heavens who are in affections for the good. For as before stated, unclean correspondences are pleasing to the evil, and clean correspondences to the good."—Divine Providence n. 40.
And are there not, even in this world, people who seem to prefer disorder, filth and squalor, to order, neatness and cleanliness? Have you never seen persons, who, if they were presented with the most magnificent habitation, filled and surrounded, too, with everything beautiful, and arranged in the most orderly and tasteful manner, would, if left to do precisely as they pleased, convert that palatial residence into a vile and loathsome place in less than six months? Are there not some whose nature (inherited, or acquired by habit,) is so near akin to that of certain animals, that they would very soon convert the sweetest and most lovely place of abode, into a squalid and disgusting stye? Their nature is such that cleanliness and order seem far less agreeable to them, than filth and disorder. And, place them where you will, they will very soon reduce all their surroundings to a condition that will reveal with great clearness the state of their own minds. So on the other hand, place people of refinement and culture in the humblest cabin, and they will soon make that cabin reveal to the careful observer something of their refined and cultivated tastes. And the reason of this is, that every kind of life is delighted with, and therefore seeks, that which corresponds with its own nature.
