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718 [Doc. 290.
ANECDOTES AND MISCELLANIES.
explained, of living at the same time in nature and above
nature. The subject of this anecdote is a distinguished
scholar from Finland, who during the whole of his life believed
too little rather than too much. * This scholar, a short time
after receiving his degree of master of arts, set out on a
journey abroad, and came to London, while Swedenborg was
residing there , as was generally the case during the latter
years of his life. Although he was far from being a Sweden
borgian, and looked upon the far-famed spirit-seer rather in
the light of an arch-fanatic, he still thought he ought to call
upon the wonderful old man ; and he was prompted to do so
not only by curiosity, but also by a feeling of grateful esteem
for a man who in every thing else was a shining light of
northern erudition , and a pattern of moral excellence. On
arriving at the house where Swedenborg lived, he was ushered
into a saloon by a friendly old man-servant, who went into
an inner room to announce the stranger, but who very soon
appeared again with a message that his master was engaged
at present with another visitor, whose visit, however, he
thought would not last very long; he, therefore, asked the
gentleman to take a chair and wait a little while; where
upon he left him alone in the saloon. As the chair he occupied
happened to be near the door into the inner room, he could
not avoid hearing a lively conversation which was going on
there between some parties walking up and down the room,
in consequence whereof he heard alternately the mere sound
of the conversation at a distance, and again as they approached
towards him he heard distinctly every word. He noticed that
the conversation was in Latin, and concerned some Roman
antiquities ; and as he himself was an excellent Latin scholar,
and very well acquainted with the antiquities which were
discussed, after he had made this discovery, he could not help
listening attentively to the conversation. He was somewhat
strangely affected, when during the whole of the time, he heard
only one voice talking, sometimes after a longer , and then
again after a shorter pause, during which the speaker seemed
•
* The "Biografiskt Lexicon," Vol. XVI, p. 338, declares that this Finish
scholar was [H. G.] Porthan (see Note 266).
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