From Meïr Goldschmidt’s Autobiography

From Meïr Goldschmidt’s Autobiography

P. L. MØLLER, M. GOLDSCHMIDT, THE CORSAIR, AND RELATED PUBLICATIONS, 1841-1848

FROM THE CORSAIR, GÆA, AND FÆDRELANDET, 1841-1845

The Corsair, no. 49, October 8, 1841, col. [9-10]:

Charivari . . .

Today, Friday, October 8, is The Corsair’s birthday. All those who present themselves outside its office and shout “Hurrah!” will be royally regaled. . . .

On the occasion of this festive day the editorial staff is holding a celebration with the following

Program

Friday at 11:02 A.M. . . .

At 3:00 P.M., in the University auditorium, there will be a great public defense of a dissertation. In order that it may be as brief as possible, the subject will be “Irony in Kierkegaard.”1 One respondent, two regular opponents, and one outside opponent have been appointed. The prize for the dissertation is a bottle of champagne, and as proof that the author here, as in all disputations, is to have the prize whether he wins in the public defense or not, he has drunk it in advance. . . .

The day’s festivities will conclude with a great banquet at which, together with many more things, toasts will be given to all those who in the past year have shown their good will toward The Corsair by giving it material for its consideration. . . .2

The Corsair, no. 51, October 22, 1841, col. 7-8:

Literature

The Concept of Irony with Constant Reference to Socrates3

by S. Kierkegaard

Philipsen Publishing House

That we were present at Mr. Kierkegaard’s public oral defense of his dissertation on irony (both a public defense on irony and, like all other University public defenses, irony on the University) and what delight we had in being there, we have already tried to indicate briefly in a previous number [no. 49, October 8, 1841]. Now, having read through the dissertation, we will try to relieve our hearts of the almost overwhelming gratitude that has seized us by a salute of thanks to Mr. Kierkegaard, in which we—all the more to honor him—retain his own phrases and idioms, thus contributing to his own fame and glory as well as to our own. —Consequently:

Thank you, beloved Kierkegaard, for your irony! You have not made your appearance ad modum Peder Erik Madsen, wearing white gloves (p. 264)4—no, you have exceeded our boldest expectations! For while the crowd’s investigations begin and end in a stagnating village pond (p. 12),5 while the pre-Kierkegaardian scholarly professional mourners (p. 175),6 massed like blindman’s buffs, groped for the idea (p. 47)7 and the lachrymose humanitarians filled the centuries with their blubbering and sighing (175),8 while they, following the blending of everything together9 by Xenophon (189), whose expositions are quite in the same taste as the profundities of our Folkeblad or a nature-worshiping seminarian’s heavenly parish caterwauling (p. 15),10 portrayed Socrates as a kindly, garrulous, quaint patron saint who is so fervently well-intentioned toward the whole world if it will only listen to his slipshod nonsense—a good-natured bourgeois who moves around down below in empiricism’s bad infinity (p. 19),11 an officious bagman for mediocrity (p. 132)12—then you, O Kierkegaard, just like Plato, have used an enormous lever and tilted Socrates up into the air in a really lively toss-in-the-blanket so that we may see how funny he looks in such a hurly-burly (p. 58);13 you have let us see the divine underside in the midst of the braying of the pack-asses (p. 13)14 so that our sensitive contemplation need no longer wander about in difficulties (p. 17).15 And you have not let us remain fasting witnesses to how you, storklike, drank deeply from the long-necked bottle (p. 147),16 but you have shown us how Protagoras and Socrates weigh salt with each other (p. 57).17

For all this, O Kierkegaard, with the first name of Søren, accept our thanks.

P.S.18 In appending the acknowledgment that Mr. Kierkegaard’s treatise, despite its amazing language, will be of interest to those who have the patience to read it through, we presumably by our admission—when it is placed, please note, together with the above—give Mr. K. all the justice due him.

The Corsair, no. 129, March 10, 1843, col. 1-3:

“Either/Or”19

by Victor Eremita

The first thing we heard about this book, and keep on hearing every day, was that it was so thick. The press, from Dagen to Aftenbladet, from Berlingske to Intelligensbladene, raised a cry of surprise—did say, to be sure, a few words about it, but began and ended with: How thick it is! A few of them did also review it, as if it were the thinnest book in the world—that is, as if they had been able to read it through in one day (it is 864 pages in two volumes). Almost immediately after its publication, they pronounced panegyrics upon it, they praised it as a marvel; from the contents, Dagen had already inferred the author’s name, which it seems to want to suggest by saying that the book is a work by one of our truly philosophical geniuses etc.

We became curious to find out what had aroused in the offices of Dagen and in the offices of its colleagues a hullabaloo such as occurs when a huge head is thrust through the shutter opening of a cowshed and obscures the horizon of the occupants. We took the book and read it, and right away at the beginning a light dawned on us.

This author is a mighty intellect, he is an aristocrat of the mind; he mocks the whole human race and shows its wretchedness, but he is justified in doing this, for he is a rare and exceptional mind. The others saw him standing there, pointing at the crowd they were in and saying, “What wretched men!” and promptly, with the help of their ready access to the press, ran up to him, leaned intimately on his shoulder, and said, “Damned right, it’s a wretched bunch.” Now they stood alongside him and did not belong to the crowd!

Now there really is nothing as heroic as scoffing at the crowd. Those proud people (one of these heroes is Prof. Heiberg,20 who so gallantly took to the field against the whole “public”) do indeed speak contemptuously of the anonymous writers and say that they are cowardly in their attacks, but we are unable to see especially great courage in those who vociferously attack a mass from which each one feels himself excepted, and consequently no one defends himself Don Quixote showed more courage when in coat of mail he attacked the flock of sheep, for, after all, he believed that it was the enemy; but these people feel safe and secure in their attack and let themselves be admired for their courage in engaging single-handedly, like a Samson, a host of Philistines. As we said, no one of the crowd believes himself to be a Philistine. Prof. Heiberg certainly had some such feeling, for he eventually declared that he was going to mention by name every individual in the public who was guilty of transgressing his law, but the minute he sensed that this time he had struck at flesh and blood and not a mirage, he promptly stopped. (We do not doubt that Prof. Heiberg has courage in other respects, but we are unable to conclude it from this.)

However, the human race, which Mr. Victor Eremita takes to task, is a far more inclusive circle, and therefore it is something quite different. For one thing, the “human race” is a far more definite concept than “the public” in that everyone understands it, whereas no one knows who really constitutes “the public”; for another, everyone can determine for oneself whether what is said of the human race is true, whereas one has to feel oneself absolutely a part of “the public” under discussion in order to know the same.

This author, therefore, is a rare and exceptional mind, but what is most rare and exceptional is that he also has a rare and exceptional body as far as authorship goes; at his own expense he has published his voluminous work.21 Some have taken this circumstance as an occasion to bemoan the pecuniary condition of our literature and have called on the public to compensate the author by buying the book. From the conclusions we have drawn about the author, we feel it would be doing him a greater service to request the opposite of the public. He is, as we have twice said, an extremely rare phenomenon, and we believe that he attaches such great value to this exceptionality that it is his vanity. To write an outstanding book and get it marketed is so common that almost anyone could do it; but to write such a book and have to pay for it oneself, to have good reason to bemoan an injustice such as this, to have something on which one in fairness can vent one’s spleen—this is a most exceptional pleasure—for the person who has the means to procure it.

Incidentally, what we find to be more amusing or more entertaining is the review this book will have. A review of this big 864-page book can scarcely be less than 872 pages, and what delights us most of all is that the reviewer will also have to bear the cost of it.

The Corsair, no. 242, May 9, 1845, col. 11:

Since Berlingske has found it appropriate to disclose the name of the unknown author of Either/Or and Life’s Stages,22 we must also be allowed to name the author of Kjærlighed i Valby, of Nytaarsgave, tilegnet Danmarks smukke Kjøn, as well as of Et Eventyr: Fastelavn. It is, namely, Mr. Wholesaler Nathanson.23 The same gentleman is also the author of the next piece that will be booed at the Royal Theater.

The Corsair, no. 251, July 4, 1845, col. 3:

. . . The thought-experiment,24 whether it would not be more enjoyable, for example, to eat dry bread and drink water with Hilarius Bookbinder25 than to drink champagne with Mr. Böotius)26. . . .

The Corsair, no. 269, November 14, 1845, col. 14:

. . . Lehman27 will die and be forgotten, but Victor Eremita28 will never die . . . .

Gæa, ed. P. L. Møller (Copenhagen: 1846), pp. 144-87:

A Visit in Sorø

Miscellany

by

P. L. Møller29

Sorø30 is the only place in Denmark where there are famous men.

Since to some this may seem to be a strange and paradoxical thought, I shall do the easiest thing in the world—prove that this not only is true but by the very nature of the case cannot be otherwise.

The first condition for being a famous man is that there be people capable of appreciating him beyond the locality where he is living. For just as in the days when there were prophets, a prophet was not honored in his native land, so in our day a great man can never be appreciated in the locality where he lives, where everyone knows what he looks like, how he dresses,31 what he eats and drinks, how many children he has, what foolish blunders he may have made because of his genius, etc.

Now it is a fact that as far as famous men are concerned, Denmark is not Denmark but Denmark is Copenhagen, for only there can fame become real fame or find a chorus of thousands of tongues. Consequently, to become famous in Denmark one must live outside of Copenhagen, which is Denmark. Not until fame is certified and registered here does it receive permission to emigrate to the country; therefore, men of distinction who find themselves in Copenhagen do not really reap the advantages of Danish fame unless they move away from this fame’s Denmark, that is, Copenhagen. But at present Sorø is the only place in Denmark outside of fame’s Denmark, or Copenhagen, where several men who qualify as famous have settled down to live. Thus it is inevitable that Sorø is not the only place in Denmark (geographically speaking) where there are famous men but the only place where there are men who are famous in Denmark. . . .

My first visit was to Hauch.32 His latest novel,33 which I had just read, had heightened my interest in him personally. He lives in a low, modest house, and I entered not without some of the nervousness one experiences when about to stand face to face with a famous man. This feeling disappeared with the immediate discovery that Hauch is the author not only of some of our literature’s most noble flowers but also of a flowering flock of children. A flock of children such as that is like a bridge or ladder that promotes communication between the profane world and the ideal heights of the poet. There is a very impressive harmony between Hauch’s conduct in life and his poetic personality. I for my part prefer a brilliant man who does not feel compelled to be aloof or trivial when he does not happen to be sitting on his Pegasus. In the evening, I was in a little group in which very intelligent things were said on various subjects, some of which I shall try to repeat. After some jovial remarks about the weather and its influence on the year’s productivity, the talk turned to books. . . .

