France -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction; French fiction -- Translations into English
transformed when their child had passed the state of infancy which
needed their fostering care until the strength to exist alone should be
given to her.
“Their child was born,--the Seraphita we are now concerned with. From
the moment of her conception father and mother lived a still more
solitary life than in the past, lifting themselves up to heaven by
Prayer. They hoped to see Swedenborg, and faith realized their hope.
The day on which Seraphita came into the world Swedenborg appeared in
Jarvis, and filled the room of the new-born child with light. I was told
that he said, ‘The work is accomplished; the Heavens rejoice!’ Sounds of
unknown melodies were heard throughout the house, seeming to come
from the four points of heaven on the wings of the wind. The spirit of
Swedenborg led the father forth to the shores of the fiord and there
quitted him. Certain inhabitants of Jarvis, having approached Monsieur
Seraphitus as he stood on the shore, heard him repeat those blissful
words of Scripture: ‘How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of Him
who is sent of God!’
“I had left the parsonage on my way to baptize the infant and name
it, and perform the other duties required by law, when I met the baron
returning to the house. ‘Your ministrations are superfluous,’ he said;
‘our child is to be without name on this earth. You must not baptize in
the waters of an earthly Church one who has just been immersed in the
fires of Heaven. This child will remain a blossom, it will not grow old;
you will see it pass away. You exist, but our child has life; you have
outward senses, the child has none, its being is always inward.’ These
words were uttered in so strange and supernatural a voice that I was
more affected by them than by the shining of his face, from which light
appeared to exude. His appearance realized the phantasmal ideas which we
form of inspired beings as we read the prophesies of the Bible. But such
effects are not rare among our mountains, where the nitre of perpetual
snows produces extraordinary phenomena in the human organization.
“I asked him the cause of his emotion. ‘Swedenborg came to us; he has
just left me; I have breathed the air of heaven,’ he replied. ‘Under
what form did he appear?’ I said. ‘Under his earthly form; dressed as
he was the last time I saw him in London, at the house of Richard
Shearsmith, Coldbath-fields, in July, 1771. He wore his brown frieze
coat with steel buttons, his waistcoat buttoned to the throat, a white
cravat, and the same magisterial wig rolled and powdered at the sides
and raised high in front, showing his vast and luminous brow, in keeping
with the noble square face, where all is power and tranquillity. I
recognized the large nose with its fiery nostril, the mouth that
ever smiled,--angelic mouth from which these words, the pledge of my
happiness, have just issued, “We shall meet soon.”’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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