Page:Emanuel Swedenborg, Scientist and Mystic.djvu/91

VII ] Most of her handsome fortune, he noted, she left to enable him to publish his works. (There had been a little pushing here; as mentioned before, Sara Bergia wanted to leave all to Emanuel, but the Bishop persuaded her not to, he said the other children ought to share as well as himself.)

Within a year or so the Bishop had married again, another well-to-do lady, not for his own sake, only for the household, of course. The lady, Christina Arhusia, survived him, but first she had fifteen years of household management. Bishop Swedberg died in 1735, aged eighty-one.

He left nothing to chance, not even the eulogy to be read at his burial. He wrote it himself. It was a not-too-brief abbreviation of his autobiography, with all his virtues and the consequent wonders and favors with which God had showered him. He gave minute instructions for the funeral ceremonies, pointing out the spirit of Christian humility in which he did it.

In 1736, about long enough after his father's death for the inheritance to have been distributed, Emanuel Swedenborg applied for leave of absence from the Board of Mines. He had done this before but never for so long a time. It was to be for a journey abroad that might take three or four years. He did not go into details except that it was for the purpose of "elaborating a useful work" vaguely described as having some connection with the preceding one and to be on "some new principles in philosophy."

He offered to take only half his salary while absent. The King and the Board granted the application. Being a state official, Assessor Swedenborg took solemn leave of Their Majesties at an audience where they were both "very gracious"; of the Privy Council; of the Members of the Board of Mines; of his friends and, probably unknown to them and even to himself, of his old life. On July 10, 1736, he left the city of Stockholm for the city of Paris, where he meant to study anatomy under Winsløv, the famous Danish anatomist.11

Whether the family knew of his intention is not clear, but probably Unge, his thrifty brother-in-law, expressed the general sentiment of family and friends when he wrote to Swedenborg, "As much as I was pleased with your former letter in which you wrote