Louis LambertJ.M. Dent, 1897 - 316 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
abstract angelic spirit asked Balzac beautiful believe Blois body brain brow catalepsy clouds colour Corbigny creation creature cried divine doubt dream dwell earth earthly eternal everything existence expression eyes face fact faculties faith Falberg farewell father feel feet fiord flash flower force gave gaze genius gift girl give glory gneiss Godefroid gulf hand happiness hear heard heart heaven heavenly human ideas infinite inner instinct intellect Jacob Boehm Jacqueline Jarvis light live look Louis Lambert Madame de Staël Madame Guyon Mademoiselle de Villenoix man-the matter mind Monsieur motion mysterious nature never Norway Norwegian Oratorians passion Pastor Becker perhaps Place de Grève prayer rapture recognise replied secret seemed seers sense Seraphita silence smile snow soul speak sphere substances suffering Swedenborg tell things thought tion understand vast Vendôme voice whole Wilfrid and Minna woman words
Popular passages
Page 55 - Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen ; and ye receive not our witness. If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?
Page 51 - Swedenborg," testified thus : " The only weakness of this truly honest man was his belief in ghost-seeing ; but I knew him for many years, and I can confidently affirm that he was as fully persuaded that he conversed with spirits, as I am that I am writing at this moment. As a citizen and as a friend, he was a man of the greatest integrity, abhorring imposture, and leading an exemplary life.
Page 66 - Blessed are they that mourn ! Blessed are the meek ! Blessed are the peacemakers." All Swedenborg is there : Suffer, believe, and love. To love truly, must we not have suffered ; must we not believe ? Love begets strength, and strength gives wisdom ; this is intelligence, for strength and wisdom include will.
Page 258 - The most serious symptom had supervened a day or two before the marriage. Louis had had some well-marked attacks of catalepsy. He had once remained motionless for fifty-nine hours, his eyes staring, neither speaking nor eating; a purely nervous affection, to which persons under the influence of violent passion are liable; a rare malady, but perfectly well known to the medical faculty. What was really extraordinary...
Page 109 - Your geometry states it as an axiom that a straight line is the shortest way from one point to another; and astronomy shows you that God has given motion only in curves.
Page 276 - I ought, perhaps, to have made a separate book of these fragments of thought, intelligible only to certain spirits who have been accustomed to lean over the edge of abysses in the hope of seeing to the bottom. The life of that mighty brain, which split up on every side perhaps, like a too vast empire, would have been set forth in the narrative of this man's visions — a being incomplete for lack of force or of weakness ; but I preferred to give an account of my own impressions rather than to compose...
Page 270 - At Abstraction Society begins. Though Abstraction as compared with Instinct is an almost divine power, it is infinitely feeble compared with the endowment of Specialism, which alone can explain God. Abstraction comprises within it a whole nature in germ, as potentially as the seed contains the system of a plant and all its products.
Page 59 - The union of a spirit of love with a spirit of wisdom lifts the creature into the divine state in which the soul is WOMAN and the body MAN — the final expression of humanity, in which the spirit is supreme over the form, and the form still contends with the divine spirit ; for the form, which is the flesh, is ignorant and rebellious, and would fain remain gross. It is this supreme conflict which gives rise to the inexpressible anguish which the heavens alone can see — the agony of Christ in the...
Page 211 - When in his fifteenth year he parts from his double at the college of Vendome, he says: "You will live, but I shall die. If I can, I will come back to you." In the story he does come back, to find Louis mad, but in life he never came back. In taking leave of himself in this strangely prophetic manner it is interesting to note that Balzac immediately proceeds to give a physical description of his double, an exact description, including Louis
Page 269 - may perhaps be found; but there will always remain beyond apprehension the x against which I once used to struggle. That x is the Word, the Logos . . . From your bed to the frontiers of the universe there are but two steps: Will and Faith. . . . Facts are nothing; they do not subsist; all that lives of us is the Idea.