there. What is perceived solely by feeling, cannot be described, for it
does not fall into ideas of thought nor, therefore, into words. For the
understanding sees only and sees what is of wisdom or truth, but not what
is of love or good. Those felicities are therefore inexpressible, but
still they ascend in like degree with wisdom. They are infinitely
various, and each is ineffable. I have heard this, also perceived it.

[2] These felicities enter when a man, of himself and yet from the Lord,
casts out the lusts of the love of evil and falsity. For these felicities
are the happinesses of the affections of good and truth, the opposites of
the lusts of the love of evil and falsity. Those happinesses begin from
the Lord, thus from the inmost, diffuse themselves thence into things
lower even to lowermost things, and thus fill the angel, making him a
body of delight. Such happinesses are to be found in infinite variety in
every affection of good and truth, and eminently in the affection of
wisdom.

40. There is no comparing the joys of the lusts of evil and the joys of
the affections of good. Inwardly in the former is the devil, in the
latter the Lord. If comparisons are to be ventured, the pleasures of the
lusts of evil can only be compared to the lewd pleasures of frogs in
stagnant ponds or to those of snakes in filth, while the pleasures of the
affections of good must be likened to the delights which the mind takes
in gardens and flower beds. For things like those which affect frogs and
snakes affect those in the hells who are in lusts of evil; and things
like those which affect the mind in gardens and flower beds affect those
in the heavens who are in affections of good. For, as was said above,
corresponding uncleannesses affect the evil, and corresponding
cleannesses the good.