Page:Emanuel Swedenborg, Scientist and Mystic.djvu/20

10 she put to "Uncle" Swedenborg. (This is still the delightful way in which nice little Swedish children address a man, as they adopt a woman by calling her "aunt.")

Her question, of a certainty reflecting overheard talk at home, was that she did wish he would show her a "spirit or an angel."

He laughed and said he would. Taking her into a garden pavilion, he pulled a curtain away from a long mirror.

"There!" he said, "you see an angel!"

Count A. J. von Höpken had known Swedenborg for forty years, but not as these casual and curious acquaintances. Höpken, as has been mentioned, held a position in the Swedish Government which would correspond to that of Prime Minister today. He was a subtle and distinguished man, and would have been "modern" in any age. He was characterized later by a Swedish historian as "learned, admirable in writing and speaking, cautious, farseeing, a skeptic in thought and character . . ." 4

In 1772, soon after Swedenborg's death at eighty-four, Höpken received a letter from a Danish general, asking him for an account of Swedenborg's system as well as of the character of the man. The Count was privately, as he said, much amused and surprised and nonplussed that "the honest old gentleman Swedenborg has spoken so favorably about me in various places that he has even made me his apostle after his death," 5 but he answered the general in a serious, if characteristically cautious, vein.

First he begged him to believe that although his oflice had often made it his duty to give his opinion and counsel in delicate and difficult matters, he did not recollect that anything so delicate had ever before been submitted to his judgment as that which was here proposed to him.

All he could say was that he had for two-and-forty years known the late Assessor Swedenborg and had for some time daily frequented his company. He assured the General that much as his life had brought him into contact with all types of characters he did not recollect having known any man like Swedenborg.

He was "always contented, never fretful nor morose. . . . He was a true philosopher and lived like one; he labored diligently and lived frugally without sordidness; he travelled continually and his