The
light engendered melody, the melody engendered light; the colours were
light and melody, the movement was number endowed with speech; in
fine, all was at once sonorous, diaphanous, mobile; so that, all
things interpenetrating each other, distance was without obstacles,
and might be traversed by the angels throughout the depths of the
infinite. There was the fete. Myriads of angels all hastened in like
flight, without confusion, all similar, yet all dissimilar, simple as
the field-rose, vast as worlds. They were neither seen to come nor go.
On a sudden, they studded the infinite with their presence, just as
the stars shine in the indiscernible ether."
The fundamental error of _Seraphita_ is its hybridity, not to speak of
its pretentious psychology. It is neither flesh nor fowl; and,
exception made for some fine passages, more at the beginning than in
the rest of the book, it jars and irks, and amazes, but does not
captivate or persuade.
It had a great success when it came out in book form. People were
inquisitive to know the end of the story, which the _Revue de Paris_
had not given; and their eagerness had been further whetted by a
cleverly graduated series of puffs put into the newspapers.
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