Page:The Swedenborg Library Vol 1.djvu/172

 body, the speech and the gestures. Thus their character is known as soon as they are seen.

In general they are forms of contempt of others; of menace against those who do not pay them respect; of hatred of various kinds; also of various kinds of revenge. Ferocity and cruelty from their interiors are transparent through those forms. But when others commend, honor and worship them, their faces are contracted and have an appearance of gladness arising from delight. It is impossible to describe in a few words all those forms as they actually appear; for no one of them is similar to that of another.

Among those, however, who are in similar evil, and thence in a similar infernal society, there is a general likeness, from which, as from a plane of derivation, the faces of all there appear to bear a certain resemblance to each other. In general their faces are hideous, and void of life like corpses; in some cases they are black; in others they are fiery like little torches; in others, disfigured with pimples, warts and ulcers. Many appear to have no face, but instead thereof something hairy or bony; and in some instances nothing is seen but teeth. Their bodies also are monstrous; and their speech is like the speech of anger, hatred or revenge,—for every one speaks from his own falsity, and in a tone corresponding to his own evil. In a word they are all images of their own hell.