dom, and
thereby the reception of love with the husband: as is manifest from the
consideration, that she can be reconciled in an instant. Besides, wives
use such means of concealing the love implanted in their inmost heart,
with a view to prevent conjugial cold bursting forth with the man, and
extinguishing the fire of his adulterous heat, and thus converting him
from green wood into a dry stick." When the seven wives had expressed
these and many more similar sentiments, their husbands came with
clusters of grapes in their hands, some of which were of a delicate, and
some of a disagreeable flavor; upon which the wives said, "Why have you
also brought bad or wild grapes?" The husbands replied, "Because we
perceived in our souls, with which yours are united, that you were
conversing with that man respecting love truly conjugial, that its
delights are the delights of wisdom, and also respecting adulterous
love, that its delights are the pleasures of insanity. The latter are
the disagreeable or wild grapes; the former are those of delicate
flavor." They confirmed what their wives had said, and added that, "in
externals, the pleasures of insanity appear like the delights of wisdom,
but not so in internals; just like the good and bad grapes which we have
brought; for both the chaste and the unchaste have similar wisdom in
externals, but altogether dissimilar in internals." After this the
little boy came again with a piece of paper in his hand, and held it out
to me, saying, "Read this;" and I read as follows: "Know that the
delights of conjugial love ascend to the highest heaven, and both in the
way thither and also there, unite with the delights of all heavenly
loves, and thereby enter into their happiness, which endures for ever;
because the delights of that love are also the delights of wisdom: and
know also, that the pleasures of illicit love descend even to the lowest
hell, and, both in the way thither and also there, unite with the
pleasures of all infernal loves, and thereby enter into their
unhappiness, which consists in the wretchedness of all heart-delights;
because the pleasures of that love are the pleasures of insanity." After
this the husbands departed with their wives, and accompanied the little
boy as far as to the way of his ascent into heaven; and they knew that
the society from which he was sent was a society of the new heaven, with
which the new church in the world will be conjoined.

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