, the
color of sidereal fires. The pearls of Charity were upon him,--a chaplet
of garnered tears! Love divine surrounded him with roses; and the
whiteness of his Resignation obliterated all earthly trace.
Soon, to the eyes of the Seers, he was but a point of flame, growing
brighter and brighter as its motion was lost in the melodious
acclamations which welcomed his entrance into heaven.
The celestial accents made the two exiles weep.
Suddenly a silence as of death spread like a mourning veil from the
first to the highest sphere, throwing Wilfrid and Minna into a state of
intolerable expectation.
At this moment the _Seraph_ was lost to sight within the _sanctuary_,
receiving there the gift of Life Eternal.
A movement of adoration made by the Host of heaven filled the two Seers
with ecstasy mingled with terror. They felt that all were prostrate
before the Throne, in all the spheres, in the Spheres Divine, in the
Spiritual Spheres, and in the Worlds of Darkness.
The Angels bent the knee to celebrate the _Seraph’s_ glory; the Spirits
bent the knee in token of their impatience; others bent the knee in the
dark abysses, shuddering with awe.
A mighty cry of joy gushed forth, as the spring gushes forth to its
millions of flowering herbs sparkling with diamond dew-drops in the
sunlight; at that instant the _Seraph_ reappeared, effulgent, crying,
“_Eternal! Eternal! Eternal_!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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