Page:Emanuel Swedenborg, Scientist and Mystic.djvu/208

192 something which no one knew except her and her dead brother, she either said that it was true, or else changed the subject.

After her death Count A. J. von Höpken wrote an account24 of the incident which explains the Queen's occasional reticence about it; he said that as the Queen had been carrying on a secret correspondence with her brother while Sweden and Prussia were at war she did not want to touch on these matters with everyone.

In Höpken's own words: "Swedenborg was one day at a Court reception. Her Majesty asked him about different things in the other life, and lastly whether he had seen or had talked with her brother, the Prince Royal of Prussia. He answered No. Her Majesty then requested him to ask for him and to give him her greeting, which Swedenborg promised to do. I doubt whether the Queen meant anything serious by it. At the next reception, Swedenborg again appeared at Court; and while the Queen was in the so-called white room, surrounded by her ladies of honor, he came boldly in and approached her Majesty, who no longer remembered the commission she had given him a week before. Swedenborg not only greeted her from her brother, but also gave her his apologies for not having answered her last letter; he also wished to do so now through Swedenborg, which he accordingly did. The Queen was greatly overcome, and said 'No one except God knows this secret.' "

There are other, and distorted, versions of this story, but it is corroborated by Major-General Tuxen,25 a Dane who came to know Swedenborg and himself asked him whether the story were true. Swedenborg said, "Tell me what you have heard and I will tell you what part is true." Tuxen told him the story as he had had it from Count Höpken's brother, agreeing in essentials with the Count's own narrative. Swedenborg affirmed its truth.

An interesting detail from Tuxen's testimony is that the Queen asked Swedenborg, "Can you, then, speak with every one deceased or only with certain persons?" Swedenborg answered, "I cannot converse with all, but with such as I have known in this world; with all royal and princely persons, with all renowned heroes, or great and learned men, whom I have known either personally or from their actions or writings; consequently of all of whom I could form an idea; for it may be supposed that a person whom I never