=The Idea of Hell.=--The pupil asked: "When I read Swedenborg's _Hell_, I often believed he was describing our life on earth. Is it possible that we are already there? As a Christian, I have learnt that there was a Fall followed by a curse. Certainly life seems to me rather an Inferno than a school and a prison, for nothing keeps what it promises. The most beautiful things seem only made in order to become ugly, the good in order to become bad." "Have you never seen anything permanently beautiful here below?" "Yes, Nature at all seasons is so beautiful, that I exclaim with a feeling of pain, 'How super-naturally beautiful! And we are so hideous!' Life may also seem beautiful in a well-ordered family where there is peace and happiness and festival. I have seen it so, but only for two minutes at a time, and perhaps it was my way of looking at it." "Yet there are people who can thrive down here." "He who can thrive here is a pig. I know fellows who think they are in Paradise when they are on a summer holiday, have a well-spread table lit up by Chinese lanterns, and let off rockets. But 'Woe to the man who is born sensitive!' says Rousseau. Either he goes under, or he must arm himself with brutality. In the last case it may happen that he cannot divest himself of the armour, which has become a second nature. There are some extremely sensitive natures who cannot come to terms with life nor touch reality. These unfortunates finally lose the power of looking after themselves, and end in asylums." =Self-Knowledge.=--The teacher said: "One may have already lived a long time, consider oneself a respectable man, and, as such, have enjoyed the esteem of others. Then there comes a day when one awakes as out of slumber, sees oneself as a spectre, is alarmed, and asks, 'Am I _that_' One discovers that one has done things which now appear inexcusable. And one asks oneself, 'How could I?' On one occasion one has even committed a crime; on another, one has been dragged, so to speak, by the hair; on a third, one fell into a trap. "But there are men who are so sleepy that they never awake; and so wanting in intelligence that they cannot see how black they are. Once I had a friend who was sixty years old. On one occasion, with an outbreak of stupid astonishment, he exclaimed, 'Why are people so prejudiced against me? I seem to myself an excellent fellow!' And this man was a tyrant who trampled men underfoot, a hired executioner, a murderer who betrayed the innocent, took bribes, and practised simony and all kinds of wickedness. I did not wish to condemn him, but tried to defend him. Perhaps he felt justified in becoming an executioner, for there must be such officials; so he adopted it as a profession. He had an evil nature, and found it therefore natural or right when he acted in accordance with it. He lived in complete harmony with himself, and those who resembled him pronounced him a 'fine fellow'--'healthy, naïve, and, therefore, excellent society.'