Green Tea; Mr. Justice Harbottle by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
page 16 of 98 (16%)
page 16 of 98 (16%)
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they would speak to him, with the intention to destroy him."...
"The delight of hell is to do evil to man, and to hasten his eternal ruin." A long note, written with a very sharp and fine pencil, in Mr. Jennings' neat hand, at the foot of the page, caught my eye. Expecting his criticism upon the text, I read a word or two, and stopped, for it was something quite different, and began with these words, _Deus misereatur mei_--"May God compassionate me." Thus warned of its private nature, I averted my eyes, and shut the book, replacing all the volumes as I had found them, except one which interested me, and in which, as men studious and solitary in their habits will do, I grew so absorbed as to take no cognisance of the outer world, nor to remember where I was. I was reading some pages which refer to "representatives" and "correspondents," in the technical language of Swedenborg, and had arrived at a passage, the substance of which is, that evil spirits, when seen by other eyes than those of their infernal associates, present themselves, by "correspondence," in the shape of the beast (_fera_) which represents their particular lust and life, in aspect direful and atrocious. This is a long passage, and particularises a number of those bestial forms. CHAPTER IV |
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