“All this is no doubt quite correct,” remarked our host. . . . “But to go on to something completely the opposite, have any of you gentlemen read the latest volume by the philosopher with the many names—‘Hilarius Bookbinder,’34 I think he calls himself this time, or Peregrin us Proteus, as I call him? He cannot possibly expect anyone with anything else to do to be able to remember all the barbaric names35 he puts to his many books.”

The reasonable man from the country and I answered in the affirmative.

“There is a fellow who beats all our Danish and most of the German philosophers, don’t you think so?”

“He certainly has not had a warmer admirer than I,”36 I stated, “but at the same time I am all the more annoyed at the barren and pernicious use he sometimes makes of his remarkable gifts, which reaches a peak particularly in his last chapter of Stages on Life’s Way.37 Already in Either/Or, interest was aroused by this double personality who with the passion of genius penetrated the mysteries of metaphysics and esthetics and simultaneously relinquished these glories to seek rest in an ethical, not entirely unbourgeois, life. This determines the different literary merits of the first and second part. In the first, we see the master who has a grasp of his material and therefore almost always finds a proper, often a felicitous, form, only now and then disturbed by the skeptical dissonance of the demons he has tried to curb in his later writing. But in the second part, one sees the neophyte, the searching and developing personality whose discourse constantly ‘gads about in all directions’ because he is not communicating mastered and organized material but only develops his ethical ego—by writing. As an esthetic practitioner and experimenter, he can be said to have perfected his development; as a moral personality, he is still a possibility. Therefore, despite its interest in the application of dialectics to social life, despite all the occasional flashes of beauty and spirit, the second part is less a literary work than a collection of material.”

“Yes, that’s just it,” said another. “What I have against all these books (which in form and content adequately betray a common source) is that every time one feels able to surrender to pure literary enjoyment the author gets in the way with his own personal ethical and religious development, which no one actually is asking about, which privately may be very respectable but does not have the mark of detachment of the Langelinie38 of objective literature; he commits the same error for which the poet Andersen39 has been taken to task, for exposing his whole inner development to the public eye. Such writing can be interesting only when the discourse rises to genuine lyrical or evocative pathos, and for that reason, of all these books, I rate Fear and Trembling highest as a literary work. Here a certain unity of elemental tone and expression is maintained throughout, and although a sick nature, both physically and morally, expresses itself in this convulsive battle to gain faith ‘by virtue of the absurd,’40 the form still permits the grief and passion to be regarded as a lyrical mood. In my opinion, this book occupies a high place in modern literature as a lyrical poem and rates with Byron, Pushkin, and die ungöttliche Comedie.*41 What I most admire among the various aspects of this author is his brilliant wit and the genuine humor whereby he uses everyday trivialities as the basis for the most exalted thoughts. To this sphere belongs the polemic against Heiberg in Prefaces,42 which is not only some of the wittiest but unconditionally the most elegant of what has been written against Heiberg; yes, indeed, except for Lehmann’s (?) article on the Houguemont farm and a Corsair piece about Lehmann,43 I do not remember any polemical writing in Danish as excellent. Mr. S. Kierkegaard should have taken this author for his model when he recently polemicized in Fædrelandet44 against a reviewer in Berlingske.”

Taking the lead again, I said, “I think the easiest way to summarize the various directions in this author is to distinguish between his negative and positive sides. In the latter, I consider his individual religious drive, his passionate urge to reconcile philosophy and actuality (which he in fact has worked through experimentally in its most substantive ramifications) with faith. This aspect is rhapsodically manifest in many passages in his writing, and with an amazing abundance of thought and feeling, often a poetic fervor, and a richness and eloquence of language one rarely finds equaled. His discourse is sometimes reminiscent of Rousseau and Chateaubriand, although in substance it gives much more, in form much less. Should he ever succeed in clarifying from this rhapsodic ferment an organic vitality, he will become a writer of top quality, a real literary genius, but I hardly believe that this will happen. As far as his negative side is concerned, the dialectical-critical-analytical aspect, there he is completely finished (in both meanings of the word), and any further movement on his part will inevitably lead either to mannered self-repetition or to desperation. His performance in this area is extraordinary and manifests authentic genius. With the exception of Sibbern,45 no Danish philosopher has so comprehensively and exhaustively devoted himself to such a great variety of subjects, and in his analysis of esthetic problems he often emerges as a creative poet. His greatest service to scholarship, a new and invaluable dividend, I consider to be the lines he has drawn in ‘The Seducer’s Diary’46 for a philosophy of womanliness, a subject that, rich and fascinating though it is, has scarcely been treated before. But when I picked up his latest big book, Stages on Life’s Way, I had an almost uncomfortable feeling. Such an exaggerated, indeed, such an unnatural productivity may be healthy for an author, but for literature and the reader—never. Writing and producing seem to have become a physical need for him, or he uses it as medicine, just as in certain illnesses one uses bloodletting, cupping, steam baths, emetics, and the like. Just as a healthy person rests by sleeping, he seems to rest by letting his pen run; instead of eating and drinking, he satiates himself by writing; instead of reproducing himself with a fetus a year as an ordinary human being, he seems to have a fish nature and spawns. As it happened, I began with the ‘Psychological Experiment— “Guilty?” / “Not-Guilty?” ’47—which fills the last 242 closely printed pages. Here, as I feared, he had gone astray. Here are repetitions, self-disburdening, flashes of brilliant genius, and the preliminary stage of madness;48 the earlier fulfillment has finally become nothing more than facility, and method has become static technique that anyone can spot. He does not care about the reader, for he writes for his own comfort; he is not concerned about being known as a classic author, for he writes without form. He moves about in the language as an English clown, walking on his hands and turning somersaults in it, but he has no style, for he uses superfluous words and says everything that comes to his head. The content in this Danaidean vessel of reflection is the account in diary form of a love affair, an engagement and a broken engagement. Every section has the stilted beginning, ‘A year ago today.’ Here one meets a masculine individual who has lost everything that constitutes personality. Feeling, understanding, will, resolution, action, backbone, nerve, and muscle power—all are dissolved in dialectic, in a barren dialectic that swirls around an indefinite center, uncertain as to whether it proceeds as a result of centrifugal or centripetal force, until it eventually, slowly vanishes. He has become transparent to himself, like the licentiate (in Cervantes’s story)49 who believed he was made of glass and had himself packed in straw like a bottle lest he break into pieces. Indeed, the comparison can be carried even further, for the transparency in our author seems to be a result of poisoning. And, of course, the feminine nature placed on the experimental rack turns into dialectic in the book and vanishes, but in actual life she inevitably must go mad or into Peblinge Lake. The thought process may be briefly reconstructed something like this:

A year ago today. So now I am engaged. Lovely she is, to be sure, but a little miss like that can be a big nuisance; she cannot comprehend that I both want to be engaged and also want to break the engagement, that I want both to break the engagement and not break it, want both to marry and not marry. She does not comprehend that my engagement is dialectical—that is, it signifies both love and lack of love, that I intend to call it quits and also keep myself forever at the peak of desire. —A year ago today. The method is no good; it must be changed. She lacks the religious presuppositions; we are not compatible, and if she approaches the religious, she is also lost to me as well; she must be made free, for only then will she belong to me, and she can then become engaged and married to whomever she will, but she is married to me just the same, and so on ad infinitum.

“If ordinary common sense may be permitted to intervene here, it perhaps would say in elemental immediacy: If you regard life as a dissecting laboratory and yourself as a cadaver, then go ahead, lacerate yourself as much as you want to; as long as you do not harm anyone else, the police will not disturb your activity. But to spin another creature into your spider web, dissect it alive or torture the soul out of it drop by drop by means of experimentation—that is not allowed, except with insects, and is there not something horrible and revolting to the healthy human mind even in this idea? —And yet I have persevered in following this mental gantlet-run, this inquisition that does not let its victim go before every possible degree of mental torture has been experienced; at times I have even been fascinated by this agony of soul, because the dialectical executioner breathes now and then and there are oases in this desert, beautiful, flowering, refreshing oases, such as the reminiscences of the Latin school50 and the description of the bookkeeper51 in Christianshavn. These and many other separate passages are not only worthy of a true poet but also presuppose a true poet. But perhaps I am going too far.52 What do you think, Mr. N.? Have you read the book, too?”

“There must be some truth in what you say,” said the reasonable man from the country, “for I have felt and thought just about the same; it actually took a good deal of effort to finish reading the book, and it is easy to see that the person writing such books is not counting on many readers. No one can deny this author an extraordinary depth, keen discernment, and a comprehensive power of reflection. The dialectical talent that he has developed by studying Plato in particular seems to me so great that I know no one who can measure up to him; but—for I really have an important BUT to add to this. But I must first of all make the comment that the banquet in the beginning (‘In vino veritas’)53 and the dialectical contrast to it (for with this author everything is dialectical, even though it is not satisfactorily resolved into a higher unity), a married man’s journal,54 are written with unusual subtlety and delicateness and display an extraordinarily mature talent. But the abstract esthetics, which absolutely must not take its stand on ethics and thus hovers in the air like a cloud, is nothing, actually, but Epicureanism decked out with poetic flowers, just as its opposite, the ethical, married happiness, divorced from the poetic, borders on philistinism—these two contrasts, which the author most anxiously believes ought to be kept apart, I must certainly declare to be excesses on both sides. I do not believe it possible to be poetically effective in earnest without respecting the requirements of ethics, nor do I believe that one can have a genuine and true marriage if the esthetic is brushed off and the relation is purely ethical. —The real nucleus of the whole thing (the engagement and the account of breaking the engagement) seems to me to have been written solely in order that the author could have the opportunity to spin out in as thin and long a thread as possible the dialectical difficulties posed by a mind abandoned to reflection. I have heard this kind of dialectic used by very hypochondriacal men almost completely under the sway of a fixed idea. I must admit that I never believed it possible to annihilate one’s immediate nature as he demonstrates he has done (in this collection of letters, at least); nothing is fresh and direct, everything has to be reflected on. I wonder that he is even able to sleep, eat, etc., for actually he ought to weigh the reasons for and against so long that he would die of hunger or sleeplessness. To me his reflections are like daguerreotypes in which not only the most important and characteristic features are depicted, as in regular painting, but everything possible is caught so that the whole thing becomes a confused network and a trackless labyrinth. Despite all his intelligence, reflection for him has become a severe sickness; his religiousness, which renounces the whole world in order to be occupied with itself and which incessantly believes it is lying out ‘in the depths of 70,000 fathoms,’55 appears to me to be a pusillanimity at which our Lord and his angels must laugh. A religious person like that, who cannot make up his mind and does not dare to take a step without first weighing all the sins he could possibly fall into along the way and always stays on the same spot shivering and shaking, is a nonentity who can find a place neither in heaven nor in hell but only in the thin air of reflection, where no creature can live. He resembles Pastor Schmelzle in Jean Paul,56 who did not dare to move from the spot because he feared a spring-gun would go off and kill him at any moment. Can such extreme cowardice be truly religious? Meanwhile, I am glad to acknowledge him as an intellectually gifted author, but he appears to me to be a decrepit old man, or, more correctly, an unusually intelligent man with a sick imagination; to me he seems very blasé. If he had lived under conditions that forced him to concern himself with something other than his own whims, he no doubt would have developed his talents to a higher degree; but now he stands like an ironization of irony. At least this is how it seems to me.” . . .

