urely physical phenomenon. We both were right. Perhaps the words
materialism and spiritualism express the two faces of the same fact. His
considerations on the substance of the mind led to his accepting, with
a certain pride, the life of privation to which we were condemned in
consequence of our idleness and our indifference to learning. He had a
certain consciousness of his own powers which bore him up through his
spiritual cogitations. How delightful it was to me to feel his soul
acting on my own! Many a time have we remained sitting on our form, both
buried in one book, having quite forgotten each other's existence, and
yet not apart; each conscious of the other's presence, and bathing in an
ocean of thought, like two fish swimming in the same waters.

Our life, apparently, was merely vegetating; but we lived through our
heart and brain.

Lambert's influence over my imagination left traces that still abide.
I used to listen hungrily to his tales, full of the marvels which make
men, as well as children, rapturously devour stories in which truth
assumes the most grotesque forms. His passion for mystery, and the
credulity natural to the young, often led us to discuss Heaven and Hell.
Then Louis, by expounding Swedenborg, would try to make me share in his
beliefs concerning angels. In his least logical arguments there were
still amazing observations as to the powers of man, which gave his words
that color of truth without which nothing can be done in any art. The
romantic end he foresaw as the destiny of man was calculated to flatter
the yearning which tempts blameless imaginations to give themselves up
to beliefs. Is it not during the youth of a nation that its dogmas and
idols are conceived? And are not the supernatural beings before whom the
people tremble the personification of their feelings and their magnified
desires?

All that I can now remember of the poetical conversations we held
together concerning the Swedish prophet, whose works I have since had
the curiosity to read, may be told in a few paragraphs.

In each of us there are two distinct beings. According to Swedenborg,
the angel is an individual in whom the inner being conquers the external
being. If a man desires to earn his call to be an angel, as soon as his
mind reveals to him his twofold existence, he must strive to foster the
delicate angelic essence that exists within him. If, for lack of a lucid
appreciation of his destiny, he allows bodily