In der anderen Welt des Swedenborg werden sich auch die armen Grönländer behaglich fühlen, die einst, als die dänischen Missionäre sie bekehren wollten, an diese die Frage richteten, ob es im christlichen Himmel auch Seehunde gäbe. Auf die verneinende Antwort erwiderten sie betrübt, der christliche Himmel passe alsdann nicht für Grönländer, die nicht ohne Seehunde existieren könnten.

In the other world of Swedenborg, even the poor Greenlanders will feel at home. When the Danish missionaries came to convert them, the question came down to this: Are there seals in the Christian heaven? Upon the answer in the negative they responded in distress: In this case, the Christian heaven is not suitable for Greenlanders, who cannot exist without seals.

Heinrich Heine's lovely, brief parable of the Greenlanders serves, in its context, to demonstrate Swedenborg's conception of the afterlife, and also to suggest that the loss of one's personality represents "eternal destruction". The text appears in the afterward to Heine's Romanzero.

Beyond these points, however, we have something more, something quite light on its feet. Our Greenlanders have rejected heaven for earth. If what we have is sufficient, disharmonious but nevertheless resembling, at least from afar, an unmistakable equilibrium, why should we desire an "other" world? Who would we be in that world? We cannot exist without our Seehunde.

I have had the opportunity to spend some time with seals. I find them devastatingly charming. I am unable to determine if this is owing to a quality inherent in seals, or a quality inherent in myself via Heine.