Fædrelandet, no. 2079, December 29, 1845, col. 16665:

To Mr. Frater Taciturnus, Chief of Part Three of

Stages on Life’s Way

Although I thank you very much for the kindness shown by such a prompt review57 of an article by me in Gæa for 1846, I must nevertheless allow myself to add a brief, respectful observation. Inasmuch as the “conversation” in Gæa that you have reviewed contains a general consideration of certain literary works, I find no reason to discuss the particular points there to which you have directed your observations; the article must stand or fall as a self-contained whole. Of course, criticism cannot have anything to do with a writer’s wish not to be criticized, and it cannot make a one-time exception of Mr. Frater Taciturnus. You will hardly find any way of disarming the criticism other than—not to have your writings printed, whereby you will obtain what you seem to prize so highly, namely, to have only “one reader.”58

What I have to point out is a small factual inaccuracy that has crept into your account—presumably because of very hurried reading—where, in connection with this conversation, you say “that the scene takes place in the house of Prof. Hauch and he himself takes part in the conversation”59 etc. This, which you even repeat in various forms, is curiously enough a downright error, and there is not a single word about such a thing in Gæa, which anyone can ascertain by checking the appropriate passage.60 Not a single one of the persons in the conversation is mentioned by name, which would have been very difficult, since the conversation did not actually take place (which a calm reader will easily be able to agree with) but is only a fictional form for some critical observations, not all of which seem to have pleased you.

I confess that to have to give such an explanation is not the most pleasant thing for a writer; nevertheless, in this case it seems to me to be necessary, since possibly not everyone would realize that your whole article is irony, which I first realized when I came to the end and saw that you call yourself “Frater Taciturnus” and, at the same time, in more than five closely printed columns (excluding the notes), you have discussed yourself and

Your most respectful

P. L. Møller61

FROM THE CORSAIR, 1846-1848

Draft of article by P. L. Møller for The Corsair:62

Frater Taciturnus

or

The Story of the “Silent Brother” Who

Could Not Keep Quiet

I.

In the beginning, Frater Taciturnus created many books and upbuilding discourses. The books were mighty and thick, and darkness brooded over the contents of the books, because Frater Taciturnus’s spirit hovered over the waters.

Then the Brother found “infinite joy in the occupation of thought,” and he was silent and thought: “If there are thousands and again thousands of readers! And there was—one reader.”63 And our Brother saw that one reader was already a great thing, and he “was contented with this,” and he “was contented with less than one reader,” and he was very contented.

And he separated this one reader from all the others and called this one “his little world,” and “he was happy with these surroundings.” But all the others [preceding four words crossed out and changed to:] On one occasion he lumped them together and called them “P. L. Møller” or “The Corsair.” For he made experiments64 and conducted this experiment—Ubi spiritus, ibi ecclesia: ubi P. L. Møller, ibi “The Corsair” [Where the Spirit is, there is the Church: where P. L. Møller is, there is “The Corsair”].65 Thereupon he “was enchanted by the contradiction of the infinite”66 in the morning in Gammeltorv and “was enchanted by the contradiction of the infinite” in the evening in the office of Fædrelandet.

That was the first thought-experiment.

II.

Then the silent Frater said: I am a “chief”!67 Therefore, let me make five columns of balderdash in the Fædrelandet as a tedious experiment and as a deadly boring firmament between P. L. Møller and the waters that are my philosophy.

And the Frater did it in this wise: for he separated his water and mixed P. L. Møller and the stagecoach68 and Gæa and Hauch69 and The Corsair and his dinner together in the infinite and “thereby satisfied his desire for the infinite.”70

And the waters in his philosophy he called “the divine enjoyment of thinking,”71 and P. L. Møller he called The Corsair, and it was so.

And “he was well aware of what he wrote”72 in the morning, but in the evening he could not make anything out of it, and P. L. Møller was not The Corsair—it was indeed an experiment.

III.

Thereupon said Frater Hilarius73 (i.e., the Frater to laugh at): Gather all my experiments that I have made in Fædrelandet and elsewhere in one place outside The Corsair so that I may get into The Corsair soon in order that “the laughter may be on my side,”74 i.e., so that people can laugh at me!

Et voila, et fuit ita, and it happened jolly well just as he had said, for he came there and it was very much after his likeness, and people laughed at him.—

Then the Frater called The Corsair a loathsome paper, and he called it ecclesia, and, furthermore, he called it “P. L. Møller,” and on the other hand he called himself a “peaceful” and “respectable” male and an “honest obscurity.”75 And the Frater with a plaster on his mouth, the silent Frater, saw that the experiment had failed, for he had jolly well come bodily into the paper.

Then there came over him a peevishness, a very ill-tempered peevishness, and he thought: devil take it! And he went and had his mouth covered with pitch plaster and was silent and was a philosopher, and then he thought: My philosophy bears fruit that has seeds, material for laughter and cartoons, and my peevishness eases itself, after its kind. And he looked into the mirror and saw that it was very good. And his philosophy was married to peevishness in the morning, and in the evening his peevishness came into childbed in Fædrelandet76—that was the third experiment.

IV.

And it came to pass that the Brother went on one of his daily walks on Østergade etc. and there met the poet and grammarian I. Levin.77 He unlocked the lock on his mouth so that he could speak again, and he said: “Listen, Israel, my Israel, until now you were only my friend, but I wish hereby to appoint you as the sole reader of my upbuilding discourses and also as the privileged reader of them for The Corsair’s sweet and lovable housemaids; furthermore, you will receive coffee from my silver coffee pot, sugar from my earthen sugar bowl, and a cigar from Siesbyes, and, in addition, you will be permitted to walk arm-in-arm with me on Vimmelskaftet—if you find out for me whether I have slain The Corsair.” And Levin wagged his tail, put up one of his paws, and said: “That I shall do, master!” And Israel returned and wagged his tail and said: “Here I am, master. I have visited The Corsair, as you ordered me to do, and felt of the teeth; it is not quite dead yet, but it will not be long. Then the Brother said [preceding four words crossed out; Levin’s lines continue] Now do I get coffee from your silver coffee pot and a cigar from Siesbyes and sugar from your earthern sugar bowl?”

Then the Brother had a fit of philosophizing and said: “Levin, go to hell!”

That was the fourth experiment.

The Corsair, no. 276, January 2, 1846, col. 2-6:

How the Wandering Philosopher

Found the Wandering

Actual Editor of The Corsair78

It is a remarkable story, as horse dealer Nathanson79 is wont to say.

The secret, actual, veritable editor of The Corsair, he about whom there has been as much inquiry as for casino stock, he for whose sake the publisher of The Corsair was innocently put on bread and water80 and nevertheless still did not confess, he for whom Gudenrath, Leerbeck, Normann, Paulsen, and Falkenthal81 have searched as zealously as for the man who hit the policeman on the head with a cane and who, like Coronato, the great Venetian bandit, has been heard from every week, except when he has been placed under arrest—he has now been found. He was found by sheer accident, since the search for him had ceased (as is usually the case in such matters); he was found as one finds a handbag, a pocketbook, and the honest finder82 has produced him in Fædrelandet83 without claiming any reward for it.

The remarkable incident that brought everything to the light of day is as follows. There lives here in the city a great and famous recluse and philosopher called Frater Taciturnus,84 or the Silent Brother. That, however, is only his hermit name; he has another, under which he strolls the streets85 every day, but it would be indiscreet to mention it. Coronato the Terrible took him into his confidence. One evening the two strollers were coming back from a spree; the punch had been strong, the sky was blue, the moon sailed in quiet majesty upon it—it was one of those moments in life when hearts are opened. Coronato took the Silent Brother’s arm and said:

“Brother! I want to tell you something in confidence. My well-being, my life, depends on it, but you will see how much I trust you. I am Coronato, the veritable editor of The Corsair.” “I shall not, God punish me, tell anyone,” answered Frater Taciturnus, the Silent Brother. —Let us go in, then, and drink another glass of punch, said Coronato. —Yes, let us do that, answered the Silent Brother.

A few days before Christmas, Gæa, Æsthetisk Aarbog, came out, containing a review of Frater Taciturnus’s books by Mr. P. L. Møller.86 The article was shabby and could well be called a Corsair article, a scurvy, vile article. When Frater Taciturnus saw it, he said: The devil with secrecy any longer!

He went to Fædrelandet. Just as he came in the door, he shouted: Now I will identify the secret actual editor of The Corsair. —Excellent! said Fædrelandet; that is precisely our principle. In our no. 2052 issue,87 we ourselves explained that under certain circumstances it is not only justifiable but can also have a good effect to identify anonymous authors . . . . . who is he, anyway? —It is the editor of Gæa, P. L. Møller. —Great! But are you absolutely sure of it? —Am I sure of it? One evening when our souls opened up in sympathetic harmony, he threw himself on my breast and confided it to me, and I even swore God to punish me if I told it; but now that he has been so mean as to place me in Gæa, I am telling it. —You are right, Mr. Frater Taciturnus; silence is a virtue all right, but Alles mit Maszen [everything in moderation], as the Germans say. But may I give you a word of advice? —Two, if you wish! I am very infuriated at the moment. —Well, you see, if you identify him now, you will not ruin him completely, for there are still people who consider The Corsair a tolerably well-edited paper. —But it is a scurvy, an ungrateful paper that does not spare even me, Fædrelandet, and I cannot manage to stamp it out. —If you now declare that “The Corsair is a loathsome paper,” we shall kill two flies with one blow, for people will, of course, believe what is said by you (Fædrelandet bows respectfully), Denmark’s greatest mind, the author of Denmark’s thickest books.88

Oh, you are too good! answered Mr. Frater Taciturnus and looked down modestly. You see with the eyes of friendship! If my words have weight, it must be because they are expressed in Denmark’s best newspaper, edited by Denmark’s greatest giver of toasts.

Oh, don’t mention it!

