Page:Swedenborg, Harbinger of the New Age of the Christian Church.djvu/50

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG

blood in the fishes flowing swiftly, like small rivulets; for it flowed in that way, and as rapidly. At a watchmaker's I saw a curiosity which I cannot forbear mentioning. It was a clock which was still, without any motion. On the top of it was a candle, and when this was lighted, the clock began to go and to keep its true time; but as soon as the candle was blown out, the motion ceased, and so on. . . . He told me that nobody had as yet found out how it could be set in motion by the candle. Please remember me kindly to sister Anna, my dear sister Hedvig, and also to brother Ericus Benzel, the little one, about whose state of health I always desire to hear."

The next letter that has come down to us was dated Paris, August, 1713. Meanwhile Swedenborg had left London and made a considerable stay in Holland. "I left Holland," he says, "intending to make greater progress in mathematics, and also to finish all I had designed in that science. Since my arrival here I have been hindered in my work by an illness which lasted six weeks, and which interfered with my studies and other useful employments; but I have at last recovered, and am beginning to make the acquaintance of

38