SCIENTIFIC PURSUITS AT HOME
will be perhaps of use to him. I wish very much that little brother Ericus was grown up. I believe that next spring, if everything remain as it is, I shall begin the building of a lock myself and shall have my own command; in which case I hope to be of service to one or the other. I receive only three dalers a day at present at the canal works, but I hope soon to receive more.
"Polhem's eldest daughter is betrothed to a chamberlain of the King, of the name of Manderström. I wonder what people will say about this, inasmuch as she was engaged [by her father] to me. His second daughter is in my opinion much prettier.
"How is Professor Valerius? I should be very glad to hear of his health and good condition. Remember me to sister Anna."
Polhem's second daughter, Emerentia, was young at this time, not quite sixteen, and did not, it would appear, reciprocate Swedenborg's tender feeling. Her father, it is said, gave him a written claim upon her in the future, in the hope that she would become more yielding, and this contract she was obliged to sign. But she fretted about it so much every day that her brother was
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