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Doc. 255.] GENERAL TUXEN’S TESTIMONY. 437
he entertained them very politely and with much attention on
indifferent subjects, on favourite dogs and cats that were in
the room, which caressed him, and jumped on his knee show
ing their little tricks.
17. During these trifling discourses mixed with singular
questions, to all of which whether they concerned this or the
other world, he obligingly answered, I mentioned once, that I
was very sorry I had no better company to amuse him, than a
sickly wife and her young girls. He replied, " And is not this
very good company ? I was always partial to ladies’ com
pany. "*
18. This led me jocosely to ask him, whether he had ever
been married, or desirous of marrying. He answered, No ; but
that once in his youth he had been on the road to matrimony;
King Charles XII having recommended the famous Polhem¹4
to give him his daughter. On my asking what obstacle had
prevented it, he replied : "She would not have me, as she had
promised herself to another person to whom she was more
attached." I then craved his pardon if I had been too in
quisitive. [He answered, ask whatever question you please, I
shall answer in truth. I then inquired, whether in his youth
he could keep free from temptations with regard to the sex?
He replied, "Not altogether ; in my youth I had a mistress in
Italy.]†
19. After some little pause he cast his eyes on a harpsi
chord, and asked whether we were lovers of music, and who
* Compare Document 4, Vol. I, p. 29.
The portions in brackets for reasons which we have stated at large
in Note 27 of Volume I, we declare not to be genuine. In addition to the
reasons which we have furnished there, we adduce here the following: Ac
cording to the English translator, who is answerable for the statement in
brackets in the first place, Gen. Tuxen asked Swedenborg the question at
tributed there to him in the presence of "his own wife, his now deceased
daughter, and three or four young ladies, his relations." Now, no gentle
man would ask such a question of another gentleman in the presence of his
wife, and four or five young girls ; wherefore on the grounds of morality
and gentlemanly conduct we declare it to have been utterly impossible for
Gen. Tuxen to have asked this question of Swedenborg then and there;
even as we have already proved in Note 27, that Swedenborg’s alleged
answer contains a flat contradiction.
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