Anecdotes and Traits of Character.
Swedenborg arrived in London, from Amsterdam, in August, 1771, and took up his abode in lodgings he had before occupied in the house of Shearsmith, a peruke maker, at 26 Great Bath street, Cold Bath fields. From Shearsmith we learn several interesting items of intelligence regarding Swedenborg’s habits and mode of life.
The dress that he generally wore when he went out to visit, was a suit of black velvet, (made after an old fashion,) a pair of long ruffles, a curiously hilted sword, and a gold-headed cane. In his later years he became less and less attentive to the concerns of the world. When walking abroad, he seemed to be engaged in spiritual communion, and took little notice of things and people in the streets. When he went out in Stockholm, without the observation of his domestics, some singularity in his dress would often betray his abstraction. Once when he dined with Robsahm’s father, he appeared with one shoe-buckle of plain silver, and the other set with precious stones,—greatly to the amusement of some ladies of the party. When he lodged with Bergstrom, he usually walked out after breakfast, dressed neatly in velvet, and made a good appearance. In Sweden his dress was simple, but neat and convenient: during winter, he was clad in a garment of reindeer skins; and, in summer, in a study gown: “both well worn, as became a philosopher,” according to Robsahm. Mr. Servanté was one of the earliest and most affectionate receivers of New Church doctrine. Before he received the truths of the New Church, he was once passing along St. John’s street, London, when he met an old gentleman, of a dignified and most venerable appearance, whose deeply thoughtful, yet mildly expressive countenance, added to something very unusual in his general air, attracted his attention very forcibly. He turned round, therefore, to take another view of the stranger, who also turned around and looked at him. This was Swedenborg; but it was not until some years afterward, on seeing his portrait, that he became aware that the dignified and venerable old gentleman was the author of those works he now so sincerely loved, and so earnestly studied.
In person, Swedenborg was about 5 feet 9 inches high, rather thin, and of a brown complexion. His eyes were of a brownish grey, nearly hazel, and rather small. He had always a cheerful smile upon his countenance. When Collin visited him, he was thin and pale, but still retained traces of beauty, and had something very pleasing in his physiognomy, and a dignity in his erect stature. Ab Indagine tells us his eyes were always smiling; and Robsahm, that his “countenance was always illuminated by the light of his uncommon genius.” His manners were those of a nobleman and gentleman of the last century. He was somewhat reserved, but complaisant; accessible to all, and had something very loving and taking in his demeanor. Personally, he left good impressions behind him wherever he appeared.
He did not understand the English language sufficiently well to hold a running conversation in it; and moreover he had an impediment in his speech. He was well acquainted, however, with the principal modern languages, and, of course, was thoroughly familiar with Greek and Latin, and had a sufficient knowledge of Hebrew. All authorities agree that his speech, though not facile, was impressive. He spoke with deliberation, and when his voice was heard, it was a signal for silence in others, while the slowness of his delivery increased the curiosity of the listeners. He entered into no disputes on matters of religion, but when obliged to defend himself, he did it mildly and briefly; and if any one insisted upon argument, and became warm against him, he retired, with a recommendation to them to read his writings. One day, when Mr. Cookworthy, a member of the Society of Friends, was with Swedenborg in his lodging, a person present objected to something he said, and argued the point in his own way; but Swedenborg only replied, “I receive information from the angels on such things.” One day, when dining with some Swedish clergy in London, a polemic tried to controvert the doctrine concerning the Lord, and the nature of our duty to Him; when, according to Mr. Burkhardt, “Swedenborg overthrew the tenets of his opponent, who appeared but a child to him in knowledge.”
Swedenborg was practically a vegetarian. Shearsmith said he sometimes ate a few eels, and his servant informs us that he once had some pigeon pie; but his usual diet was bread and butter, milk and coffee, almonds and raisins, vegetables, biscuits, cakes, and gingerbread. The gingerbread he used to take out with him into the area of Cold Bath square, (now covered with houses,) and distribute it among the children as they played around him. He was a water-drinker, but occasionally, when in company, drank one or two glasses of wine, but never more. He took no supper. Of coffee he was a great drinker, which he took very sweet, and without milk. At his house in Stockholm, he had a fire during winter almost constantly in his study, at which he made his own coffee and drank it often, both during the day and in the night.