When the mutual excitement had subsided, Fædrelandet brought pen and ink, and Frater Taciturnus sat down to write.

The pen writes so forcefully, he said when he stopped a moment for breath, but then I am terribly infuriated. Now I have declared P. L. Møller to be the editor of The Corsair,89 and I have done it so unequivocally that tomorrow the Chancellery will have to collar him.

FÆDRELANDET. That’s all very fine, great genius of a philosopher, but The Corsair itself! Do not forget The Corsair! For God’s sake, don’t pull any punches!

THE SILENT BROTHER (dipping the pen again). Just take it easy. Now I’m going to kill it. You may as well arrange the funeral . . . . . See, there it is! Now it is done! Now you will also see a little proof of my astuteness. To think that that damned paper could take it into its head to put me in it and make me immortal,90 immortal in The Corsair, my friend! I won’t have it. Do you know what I have said to prevent it?

FAEDRELANDET. No, you indescribably great mind!

THE SILENT BROTHER. You can say that, all right. You would never have thought of this. I have added: “Would that I might get into The Corsair now.”91 This is a thought-experiment:92 either I get into The Corsair now or I do not.93 If I do, well, I asked for it myself, and The Corsair consequently is doing me a service. If I do not—well, hurrah! Then I don’t get in, and that is just what I want.

FÆDRELANDET (with eyes full of tears). Great, great man!

THE SILENT BROTHER. Sensible, discriminating paper!

FÆDRELANDET (with a start). But it just occurred to me: you don’t need the thought-experiment! You have just now killed The Corsair.

THE SILENT BROTHER. That is surely true! In my haste I forgot that.

FÆDRELANDET. I am as happy over this affair as I would be if the whole world would eat horse meat on the thirteenth of January this year.94

THE SILENT BROTHER. And I am as happy as I would be if Heiberg95 had got one of my books stuck in his throat.

FÆDRELANDET. I believe I shall celebrate the occasion by taking a ride on a district judge.

THE SILENT BROTHER. I shall do something for the poor. I shall imagine the thought-experiment that I have given a rix-dollar to a poor woman with five small children. Imagine her joy! Imagine those innocent children seeing a rix-dollar!96

FÆDRELANDET. You are a noble man!

THE SILENT BROTHER. I am in good humor, and that makes me kind. I am happy, you are happy, we are happy.

BOTH. Hurrah!

Epilogue

THE CORSAIR. Congratulations, both of you!

Congratulations, both of you!

Off to your summer residence.

BOTH. We say many thanks.

The Corsair, no. 277, January 9, 1846, col. 1-4, 6, 7:

The New Planet

Heiberg,97 Olufsen,98 Søren Kierkegaard! You great philosophers and astronomers! Cock-a-doodle-doo! A new planet99 has appeared!

Den Frisindede100 is absolutely in seventh heaven; the provincial newspapers screech and look up like hens when the hawk is in the sky.

Just as Quartermaster General Saaby enters the royal box at the theater, so this planet without the scantiest reason steps among the other planets and draws all the lorgnettes upon itself.

Heiberg, Olufsen, Søren Kierkegaard! Let us four have a sensible little chat about this planet. Søren Kierkegaard, you speak first.

SØREN KIERKEGAARD. I am a philosopher and houseowner in Copenhagen. I pay taxes on my house on Nytorv101 and pay a fee for my license as an experimenter.102 I maintain that this planet is a tramp, an obtrusive fellow,103 a vagrant. I consider it the duty of the police to see to it that this person’s appearance does not bring any criticism or other misfortune upon us citizens of the city of Copenhagen. Uebrigens [in addition], I shall write nineteen upbuilding discourses104 about him—whereby the only one who will not be built up will be my publisher, bookseller Philipsen.

THE CORSAIR. Fine! Mr. Professor Heiberg, you speak next.

HEIBERG. I would like to bid a hearty welcome; it proves my astronomical prophetic power. Two years ago I predicted in my Urania105 that within a month two large, bright stars would appear. But only one appeared. Whatever happened to the other one has been beyond me until now. This year I predicted no stars at all, and one has made its appearance. A mathematical calculation—mathematics is of utmost importance. Astronomy now shows:

The honor of astronomy is saved; I congratulate myself.

THE CORSAIR. O Heiberg! The Naval Hospital is Denmark’s second Hven.106 Herr Olufsen, what do you say about the planet?

OLUFSEN. I maintain that it is a comet. Now the comets know that I am watching them, and so they deck themselves out as planets just to fool me. If I am not a clumsy clod, it is a comet!

KIERKEGAARD. Yes, but it has no tail, Mr. Professor!

OLUFSEN. It has no tail? Well, who says so? You have no tail either, and yet you are a comet.

KIERKEGAARD. What, am I a comet? Well, then——Oh, I almost——

OLUFSEN. Don’t get excited! You fly off the handle so fast! Now I’ll probably be in Fædrelandet tomorrow. But it is true just the same. What, then, is a comet?

KIERKEGAARD. It is an eccentric brilliant light that appears at irregular times to us mortals . . . . .

OLUFSEN. Well, aren’t you a comet then? Are you not a brilliant body, a light?

KIERKEGAARD. Yes, I am a light, that is correct.

OLUFSEN. So be it, and you cannot deny that you are eccentric, too. Who is your tailor?107

KIERKEGAARD. Fahrner.

OLUFSEN. The establishment no longer belongs to Fahrner; Ibsen has taken it over. Are you trying to make me believe that Ibsen has sewed your trousers according to his own ideas?108

KIERKEGAARD. No, according to my legs.

OLUFSEN. Well, it is easy enough to make puns. Nevertheless, little man, I too have trousers made by Ibsen, but each pant leg is always just as long as the other, if I do not expressly order it otherwise in order to look like a genius. Of course, you are a comet.

HEIBERG. Mr. Olufsen, you are getting personal . . . . .

OLUFSEN. Why should I put up with his rushing at me so spitefully? Shall I not give as good as I get? And it is fine for you to talk about making personal remarks when I speak of Mr. Kierkegaard’s trousers—you who attacked Professor Baden’s stockings109 in the Flyvende Post! Are trousers more sacred than stockings? Are they, now? Tell me.

THE CORSAIR. Gentlemen, you are forgetting the planet.

OLUFSEN. As far as I’m concerned the planet can go to the devil.

THE CORSAIR. That is an unastronomical wish, to say nothing of being unchristian.

OLUFSEN. What is your wise opinion? You are putting on such a wise face. Let us hear.

THE CORSAIR. Well, first of all, I have to know if the planet is there. The world is evil. You no doubt remember what happened to Nathanson110 with the beer bottle.

HEIBERG. If it is there! Doubt not, man! Damn it all, if it isn’t sitting up there! And it is really a fearful sight. When a princess makes her appearance or the king enters the theater, one writes a poem—then one is no longer daunted. But when a person gets up in the night and looks at his stars and then this strange foreign thing sits there and stares earnestly into his face without saying a word—then he gets a very odd feeling. Every time I see it I feel uneasy, just as when Carstensen111 challenged me: I am nervous.

SØREN KIERKEGAARD (stretches out in the chair and crosses his legs). What is there to worry about? A new star—one star more to which earthly fame reaches.

HEIBERG. Have you seen it?

SØREN KIERKEGAARD. No, but I can very well imagine what a star looks like.

HEIBERG. Yes, yes! In my Urania,112 with 14 drawings, Reitzel’s Publishing House, I myself said that it is by no means mystical superstition to assume that stars have an influence on the earth. Watch out! Something preternatural is going to happen. — — (in a deep, toneless voice) What if the horse in Kongens Nytorv113 got ornery and started to ride its rider! ——

OLUFSEN (anxiously). What do you think, Corsair? Out with it.

THE CORSAIR. Just like Count Schulin,114 I am of the same opinion as my head clerk; but I have no head clerk. My private opinion is perhaps this: that it is a comet that has been the best comet for so long that it most graciously has been promoted to a planet with the rank of Star no. 1 of the third class. But well-informed people have expressed some doubts. I talked recently with Orla Lehmann,115 and he thought that it very likely is only a planet on approval. “Let us wait and see if it takes the oath of office,” he said. Mr. Hultmann116 likewise confided to me that he believed that it was only on trial and that if it did not have the backing of Councilor Collin117 it once again could easily become a drifting comet without pay. Who knows, then, if some evening when there is a gala ball and illumination it will vanish—like the hope of economy in the government administration. Perhaps the whole planet is only a national dream, an illusion. In any case, I do not believe in signs; I let the planet be the planet, just like the Stemann118 administration.

Warning

Since the undersigned cannot keep his mouth shut,119 everyone and everybody is hereby warned not to confide any secret whatsoever to me. Those who already have secrets in my possession are warned to withdraw them within twenty-four hours, since I otherwise will spread them, and, as for the rest, I reserve my rights.

Respectfully,

“Frater Taciturnus”

Bombardier in the

Philosophical Artillery120

Inquiry

Saturday, December 27, a poor philosopher was so unfortunate as to be run over on the way from the fountain in Gammeltorv to the office of Fædrelandet and on this occasion to lose a bit of philosophical composure wrapped in some sheets of Gæa for 1846. The honest finder is offered a reasonable reward for delivering it to Frater Taciturnus; address Socrates’ successor.

The Corsair, no. 278, January 16, 1846, col. 2-8:

S. T.

Mr. Horse Dealer Michael Leonard Nathanson121

We beg a thousand pardons for not immediately recognizing you under the label Frater taciturnus. —We want to confess honestly that up until now we erroneously believed that behind this label either Søren Kierkegaard or Blok Tøxen or another of our book-learned thinkers was hiding. But now we see that we were wrong. —Well, well, so you have become a philosopher! Yes, that was certainly the best thing to do, since Neergaard declared that the thoroughbred stallion Cheer had spavin and Councilor Michelsen took the rest of the stallions away from you so that you were altogether stallionless in the world.122 It is in circumstances such as these that the man of character shows that he is a philosopher.

Perhaps you wonder how you came to be recognized, but remember that you yourself were injudicious. In your most recent article in Fædrelandet123 you say that The Corsair is a mean, acrimonious, loathsome, nauseating, slanderous, insipid, disgraceful, contemptible public prostitute. Earlier, in Corvetten,124 you wrote exactly the same, except for “public prostitute”—that first came to you with the help of philosophy. Yes, you can really say with Petronius:125 I will not dispense with the philosophy I know, at least, by Mary, not for two marks.

But there are in addition some other clues whereby we identify you:

(1) You declare that praise in The Corsair126 makes you angry and being attacked makes you happy. We once said of you that you were more interesting than Bøotius127 and more immortal128 than a master of ceremonies—well, good lord, that was not such high praise. But you said nothing and sat on it for a whole year, and then when we gave you a few raps you berated us frightfully. Only a deranged man could think of showing his happiness in that way. ——Sorry, my good Nathanson, but you know yourself that it does not quite square up.

