Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Sidor ...
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
728 [Doc. 292.
ANECDOTES AND MISCELLANIES.
for it is something so uncommon. But enough of this, Alfred.
There are strange thoughts among them, and presentiments
which are quite surprising : but ’this is in our family.""
Alfred smiled, and said: "It is in the whole human family."
"Yes, certainly, there is a great deal in man of which we
know nothing ; there are faculties in him that none of us
suspect. So, for instance, the savage in Africa sees the water
flowing deep under the surface of the earth; he says, ’Here
is water;’ and on digging far down it is found. This is neither
sight, nor smell, nor hearing ; and yet it is some kind of sense,
however it may be called ; and it is a sense of which we know
nothing in Europe, and in the absence of which a civilized
and enlightened human being starves to death, a few feet from
the spring that might save him."
"But, father, did you never in your youth see Swedenborg
and talk with him ? " said Alfred.
"No, my son ; only once during the lifetime of this re
markable man was my father in Stockholm ; but Swedenborg
was at that time in England, where he frequently resided, and
we did not meet him. We visited the house which he owned
in the Södermalm. I was then a mere boy, but I recollect
it as well as if it had happened only to-day. My fancy was
very much excited, and I expected to find the place where this
wonderful man resided something between a church and a
burying vault.
"My father, although he was an orthodox priest, had
nevertheless also a tendency to mysticism. But he laboured as
much as possible against this bias of his nature, and in his
anxiety to overcome it he went farther than he otherwise
would have done. In consequence of this, he always described
Swedenborg to me as a sort of visionary, and his doctrine as
thoroughly un-Christian and without any foundation. Yet, in
spite of all this, I noticed that these prejudices were merely
a thin veil, under which there lay concealed a feeling of deep
veneration for this uncommonly gifted man. Children, generally,
have this faculty of seeing through the shell to the kernel.
And it is this which often renders them familiar and unrestrained
in the company of a stern old man, and in tumbling up his
gray locks ; when, on the other hand, they will hide away in
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
