Letters from Hell
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* ^LETTERS FROM HELL GIVEN IN ENGLISH BY L W. J. S. WITH A PREFACE BY g e o r g e Ma c d o n a l d , l l .d . cv i ' jicLctjijw' iA * NEW YORK: FUNK & WAGNALLS, io & is D ry Street. 1Ä85. Digitized by Google b 7 , 3 t ír S'" » O’Vvcw z . ’4 ' U w Ü > h a t.v a r d A UN • "'-TV-s^i L-J. kY MOV 18 -a'- • m iN, am wilin U Art of ConfreM, In the/nnr IM , by FITS* * WA ON ALLS, Xi UM O lei of lin Ulm rki of CoaRrM il WMhhgtN, D.C. « Digitized by b o o g i e PREFACE. T he book, of which this is an English rendering, appeared in Denmark eighteen years ago, and was speedily followed by an English translation, now long out of print, issued by the publishers of the present version. In Germany it appeared very re cently in a somewhat modified form, and has there aroused almost unparalleled interest, running, I am told, through upwards of twelve editions in the course of a year. The present English version is made from this German version, the translator faith fully following the author's powerful conception, but pruning certain portions, recasting certain others, and omitting some less interesting to English readers, in the hope of rendering such a reception and appre ciation as the book in itself deserves, yet more probable in this country. It may be interesting to some to know that the title is not quite a new one, for just before the death of Oliver Cromwell a book was published entitled . Messages from H ell; or Letters frotn a tost Soul. Digitized by C j O O Q i e vl PREFACE. This I have not had the opportunity of looking into; but it must be a remarkable book, I do not say, if it equals, but if it comes half-way toward the fearful interest of this volume. My sole motive towards offering to write a pre face to the present form of the work was my desire to have it read in this country. lit perusing the Ger man a few months ago, 1 was so much impressed with its imaginative energy, and the power of truth in it, that I felt as if, other duties permitting, I would gladly have gone through the no slight labour of translating it myself;— labour I say, because no good work can be done in any field of literature without genuine labour; and one of the common injuries between countries is the issue of unworthy trans lation. That the present is of a very different kind, the readers of it will not be slow to acknowledge. I would not willingly be misunderstood : when I say the book is full of truth, I do not mean either truth of theory or truth in art, but something far deeper and higher—the realities of our relations to God and man and duty— all, in short, that belongs to the conscience. Prominent among these is the awful verity, that we make our fate in unmaking ourselves; that men, in defacing the image of God in themselves, construct for themselves a world of horror and dismay; that of the outer darkness our own deeds and character arc the informing or in wardly creating cause; that if a man will not have Digitized by Google FREFACE. God, he never can be rid of his weary and hateful self. Concerning the theological forms into which the writer’s imaginations fall, I do not care to speak either for or against them here. My hope from the book is, that it will rouse in some the prophetic imagina tion, so that even from terror they may turn to the Father of Lights, from whom alone come all true theories, as well as every other good and perfect gift One thing, in this regard, alone I would indicate— the faint, all but inaudible tone of possible hope, ever and anon vanishing in the blackness of despair, that now and then steals upon the wretched soul, and a little comforts the heart of the reader as he gathers the frightful talc. But there is one growing persuasion of the present age which I hope this book may somewhat serve to stem—not by any argument, but by such a healthy upstirring, as I have indicated already, of the imagina tion and the conscience. In these days, when men are ¿>o gladly hearing afresh that * in Him is no darkness at allthat God therefore could not have created any man if He knew that he must live in torture to all eternity; and that his hatred to evil cannot be • expressed by injustice, itself the one essence of evil, — for certainly it would be nothing less than in justice to punish infinitely what was finitely com mitted, no sinner being capable of understanding the abstract enormity of what he does,— in these Digitized by v ^ o o Q i e VIII PREFACE. days has arisen another falsehood— less, yet very perilous: thousands of half-thinkers imagine that, since it is declared with such authority that hell is not everlasting, there is then no hell at all. I confess that, while I hold the book to abound in right genuine imagination, the art of it seems to me in one point defective:—not being cast in the shape of an allegory, but in that of a narrative of actual facts— many of which I feel might, may be true— the presence of pure allegory in parts, and forming inherent portion of the whole, is, however good the allegory in itself, distinctly an intrusion, the presence of a foreign body. For instance, it is good allegory that the uttering of lies on earth is the fountain of a foul river flowing through hell; but in the presentation of a real hell of men and women and misery, the representation of such a river, with such an origin, as actually flowing through the fright ful region, is a discord, greatly weakening the just verisimilitude. But this is the worst fault I have to find with it, and cannot do much harm ; for the virtue of the book will not be much weakened thereby: and its mission is not to answer any question of the intellect, to please the fancy, or content the artistic faculty, but to make righteous use of the element of horror; and in this, so far as I know, it is un paralleled. The book has a fearful title, and is far more fearful than its title; but if it help to turn any away from that which alone is really horrible, the Digitized by v ^ o o Q i e PREFACE. ix doing of unrighteousness, it will prove itself the out come of a divine energy of deliverance. For my part, believing with my whole heart that to know God is, and alone is, eternal life, and that he only knows God who knows Jesus Christ, I would gladly, even by a rational terror of the unknown probable, rouse any soul to the consciousness that it docs not know Him, and that it must approach Him or perish. The close of the book is, in every respect,— in that of imagination, that of art, that of utterance,—alto gether admirable, and in horror supreme. I^ct him who shuns the horrible as a thing in art unlawful, take heed that it be not a thing in fact by him cherished ; that he neither plant nor nourish that root of bitterness whose fruit must be horror— the doing of wrong to his neighbour; and least of all, if difference in the unlawful there be, that most unmanly of wrongs whose sole defence lies in the cowardly words: 'Am I my sister's keeperl9 George Mac Donald. Digitized by C j O O Q i e Digitized by b o o g ie LETTERS FROM HELL. L E T T E R I. I FF.r.T the approach of death. There had been a time of unconsciousness following U|>on the shiverings and wild fancies of fever. Once more I seemed to be waking; but what a waking! The power of life was gone: 1 lay weak and helpless, unable to move hand or foot; the eyelids which 1 had raised, closed again paralysed ; the tongue had grown too large for the parched mouth ; the voice—my own voice- sounded strange in my cars. 1 heard those say that watched me— they thought I understood not— 4 He is past suffering.’ Was 1 ? Ah m e! 1 suffered more than human soul can imagine. I had a terrible conviction that 1 lay dying, death creeping nearer. 1 had always shrunk from the bare thought of it, but I never knew what it meant to be dying, never before that hour. Hour ?—nay, the hours drifted into days ancj the days seemed one awful hour of horror and agony at the boundary line of life. Where was faith ? I had believed once, but that ^as long ago. Vainly I tried to call back some l Digitized by v ^ o o Q i e 3 LETTERS FROM HELL. shred of belief; the poorest remnant of faith would have seemed a wealth of comfort in the deep anguish of soul that compassed me about There was noth* ing I could cling to—nothing to uphold me. Like a drowning man I would have snatched at a straw even ; but there was nothing—nothing! That is a terrible word ; one word only in all human utterance being more terrible still—too late! too late! Vainly I struggled; an agonising fear consumed what was left of me.