(2) In one of your books, Stages on Life’s Way,129 you did a very artificial experiment with a young girl. But it is the very experiment that the betrothed Malte reported in Adresseavisen. You called him over one day so that he could see “how you trained your girl.”130

(3) In the same book, p. 298,131 you say: “Today she said to me that she believed I really was insane.”

And you add: “In a certain sense, it cut me to the quick.” Poor man! Presumably some wicked men had told her about the twenty-six fake witnesses and about the Randers madhouse, to say nothing of Bidstrup.132

(4) On p. 169133 of the above-mentioned work it reads: “But is there no third party here? No, everything is dark, the lights out everywhere. How rewarding it is to be shut in [indesluttet].”134 From this we conclude that it was while you were “shut in” at Randers that you wrote all those thick books, and, since you had free board and lodging, light and heat, you could well say that you are satisfied with “one reader.”135

(5) On p. 75136 of your book Repetition, it says “I cannot go around dressed like other men; I like to walk in stiff boots!”

Why not? After all, it goes with your trade. Then, too, you also save garters under your trousers.

(6) In the little book Prefaces, p. 7,137 you say: “Writing a preface is like straightening out the left leg, pulling the reins to the right, hearing the steed say ‘Pst,’ and oneself caring not a straw for the whole world.”

The horse lover is always detectable through the philosopher, particularly when you get on to ride.

Now we understand at last why you became so incensed at the criticism in Gæa.138 It says there that you are close to speculating yourself crazy. —It was not nice to let you hear that—good lord, after all, we are all men!

Well, Nathanson, this is all the time we have for the present. May all go well! Would that you might be “shut in” again soon; we shall certainly read what you write from in there, so that you really can have it as you ask in Fædrelandet: “to be happy yourself over the little world that surrounds you,”139 and out there “have one reader who is not disturbed by what you write, even if it pleases the whole world to declare it to be nonsense.”140

Appendix

“How the Frater gets out of the way of a public prostitute.”141

“How irony calmly and coolly goes in to the Terrible One.”142

“And how irony calmly and coolly goes out again.”143

A philosophical member of the editorial staff who has the fixed idea that Michael Leonard Taciturnus144 is not altogether insane, or, in any case, can be brought back to reason, has written the following:

Most Honorable Mr. Frater Taciturne!

Your latest article145 in Fædrelandet is, of course, like everything you write, a masterpiece of irony and Danish style. As one of your most ardent admirers, the undersigned can have no doubts about that. But the more admiration one has for an author, the more fervently he wishes that the author might be free of any stain that could mar his greatness. I will not deny, most honored Brother, that my admiration for the Brother is sometimes unpleasantly disturbed by a certain feeling, as if something is lacking of that of which, as Holberg146 declares someplace, a little grain is better than all the frills and flourishes when it is not present—I mean sound understanding and genuine truth. These qualities, indubitably, are doubly important to a literary policeman; they are his policeman’s badge, without which he cannot command respect. But here is the rub, Brother; it seems to me that the Brother forgot to take this badge along when the Brother recently posed as Leerbeck.147 Obviously, the strong point in the Brother’s divine ironic position is that the Brother, as one praised148 by The Corsair, has berated The Corsair and invited its denunciation149 instead of its praise. But why did the Brother not do this at the time he was praised? Now it is obvious to all that the Brother did not break his silence until the Brother was criticized in Gæa. But—the Brother asks—what does Gæa150 have to do with The Corsair? Dear, admirable Mr. Brother, this very question must be asked of you, for it is you, in fact, and no one else who has made these two into one, and thus you must take responsibility for all the consequences. —You see, this is the reason I cannot regard the Brother’s present ironic position without fear and misgiving, for, since the strong point is so very weak, the Brother, if I may say so, easily could fall on his ironic backside, and the dialectical result would be just the opposite of what the Brother wished in order to get the laughter on his side.151 As I said, this is what I wanted to call to the Brother’s attention, motivated solely by the zeal of my admiration, and I would be very happy to be enlightened further. I honestly confess that my teeth are not strong enough to crack this nut, but I am sure that is because they are very ordinary teeth such as sit in most men’s heads. But I do not doubt that it will be unable to hold its own when the Brother gets his divinely ironic teeth on it; but, dear Brother, do not pull any conjuring tricks and show us another cracked nut instead of the actual one.

I remain

My Honorable Colleague’s

Frater Observantissimus

The Corsair, no. 278, January 16, 1846, col. 13-14:

Edited by Coronato the Terrible152

Printed at Mr. Taciturnus’s own expense153

Philosophical Announcements

Announcement is herewith made that effective today Mr. F. Taciturnus has received permission from the eminent and profound philosophical magistrate to set up as irony154 here in the city.

Copenhagen, January 10, 1846

Fædrelandet, no. 9

By reason of the above announcement, I herewith respectfully recommend myself as irony to go in and out very coolly and calmly at The Terrible’s,155 as well as to allow public prostitutes to keep the right of way on the sidewalk.156

Cheap prices and reliable service guaranteed.

Respectfully

Frater Taciturnus

Irony by Royal Appointment

A philosopher in the habit of suckling ideas desires a philosophical idea or an experiment at his breast, since his own are dead. The most motherly care is guaranteed. Recommended by Fædrelandet.

Miscellaneous Announcements

Victor Eremita, former philosopher, of this city, is herewith requested, with eight day’s notice, to come forward and explain whether he will again live conjugally with respect to bed and board with his divorced wife, Sound Reason by name, also of this city, since in default of this she will reserve the right to retain undivided possession of the estate or to enter a new and second marriage.

Situation Wanted

A healthy, well-dressed philosopher of prepossessing appearance seeks a place as a literary police club157 with a family of the philosophical faith. He will furnish his own club, knows all about tailoring and the more subtle dialectics. Salary no object, but good associates and a “little world in whose surroundings he can be happy.”158 Address reply to “Hilarius Bookbinder,” care of the office of Fædrelandet, where he now works as a volunteer.

Declaration

To avoid collision, I must not fail to announce hereby to the city of Copenhagen’s Honorable Association of Public Prostitutes that from now on I shall invariably step aside for the aforementioned corporation.159

Nathanson160

Horse and Filly Dealer

Since I recently have set up in republica literaria as licensed Leerbeck,161 I recommend myself herewith for the performance of all transactions related to it, such as spying, denouncing, invective, name-calling, and cudgeling etc. etc.

Respectfully

Frater Taciturnus

Self-appointed literary Leerbeck

For rent: the upper floors of the Hilarius Bookbinder house, previously occupied by the undersigned, since I, the undersigned, have departed this life.

Philosophical Composure, retired

Lost and Found Department

Late December, while walking from Nytorv along Vimmelskaftet and Amagertorv to Købmagergade no. 54, second floor, the undersigned lost a padlock marked “Discretion,” whereby he, specifically, his mouth, was restrained. Since it is important to my mouth to get its lock back, a reasonable reward is promised to the honest finder.

Frater Taciturnus, Chief162

Notice

By this proclamation, dated below, to be read as soon as possible throughout the whole country, each and every person who might believe he has any sound reason to make a claim on Mr. Bombardier163 Taciturnus’s bankrupt estate in charge of the Bidstrup Insane Asylum164 claim office is given eight days notice to make himself known to the undersigned.

Reason’s Claim Office at Bidstrup

January 10, 1846

The Corsair, no. 279, January 23, 1846, col. 1-2:

The gray clouds are silent, the smoke of battle hangs heavily over the terrible battlefield. In an out-of-the-way corner Frater Taciturnus musters his remaining armed forces and balances the accounts.

“Well,” he declares, as his eyes survey the powerful remnant, “now I have won my victory. Das war eine grausame Salbe [that was a ferocious salvo]! I never would have believed that I was so valiant—but you won’t catch Frater Taciturnus napping.”

He continues: “When I feel how all my limbs are aching, I can imagine how the ill-fated Corsair must feel. He probably has been crippled, so then I have that on my conscience; next time I must control my temper.

“When I go out for a walk165 these days, people point at me and say: There goes Taciturnus the Terrible! He was the one who crippled The Corsair. My strength waxes on that kind of praise so that some day I will take the steeple of St. Peter’s and put it on top of the Round Tower,166 and I will set my friend Heiberg167 on top of St. Peter’s, just for show. Then people will say: Taciturnus the Great did that.

“I will become like Tordenskjold.168 Mothers will silence their children by saying: Now Taciturnus is coming. I will become a myth, a fable. I will let myself be knighted and called Michael Leonard169 von Taciturnus-Holofernes.170 By Jove, what a name!”

He pulls on his collar, takes a majestic step forward, and suddenly stands face to face with—The Corsair.

TACITURNUS (beside himself). Go to hell!

THE CORSAIR. Good day, great man, how are you feeling?

TACITURNUS. Will you spare me your praise,171 you villain?

THE CORSAIR. Fine—you wee little man, how are you?

TACITURNUS. Skunk! Libeler!

THE CORSAIR. Good God, you don’t want to be either great or not great! Well, you mediocre man, how are you?

TACITURNUS. I am neither great nor not great nor mediocre. I am . . . . . Oh, you are a scoundrel!

The Corsair, no. 280, January 30, 1846, col. 9-11:

Now there’s the devil to pay—two crazy Michael Leonard Nathansons172 have announced themselves.

Saturday there was a knock at the door, and in came a man with two witnesses. Sweat stood in great drops on his brow; he was pale, and in an abusive voice he said:

“May I have the latest number of The Corsair?”

The paper was brought, he took it, opened it up, closed it again, looked around, and shouted: “That is scurvy! Such an attack on me now when I have no publication!”

“With whom do I have the honor of speaking?” asked the editor.

The stranger looked up and said: “My name is Nathanson, horse dealer Nathanson; you know me, all right.”

“Ah, so it is you!”

He stared into space for a moment and then began again: “I have been to the Berlingske Nathanson with an article against you, but he said he could not accept it because then people would think that he himself was the Crazy Nathanson.”

“But you do have your Corvet,173 after all.”

“It has been discontinued,” shouted the man. “I am defenseless; I have no publication.”

“So that is why you write in Fædrelandet?”

“Then I went to Fædrelandet,” he went on, staring again, “but they threw me out without reading my article.”

“What kind of article is it?”

“I will read it aloud to you! It is in poetry (reads):

‘Is it not patently clear

That Goldschmidt is a man of fear.

For as long as I piloted my corvette

He certainly had a hard time of it.

