I'm not going to finish this. Swedenborgism has failed to grip me, no matter how many semiprecious stones and loving angels are in its description. I'd rather read .
It's Balzac's contribution to SF, though. The mysticism is very like what fantasy authors often try to convey, jewelled cities and all. If regarded literally, the spirits are as hard to explain as any incomprehensible aliens. Even Sweden itself seems to have been completely unfamiliar to Balzac or his expected audience: he describes skis and fjords - "skees" and "fiords" in this venerable translation - as though no reader could possibly have heard of so strange an environment.
The person whom Minna had addressed as Seraphitus threw his weight upon his right heel, arresting the plank--six and a half feet long and narrow as the foot of a child--which was fastened to his boot by a double thong of leather. This plank, two inches thick, was covered with reindeer skin, which bristled against the snow when the foot was raised, and served to stop the wearer. Seraphitus drew in his left foot, furnished with another "skee," which was only two feet long...
Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley.
URI: Project Gutenberg etext #1432
So wrote clew in Fiction (19th c.). | TrackBack