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Doc. 276.] ATTEMPTS AT EXPLANATION. 673
[was left to the spirit]. He begged her therefore to have a little
more patience. The Queen’s patience, however, was not crowned
with success. Swedenborg died without getting the gentleman
to talk with him, and the Queen herself died without having
faith, even as large as a mustard seed, in Swedenborg’s visions.
"Whoever is but slightly acquainted with the qualities of
this princess, as to her mind and heart, will believe all this
without any further confirmation. She was too enlightened
to believe anything in the realm of the supernatural on the
mere assertion of a man, without its striking her own senses ;
and at the same time she was too little skilled in dissimulation to
speak of an affair in the way she did, if she had been interiorly
convinced of the contrary.
"I am obliged to add that the Queen expressed some
esteem for Swedenborg’s remaining qualities. She called him
a fool and a visionary, it is true ; but she added that up to
the present time he had not failed in talents or in honesty ;
and that among other things he was honest enough to refuse
to become a tool in the hands of some persons, who desired
to make use of him and his visions at the time of party-strife.
"My conversation with the Queen took place in the year 1779."
After striving in vain to reconcile the conflicting nature
of the above two accounts, the editors of the "Berlinische
Monatsschrift" comment on the narrative of this affair, as given
by Pernety in the preface to his French translation of Sweden
borg’s "Heaven and Hell," (see Document 6, nos. 25 and 26),
and then pass to a discussion of the story of "the Lost Receipt,"
which they likewise, on the authority of " a distinguished and
reliable gentleman," explain in a natural manner.
III.
THE STORY OF THE LOST RECEIPT AS EXPLAINED BY THE “BERLINISCHE
MONATSSCHRIFT."
"The widow of the Count von Martefeld [sic!] was called
upon to pay a considerable sum which she well knew had been
paid by her late husband ; but she was unable to find the
missing receipt. In her difficulty she applied to Swedenborg,
43
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