From the commencement of his illumination, Swedenborg was very particular as to his diet; and his Diary contains many references to his food, and to the spiritual association which various kinds of nutriment induced. In one place we read under the heading of “the Stink of Intemperance,” “One evening I took a great meal of milk and bread, more than the spirits considered good for me. On this occasion they dwelt upon intemperance, and accused me of it.” Indeed, on the first opening of his spiritual sight, in London, in 1743, when being very hungry from much exercise, he ate with great appetite, the spiritual stranger who appeared, saluted him with the words, “Eat not so much.” In his treatise on Heaven and Hell, n. 299, he writes: “It has also been granted me to know the origin of the anxiety, grief of mind, and interior sadness, called melancholy, with which man is afflicted. There are certain spirits who are not yet in conjunction with hell, being yet in their first state, who love undigested and malignant substances, such as food when it lies corrupting in the stomach. They consequently are present where such substances are to be found in man, because these are delightful to them; and they there converse with one another from their own evil affection. The affection contained in their discourse thence enters the man by influx; and if it is opposed to the man’s affection, he experiences melancholy, sadness, and anxiety; whereas if it agrees with his affection, he becomes gay and cheerful. Hence was made manifest to me the origin of the persuasion entertained by some who do not know what conscience is, by reason that they have none, when they attribute its pangs to a disordered state of the stomach.” Of the killing and eating the flesh of animals, he writes thus in the Arcana Cœlestia, n. 1002. “Eating the flesh of animals, considered in itself, is something profane; for the people of the most ancient time on no account ate the flesh of any beast or fowl, but only grain, especially bread made of wheat, also the fruits of trees, pulse, milk, and what is produced from milk, as butter. To kill animals and to eat their flesh, was to them unlawful, and seemed as something bestial; and they were content with the uses and services which they rendered, as appears also from Genesis i. 29, 30. But in succeeding times, when man began to grow fierce as a beast, yea fiercer, then first they began to kill animals, and to eat their flesh. And because man was such, this was permitted, and at this day also is permitted; and so far as man does it from conscience, so far is it lawful, for his conscience is formed of all those things which he thinks to be true, and so thinks to be lawful: wherefore also, at this day, no one is by any means condemned for this, that he eats flesh.”
Swedenborg took snuff, as was the custom in his day. Some of his manuscripts yet bear traces of the dingy powder.
Shearsmith gives the same account of Swedenborg’s habits of sleep, as his gardener at Stockholm. He had no regard for times and seasons, days or nights, only taking rest as he felt disposed. This was naturally to be expected, considering the peculiarities of his seership. At first, Shearsmith was greatly alarmed, by reason of his talking day and night. Sometimes he would be writing, and then he would be, as it were, holding a conversation with several persons. But as Swedenborg spoke in a language Shearsmith did not understand, he could make nothing of it. Shearsmith was nevertheless well pleased with his lodger. His servant told Mr. Peckitt, after Swedenborg’s death, that “he was a good-natured man, and that he was a blessing to the house, for they had harmony and good business whilst he was with them.” A short time before his death, he lay for some weeks in a trance, without any sustenance.
Swedenborg’s pension preserved him from all pecuniary cares. Yet in his Diary we read: “I have now been for thirty-three months in a state in which my mind is withdrawn from bodily affairs, and hence can be present in the societies of the spiritual and celestial. Yet whenever I am intent upon worldly matters, or have cares and desires about money, (such as caused me to write a letter to-day,) I lapse into a bodily state; and the spirits, as they inform me, cannot speak with me, but say they are in a manner absent. This shows me that spirits cannot speak with a man who dwells upon worldly and bodily cares; for the things of his body draw down his ideas, and drown them in the body.—March 4, 1748.” This experience is worthy of record. Most of us, in our own way, know the truth of it, from heart experience. Whatever his motives were, he would receive back no proceeds from the sale of his theological works, but dedicated the whole to religious subscriptions. To beggars he seldom gave anything. In his writings, he in several places protests against the sham charity which satisfies itself by mere alms-giving. He tells us that habitual beggars lead vicious and impious lives, and that to give them money is rather to curse than to bless them. Swedenborg did not lend money; for that, he said, is the way to lose it; besides, as he remarks, he required it nearly all to pay the expenses of his traveling and printing.
In his later years, Swedenborg had no library but his Bible, in various editions, and his own manuscripts. What need had he of the books of men, when he knew the heavens,—and the glorified authors of earth, in states of wisdom they never dreamed of here?
Swedenborg seldom went to church; for, as he said, he “had no peace in the church, on account of spirits, who contradicted what the preacher said, especially when he spoke of Three Persons in the Godhead, which amounted in reality to three Gods.”
Swedenborg’s long and arduous labors on earth were now ended. Let us approach his death-bed with reverence, and observe how a good man can die.