Page:Immanuel Kant - Dreams of a Spirit-Seer - tr. Emanuel Fedor Goerwitz (1900).djvu/175

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all could be true, which the most reasonable persons of the city asserted, respecting his secret communication with the spiritual world. But his succeeding letters were quite of a different purport. He had not only spoken with Swedenborg himself, but had also visited him at his house; and he is now in the greatest astonishment respecting such a remarkable case. Swedenborg is a reasonable, polite, and open-hearted man ; he is also a man of learning; and my friend has promised to send me some of his writings in a short time. He told this gentleman, without reserve, that God had accorded to him this remarkable gift of communicating with departed souls at his pleasure. In proof of this he appealed to certain well-known facts. As he was reminded of my letter, he said that he was aware that he had received it, and that he would already have answered it had he not intended to make the whole of this singular affair public before the eyes of the world, he would proceed to London in the month of May this year, where he would publish a book in which an answer to my letter in every point might be met with.

"In order, gracious lady, to give you two proofs, of which the present existing public is a witness, and the person who related them to me had the opportunity of investigating them at the very place where they occurred, I will narrate to you the two following occurrences.

"Madame Herteville (Marteville), the widow of the Dutch Ambassador in Stockholm, some time after the death of her husband, was called upon by Croon, a goldsmith, to pay for a silver service which her husband had purchased from him. The widow was convinced that her late husband had been much too precise and orderly not to have paid this debt, yet she was unable to find this receipt. In her sorrow, and because the amount was considerable, she requested Mr. Swedenborg to call at her house. After apologizing to him for troubling him, she said that if, as all people say, he possessed the extraordinary gift of conversing with the souls of the departed, he would perhaps have the kindness to ask her husband how it was about the silver service. Swedenborg did not at all object to comply with her request. Three days afterward the said lady had company at her house for coffee. Swedenborg called and in his cool way informed her that he had conversed with her husband. The debt