I now declare The Corsair to be a scoundrel. Will the honored public excuse me if I do not put it in poetry. With regard to my complaint against Dr. Christensen, I shall shortly have the honor.

Michael Leonard Nathanson’ ”

EDITOR. This will be printed in The Corsair.

STRANGER (happily). Really? Can I depend on it?

EDITOR. Definitely.

STRANGER. Then wait a minute; let me delete “scoundrel.”

EDITOR. No, it must remain as it is.

STRANGER. Well, let it stay. It also was villainous to accuse me of having written Stages on Life’s Way.

EDITOR. What? Didn’t you write Stages on Life’s Way? Are you not Frater Taciturnus?

STRANGER. Not any more than Gustav Michelsen, who took my mares!

EDITOR. Well, well, so you are not horse dealer Nathanson, either . . . . .

STRANGER. What’s that? Am I not the Crazy Nathanson? Do you deny that? Are you mad?

EDITOR. Crazy Nathanson is Frater Taciturnus, who writes against us in Fædrelandet because he has lost his Corvet. It doesn’t help to talk.

STRANGER. By the Almighty God in heaven, I am Crazy Nathanson! Here are two witnesses! Witnesses, speak up!

BOTH WITNESSES. He is Crazy Nathanson.

EDITOR. This is scurvy! So there is someone else going around the city passing himself off as you . . . . .

STRANGER. God have mercy! . . . . . And my wife! . . . . . And my horses! . . . . . I must catch the man!

And out of the door goes Crazy Nathanson.

At this moment he probably has got hold of the other Crazy Nathanson.

Heaven knows how it will all end.

The Corsair, no. 284, February 27, 1846, col. 5:

Literature

Victor Eremita, the brilliant and active author whom we have previously recommended174 to our readers, has just recently published a new book to which we venture to bring the attention of the public. It is a “mimical-pathetical-dialectical composition,”175 distinguished by many good ideas, striking observations, and irreproachable language; for the production of the book, credit goes to the name of book printer Bianco Luno. We again bid the honored author welcome to literature and venture to express the hope that the book may find good sale176 and many readers.

The Corsair, no. 284, February 27, 1846, col. 13:

—Announcement of vacancy: The post of physician in Greenland. We regret that it is not specified whether it is a position as Chief Physician or a subordinate position, whether the appointment is with the over or under leather britches. —The author of Either/Or, Mr. Victor Eremita, wins a prize in the Industrial Association for a treatise on clothing manufacture in Denmark. The motto of the treatise reads as follows: Experience shows that the trouser legs177 of cloth trousers in Denmark are equal in length or one is longer than the other. “Tertium non datur” [There is no third]!

The Corsair, no. 285, March 6, 1846, col. 8-11:

The Great Philosopher

In his latest published book,178 Mr. Magister S. Kierkegaard has announced that the following pseudonymous authors are one and the same person and that this one person is he himself, Søren Kierkegaard, namely: Victor Eremita, Johannes de Silentio, Constantin Constantius, Vigilius Hafniensis [sic], Nicolaus Notabene, Johannes Climacus, Hilarius Bookbinder, William Afham, the judge, and——Frater Taciturnus.179 ———So, consequently, we have done Mr. Crazy Nathanson180 an injustice and herewith ask his pardon.

This is the feeling that most powerfully fills us upon this designation of names, but we wonder how the public feels about such a cloudburst of authors? This is the way the snow melts on the mountain tops in the spring; every single snowdrift is dissolved and all flow together into one single, great, foaming, violent mountain torrent, and this mountain torrent is Søren Kierkegaard, the one and only, and the startled public stares at his mighty dialectical leap.

Let the enormous waterfall thunder in roaring pathos, let it plunge with superhuman force from the dizzy heights of speculation down to the deepest depths of thought, let its dialectically gamboling waves reduce the greatest granite cliffs to the whitest dust and throw it in the eyes of men and animals. As for us, we prefer to remain on earth and look on. With Ussing-like181 tenacity we return to our earlier concerns.

Mr. Kierkegaard uses this occasion also to comment on praise and censure. He does not wish to be praised,182 it is an inconvenience to him; for him it is the same as when someone takes off his hat to him on the street and then he has to remove his hat, and he would rather not do that. But then one would think that he would tolerate censure so that he could let his hat sit in peace—but he does not want that, either. He “thanks everyone who has kept silent,” but he thanks Bishop Mynster,183 because he has praised him. Consequently, he does not want censure in any form; Bishop Mynster has a monopoly on praising him, and anyone who interferes with that privilege will be subpoenaed and fined heavily. Consequently, all the rest of us should keep our mouths shut.184

It is really strange that a man does not have control of the book he buys and pays for with 3 rix-dollars and 64 shillings.185 If Magister Kierkegaard invites a man to his home and gives him a cup of coffee and says to him: Here you will taste the best coffee you have ever tasted in your life. But you must be absolutely dumb with ecstacy, you must not praise it; the only one who has permission to praise my coffee is Bishop Mynster. Neither must you find any fault with it, for then I will kick you down the stairs—then Mr. Kierkegaard, M.A., is within his rights. If the man refuses to accept the terms, he does not get the coffee. Likewise, if Mr. Kierkegaard, M.A., has a book printed for private circulation among his friends and gives it away, then he can request first of all: Do you acknowledge this book to be perfect, so pure and sensitive that the mere breath of human judgment defiles it? If the man swears a sacred oath on that, he gets the book, bound in morocco with gilded edges, sub poena praeclusi et

perpetui silentii [under the pain of ostracism and perpetual silence]. But, when one has honestly and uprightly paid his 3 rix-dollars and 64 shillings and then is told: Read it as you read the Bible; if you do not understand it, then read it over again; if you do not understand it the second time, you may just as well blow your brains out—then a strange feeling comes over one. There is a moment when his mind is confused186 and it seems to him that Nicolaus Copernicus was a fool when he insisted that the earth revolves around the sun; on the contrary, the heavens, the sun, the planets, the earth, Europe, and Copenhagen itself revolve around Søren Kierkegaard, who stands silent in the middle and does not once take off his hat in recognition of the honor shown to him.187

“Who, what, then, is this Søren Kierkegaard?” thousands are certainly asking who have heard mention of him and his enormous books.

Magister artium Søren Kierkegaard, ladies and gentlemen, is a man with two legs188 like all the rest of us. As far as his activity—partly as a man, partly as a writer—is concerned, this can best be illustrated by an example. He comes walking189 along Gothersgade, for example, and a man falls and breaks his leg outside the vegetable store, where a woman recently was injured. The Magister stops momentarily and observes: (1) the man’s scream and the surprise clearly portrayed on his face as he falls, (2) his shock when he gets up and notices that his own leg is not functioning because it is broken, (3) the pain in his leg that drives all other expressions from his face. This was the time to step in and help the man, if the second stage of the observation did not intervene: (1) the comic busyness and primness of the people hurrying by, (2) their various questions to the suffering man and their arguing with one another about how he is to be taken away, (3) their cursing at the street commissioners and the property owners for not spreading ashes on the sidewalk. —When the observation is finished, the Magister goes home to record the results. You reconcile yourself to him; you expect that now he either will make himself useful to society by writing an article to Politivennen about the slippery sidewalks or entertain society with a beautiful and poetic portrayal of misfortune, suffering, death, resurrection, or the like. By no means, he goes home and writes thusly: “If the speculative thinker explains the paradox in such a way that he canceled it and now consciously knows that it is canceled, that consequently the paradox is not the eternally necessary relation of eternal truth to an existing person in the extremities of existence, but only an accidental relation to limited minds—then there is an essential difference between the speculative thinker and the simple man, whereby all existence is fundamentally confused.”190

Reader, he really did say this about poor minds in his latest book, p. 168; but you easily perceive that it could just as well be said about poor legs.191

The Corsair, no. 285, March 6, 1846, col. 11:

A page of the Almanac for 1846

Designed for The Corsair’s Observatory

March or Thunder-Month* has 31 days.

Magister Søren Kierkegaard drove a devil out of himself

(Concluding Postscript).

S. 1

First Sunday in Lent

Frater Taciturnus

M. 2

Johannes Climacus

T. 3

Nicholaus Notabene

W. 4

Ember Day

Søren Kierkegaard

No twilight

Full moon

T. 5

Victor Eremita

Sun goes down.

F. 6

Hilarius Bookbinder

Day of prayer

S. 7

Vigilius Hafniensis

Søren Kierkegaard consumes one reader.

S. 8

Second Sunday in Lent

Constantin Constantius

M. 9

40 Knights

Johannes de Silentio

is knighted as Sir

Braggadocio.

* Thunder-Month, so called because Søren Kierkegaard and all his angelic names192 so thundered and rumbled in literature that they themselves felt the repercussions.193

The Corsair, no. 285, March 6, 1846, col. 14:

Three-Syllable Riddle

The two first are of stone,

The third is just the same;

The whole thing has two legs

Rigged out in scrimpy pants.194

The person who solves this riddle will receive as prize the latest of S. Kierkegaard’s books, elegantly bound.

The Corsair, no. 289, April 13, 1846, col. 9-10.

Sketches. . . .

3.

Aftenbladet reads Unscientific Postscript the first time.

4.

Aftenbladet reads Unscientific Postscript the second time.

The Corsair, no. 289, April 3, 1846, col. 13:

Catalogue

of

a profuse and choice selection of the newest

and most beautiful

Ornamental Dahlias

available in the year 1846

scheduled for the next display in The Corsair’s

Flower Garden. . . .

1. Dulcinea de Berlingske, or Protée de Nathanson.195 Flower of the first rank; all shades of color; tightly and muscularly structured with compact leaves, enormous range, unsteady posture, but is without equal in its profuse blossoms.

2. Beauty of Kierkegaard, dirty yellow color;196 of remarkable form, with two unequal lower stems;197 brilliant and imposing appearance; unrivaled in every respect; the play of colors on the stems is especially superb.

The Corsair, no. 297, May 29, 1846, col. 7:

Selections from

The Corsair’s newest and best

Dream Book

published

for the pleasure and enjoyable information of

everyone who desires reliable interpretation of

his dreams. . . .

Short trousers, to see . . . . . means . . . . .

Frater Taciturnus

The Corsair, no. 381, January 7, 1848, col. 8:

Sketches. . . .

II.

Søren Kierkegaard and Aftenbladet198

in a theological tarantella with castanets

FROM MEÏR GOLDSCHMIDT’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Livs Erindringer og Resultater, I–II

(Copenhagen: 1877)

I first met S. Kierkegaard the summer of 1837199—it was during my editing period200 and therefore should have been discussed earlier. I met my former teacher P. Rørdam,201 and he invited me to his place, or, more accurately, to the home of his mother,202 who lived in Frederiksberg. Søren Kierkegaard, among others, was there. I certainly was not a calm, attentive observer, but I did form a mental picture of him. He was about seven years older than I. At that time he had a fresh facial coloring but was slender and with rather prominent shoulders; his eyes were sagacious, lively, and masterful, with a mixture of good humor and malice. I happened to walk home with him along Gamle Kongevej, and he asked me whether I had read a book he had recently published, From the Papers of One Still Living, Published against His Will.203 I had read it and remembered best something about H. C. Andersen, but in the extensive sense he meant, I had not; yet, when he asked and explained, I did not allow myself to get involved but said, “Yes, Yes.” It amazed me that he spoke so much about his own book, but he did not become ludicrous thereby, for he constantly remained much superior to me. There was a long pause, and suddenly he made a leap and slapped his leg with his thin cane. There was something jaunty about it, but completely different from the jauntiness usually found in the world. The movement was odd and almost painful. I know that I am in danger of remembering the scene with an admixture of later knowledge, but I am certain that there was something that pained, something like this: the learned, slender man wanted to enter into the joy of life but could not or must not. Later I heard that people in the Lyngby area thought that he was in love with or was very fond of a young lady204 (who subsequently married one of his cousins). He visited the family frequently and liked to be present when there was dancing, enjoyed it, but did not himself dance. Perhaps it was with a happy thought of the Lyngby area that he made the movement. [I, pp. 214-16]

At that time [1841] I was led to the second meeting with S. Kierkegaard.

A review205 of his master’s dissertation, On the Concept of Irony, with Constant Reference to Socrates,206 had been sent to me—or not really a review but an ironic address of thanks using his own striking, mannered language. The article was well written, but I still wanted to see the book itself. I read it and concluded that in all fairness a reservation should be made with respect to its contents, and that I did in a brief postscript, for which I again lacked the capacity for a witty, brilliant appreciation, but nevertheless I did make my reservation (no. 51).207 At the time I did not know whether this Kierkegaard was the same one whom I had met at Mrs. Rørdam’s,208 but shortly thereafter he met me on the street and said that I had now gotten him into The Corsair, but he had no grounds for complaint; he thought, however, that the article lacked composition and that I should apply myself to comic writing, that was my task.209 I took his words as good advice kindly meant, which they also undoubtedly were. Consequently, he also restricted me solely to the comic and denied me the capacity or the calling to manifest earnestness, respect, veneration. But what was the task assigned to me: comic writing? I could not very well ask him about that, and I did not know what it was. Once again I was at a loss; lacking esthetics as theory, as science, I could not see the article’s defect—that is, the crude blending of joking and earnestness—and knew nothing that could help me as a model. The phrase “comic writing” scintillated for me as something that presumably was unrelated to Lessing or justified praise and censure but nevertheless was something significant. What, then, was it? After the bright flash he had tossed out, I stood in the dark. There is something very curious about the fact that it was precisely he who should propose the paper or its presumed spirit as a law and goal for me rather than something in me as the law and goal for the paper. But it is also true that without any presentiment on his part or mine he on that day sharpened the tip that was later to stab him.210

I can report here a couple of other brief meetings I had with him during that period. [I, pp. 275-76]

[After buying an expensive tailor-made coat, which the tailor had somewhat ostentatiously trimmed in military style with fur collar and braid instead of buttons, Goldschmidt met Kierkegaard on Amagertorv.] He turned back with me, speaking now of one thing and then of another, as I recall, and then said quietly, with an unmistakable expression of good will, “Do not wear such a coat. You are not a circus rider. One should go about dressed as other people are.” I did not tell him that this was the first time and how I felt about wearing the coat, but I went home, sent the coat back, and had the collar and the braid removed. What hurt was only that Kierkegaard had thought I was really pleased with the coat.

On another occasion there was something from his side that hurt me in a similar or more definite way. Without betraying any curiosity, yet with a certain inquisitiveness, he once asked how things went with the production of each issue of The Corsair, and I told him very simply. It seemed to surprise him that there was no secrecy at all, and he asked: But how do you have such good information about what goes on in the city? —I answered, which was the truth, that I knew no more than all the others, that I just read the papers and gave my own observations. —But do you not get many anonymous contributions?211 he asked. —Yes, but very few are worth anything, and most of them are very bad. —How is that? —Because they are information of a private kind. It is repulsive to get such statements even about intimate family relations; there was even one case of a man and his wife informing on each other to me. —I do not want to hear anything about it, shouted Kierkegaard. —That hurt me, for it seemed as if he imputed to me the intention of divulging something to him and implied that I was of a crasser nature than he. It did not prevent him from later asking me to tell him once more about The Corsair, and especially about something between me and Pastor Visby. V. had published a prayerbook212 for prisoners in penitentiaries, and I had criticized it severely. After some time he came to me and said: But, in God’s name, how can you attack me that way? You do not even know me! —I replied that I attacked only his name, which was on the title page of the book, just as I, according to the circumstances, attacked others whose names I found in books or in the papers. —Are you aware, asked Kierkegaard, how amusing that story is? —Of that I was unaware.

During these meetings the question was always on the tip of my tongue: What is the task you have assigned me? What is comic writing? But neither did I have the right talents for raising the question, nor did his personality make such an approach easier. [I, pp. 278-80]

Then P. L. Møller213 loomed up. [I, p. 297]

[In The Corsair, no. 125, February 10, 1843, Goldschmidt wrote a piece, “The Europe-Weary” (De Europa-trætte), which P. L. Møller called a “Cooper-like story”214 and liked very much.]

It came over me like a fairy tale, a miracle. What had stood before me as unattainable—although, properly understood, it lay as a germ in the first issue of The Corsair—I had suddenly achieved without knowing it; like a sleepwalker I had fulfilled the Kierkegaardian task, had produced a piece of comic writing.215 [I, pp. 305-06]

Under the name Victor Eremita, Kierkegaard published Either/Or. How P. L. Møller had read and understood the book, I cannot say, and I have difficulty in remembering my own conception. But I think we more or less agreed that Victor Eremita was the most brilliant Greek to emerge again on the modern scene.216 There was a wealth of thought, wit, irony, mastery, especially the last. He was masterly in everything and could himself be Either/Or, Both/And, if not personally, then in his thought. I vaguely remember that Møller already had reservations and maintained that there was more fantasy than flesh and blood, but that was something I could not really follow and left to the genuine or proper masters to decide. On my own initiative, I wrote the somewhat nebulous and turgid—but also excited—eulogy on the book in The Corsair of March 10, 1843.217

At the same time, I had been presented with a flask of rare Italian wine, and I wrote an invitation to Victor Eremita and P. L. Møller to come and drink it with me. Obviously the letter could not be sent to Victor Eremita, because even then he was a character S. Kierkegaard did not officially acknowledge and whom I had not absolutely identified with him, either, but established rather by reconstruction. But I sent it along with the invitation to Møller so that he would know which guest would be present, even though invisibly, and so that he would come “garlanded in the Greek mode and in festive spirits.” [I, pp. 318-19]

The phrase about the fundamental injustice of society218 was well suited to a youthful, abstruse idea that one’s own distinctive individuality had a special, an absolute right over against all the others, the bourgeois; it was in good favor and was ordained to happiness when it strove for poetry and produced intellectual fireworks. Without knowing or wishing to do so, S. Kierkegaard contributed to this, namely, by breaking his engagement.219 The event illustrated the artistic right of personality over against every bond. It was just as with Goethe, who had thrown over Friederike in Sesenheim,220 and her reward for the sacrifice and loss of life was that she came to live eternally in literature or the history of literature. Strange things are also told about Kierkegaard, perhaps untrue, but they are told and have the appearance of probability. One time he is supposed to have taken his fiancée to the theater to hear Mozart’s Don Giovanni,221 and after a few bars of the overture he led her out again with the remark that this was sufficient: for a proper comprehension of the opera or for the proper mood, there was enough in the few bars. Mood, to get into the mood, that seemed to be the main business of life!222 Kierkegaard became the chief for the esthetic view of life, most certainly not personally, in and through his personality, but through a recasting of him and of Victor Eremita, “the victorious hermit.” [I, pp. 323-24]

The book223 occasioned a renewed acquaintance or a new encounter of special significance with S. Kierkegaard, who once again appeared on the streets.224 I use this expression because at the time it seemed as if he had disappeared and would come out just to do an intellectual errand and then would disappear again. He asked me which character in the book I myself considered best portrayed, and when I gave the opinion that it was the hero, he said: No, it is the mother. —During the writing I had not given her a second thought. —That is just what I thought! he said, elated. He continued: Of course you have read the review in Fædrelandet. What do you think is the point? —Presumably it is simply to praise the book. —No, the point is that there are men who want to see in you the author of En Jøde but not the editor of The Corsair—The Corsair is P. L. Møller.225

I almost shouted aloud out of fright on Møller’s behalf, since I knew both how wrong it was and how unpleasant and damaging such an opinion would be for him. I objected and reminded Kirkegaard how I had told him about The Corsair long before I knew Møller, but he smiled, shook his head, and left me.

Møller became dejected when I told him this and laid it upon me as a point of honor to repeat and repeat again the truth to Kierkegaard, which I did as soon as the occasion arose, but the philosopher did not yield and merely said that there were reports in the world more accurate than any police report. —I asked: How in this case can you have a more reliable report than mine? —He laughed in his curious way, and I was tempted to take the whole thing as a joke, but when I gave Møller an account of my misfired errand, he took the matter more seriously and said that it would definitely become a great obstacle for him if such an opinion spread among the public and that it therefore would be best for us to break off our association for a time, which he did, but not altogether, as will be seen later,226 and without being able to avoid a collision with Kierkegaard. [I, pp. 371-73]

[P. L. Møller] considered the meaning and goal of his life to be an appointment as professor of esthetics here at the university after Oehlenschlæger . . . it may also seem mysterious that Møller, precisely when he was so occupied, should be led or should lead himself into a collision with S. Kierkegaard. Nevertheless, the two main threads can be rendered somewhat visible, and finally light can be thrown upon the matter if it is said—and now I say something under which I myself, like many others, must bow my head deeply—that when Møller went to pieces on account of the blow against Kierkegaard, it was the result, on the deepest level, of the fact that S. Kierkegaard stood in a finer, purer, higher relation to women. This relation of good fortune or of grace or, as I call it, of nemesis,227 along with whatever organic peculiarity to which it may have been joined, I regard as the basis and not the consequence of his enthusiasm, his religious enthusiasm as well. What we essentially are, we are by virtue of what in that respect has been maintained or redeemed in us.

But what motivated Møller to battle with Kierkegaard, and not merely in an ordinary article or treatise but in a critical presentation that seemed to give the impression of being a manifesto originating at or supported by Sorø Academy?228 First and foremost, of course, an inner impulse, an antipathy, a disagreement with S. Kierkegaard and a conviction of being able to rebuff him with some Hegelian philosophy and practical intellectual competence. But in addition to that the professorship was involved, not only in the way a prospective university teacher must show himself to be master of something significant but also in an extraordinary way. When Møller came out of his resignation and solitariness, when he, with the vitality and hope one has in one’s thirtieth year [1844], cast aside the thought of being a dislocated proletarian, he grasped for the world with both hands and wanted to be worldly wise. He wanted to give the appearance of not standing alone but of having surrounded himself, like other intelligent folk, with friends and thereby of fulfilling the craving for esteem. With his plan for Gæa—the yearbook that was supposed to create a seat of honor in literature and facilitate a move from there to the professorship—and with some help, notably from Oehlenschlæger, he moved to Sorø and found, it seems, a cordial reception, and in Copenhagen it appeared as if his main strength was in Sorø. It was a kind of cunning that perhaps only poets have; they are so simple-minded that in their craftiness they become both ludicrous and pathetic as a result. Without really committing any indiscretion by naming professors from Sorø, Møller created the impression that such gentlemen seemed to contribute their authority, and in many respects the whole work was splendid, perhaps the most lively and energetic he had written. But he had caught a Tartar.

S. Kierkegaard cracked down on him229 with such vehemence, used such singular language, created or seemed to create such an effect upon the public that the professorship, instead of being brought closer by Gæa, was placed at an incalculable distance, and during the conflict itself Møller was seized with a longing to leave Denmark, which he satisfied a little later.230 [I, pp. 409-14]

Immediately after the publication of Gæa, S. Kierkegaard was again “visible on the streets,”231 and when he met me, according to custom, he took me along. As yet I had not read the entire book, in particular had not read the piece about him, and I asked without guile whether he had seen the new book and what he thought about it. What I really wanted to know, of course, was what he thought of “My Uncle’s Lumberyard” [Min Onkels Tømmerplads].232 Well, yes, he replied, and talked about my story with some praise. But otherwise he was more silent than usual, obviously his thoughts were elsewhere; perhaps he also believed that my naiveté was feigned.

Evidence of what had preoccupied his thoughts came quickly, namely, in his extremely violent article233 in Fædrelandet, signed by Frater Taciturnus, against The Corsair and P. L. Møller. Møller’s article in Gæa was called, among other things, a “loathsome Corsair attack,” and Møller himself was called a vagabond and with the greatest recklessness was represented as the real Corsair and the evil in it: “where P. L. Møller is, The Corsair is.”234

At that time it was still not customary to cast aside certain literary rules of honor,235 and not a few were offended by this outburst, which was either an arbitrary declaration or an excited, arbitrary breach of anonymity. But it was most striking to me, who so clearly and repeatedly had initiated Kierkegaard into the actual situation and so urgently had requested him not to hold an opinion that was unfair to Møller and also could do him harm.

Very soon I met him again, but now he had taken a strange, although presumably under the circumstance necessary, position. He adhered strictly to anonymity. Just as I, of course, did not dare to know or say that he was Frater Taciturnus, so he did not want to know that I had anything at all to do with the editing of The Corsair. We could talk about Frater Taciturnus, P. L. Møller, and The Corsair as matters entirely unrelated to us, and it was without any personal predilection that he sided with Frater Taciturnus and I with the other side. The way in which he began the conversation established this tone immediately; I understood it and maintained it. It was a little light comedy that we played. But, because of the impersonality of the situation, it followed that I could not manage to say to him: I have told you this and that; why have you nevertheless made the declaration against Møller? On the other hand, I could and did say that Frater Taciturnus, however right he might be otherwise, on that point had done an injustice and inflicted an injury. To this, Kierkegaard replied that Frater Taciturnus’s right must be seen from a higher point of view. I said that I could not see his higher point of view, and then we talked for a moment about other things.

Now I, too, of course, had to write on the affair.236 Such a hard blow could not be struck against The Corsair without a turnabout, and presumably in that respect something unpleasant would necessarily arise, even though Kierkegaard in our personal meetings had made everything so impersonal, but I put no stock in that. What I wanted most of all at the moment was to show him that I had fulfilled the task he once had assigned to me:237 to do comic writing. In my opinion, even now, the task was successfully carried out in that I strictly limited the question and gave a sprightly account of the discovery at last of the secret editor of The Corsair.238 This editor resembled the famous Venetian bandit Coronato the Terrible, and although he carried out his acts with the greatest daring, more or less in broad daylight, the renowned police of Venice still had not been able to track him down or form the slightest notion of who he was. But in the moonlight one evening, while having a glass of punch with “The Silent Brother,” Frater Taciturnus, he opened his heart and confided to him his secret, yet with the injunction that he must not divulge it, and the Silent Brother had sworn he would be silent. But now Coronato had written a criticism of him, and Frater Taciturnus felt no longer obliged to be silent but went to Fædrelandet and told the whole story: Now I will identify Coronato publicly and at the same time demolish The Corsair. Fædrelandet was pleased with it, and Frater Taciturnus was pleased, saying: I am so happy that I will imagine that I am giving a poor man a dollar.239

When I saw this last remark again in the proofs, it struck me as alien, almost as something that flowed from my pen without my knowing it. But I let it stand, because it seemed both witty and pertinent and seemed to be true. It conformed to an opinion floating around that Kierkegaard did not stand in a genuine personal relation to his writings or to his life but carried on everything as a thought-experiment. Was it really so? The answer is not easy; as a general, approximate notion it was already plausible with the publication of Either/Or. In the course of the intervening years there had come to be something about him that gave him the appearance of standing at a distance, observing ironically, like one who with conscious superiority—a superiority that seemed to be based both on his intellect and his reputed wealth—could understand everything, also all cares and sorrows, and give the word but not share it. That could, in fact, be a pretense that would vanish if one followed him into his cubbyhole, but who could do that, and how much trouble do we take in that respect with regard to each other before it is too late? Egotistically preoccupied as we generally are, we accept the rumor floating in the air, which, through our arbitrary, superficial association with others, we ourselves broadcast and which, according to the proverb “Where there is smoke, there is fire,” does have some truth in it and seems to give pain to an individual. With some malice, I took it to be true and on my own responsibility became an instrument for that indefinite floating rumor and got my pleasure out of it. Later I have noted that others who have written about or against me have been instruments in a similar way for something unjust—just floating in the air.

At that time the bite in my account diminished behind the joking fantasy about Coronato and Frater Taciturnus, and I was so satisfied with it—so childishly satisfied, it may be said—that the next time I met Kierkegaard I asked him whether the article in The Corsair was comic writing.240—He replied with a long, drawn-out No. —Why not? —Because the question cannot be put. In the first place, it lacks respect.—Respect for what? —For Frater Taciturnus’s higher right.—There again we stuck to our positions, and after a few words about other things we parted.

His real reply came in Fædrelandet, a new vehement article241 in which he called The Corsair, among other things, “a public prostitute.” When the paper was delivered, Møller himself was with me. I read the article and burst into laughter. Møller took the paper, read it, grew very pale, and said: You can laugh at what will come of this! This dirty mix-up, this confusing of my Gæa with The Corsair, this never would have happened if I had never come to you.

The whole thing took an unexpected bitter turn. Nevertheless, I could not forget the comic element that seemed to be present in Kierkegaard’s exaggeration and in the passion with which he maintained that he was a martyr and had wished to be a martyr at the hands of The Corsair. If the affair were judged to be an ordinary literary controversy, according to the humor and fantasy of the articles, I would even dare let the matter go to a jury.

After the replies, which I wrote myself, some accompanied by cartoons, my colleagues carried on, and thus the affair was constantly raked up, with side-cuts at him. To what extent this was distasteful to me, I cannot say. My impression of the whole business first emerged clearly at a crucial moment.

As long as the name Kierkegaard was never mentioned, there was still a tinge of impersonality about the controversy. He himself wrote pseudonymously, and he was attacked under one of the many names he himself had invented; consequently, he could not personally step out of the fiction in which he had surrounded our conversations, and when he met me—which happened rarely now—it was with the same courtesy as before, although neither he nor I showed a desire for conversation.

But then he publicly named himself Victor Eremita, Frater Taciturnus,242 etc., etc., and immediately thereafter he met me on Myntergade and passed me by with an intense, very bitter glance, without wanting to give a greeting or to be greeted.

In the bitterness of that glance, just as in Kierkegaard’s entire personal appearance and manner, there was something that verged on the comic. But this vanished and gave place to the loftiness, the ideality that were also present in his personality. There was something about that intense, wild glance that drew the curtain, as it were, away from the higher right243 that Kierkegaard had asserted earlier and that I had not been able, rather, was unwilling, to see, although I did indeed suspect it. It accused and depressed me: The Corsair had won the battle, but I myself had acquired a false no. 1. Nevertheless, a protest also arose in my mind during that moment packed with meaning: I was not one to be looked down upon, and I could prove it. On my way home I decided that I would give up The Corsair, and when I told them at home that I was going to do it, they said, Praise God—so happy but so little surprised, as if they had known about it before I did.

It so happened that the first stranger I told about my decision was the same one I had spoken with on the top of Skamlingsbanken244 and who had offered a wager, a sensible, practical man some years older than I. He reminded me of the proverb that one should not throw out the dirty water before one has the clean water. But there is a youthfulness that need not die with the years and that shows itself, among other ways, in throwing out the water as soon as one thinks it is dirty. His misgivings on my behalf, however, were well grounded. During the last year, The Corsair had brought in 4,000 rix-dollars, but I had not saved any of it and at most had a few hundred rix-dollars in addition to a good library. The Corsair itself was actually not salable. As soon as I left it, anyone could take the name and continue it. But Flinch, the wood engraver, thought that if I would turn it over to him he could give me 1,500 rix-dollars for it. Reitzel bought a volume of short stories245 I had written, and thus I gathered together around 4,000 rix-dollars, which I divided, and with one-half I left the country246 “in order to be done with witticism and to learn something.”

I was going on twenty-seven years of age and had edited The Corsair for six years. [I, pp. 421-30]

At this time [December 1847] Møller was about to travel.247 Since that evening during the Kierkegaard battle we had not seen much of each other,248 but of course I looked him up when I returned home,249 and inasmuch as it was entirely clear that we had neither personally nor willfully done each other any harm, everything was fine between us, although more distant, cooler than before.

On one of the last days of the year, I visited him [Møller] in order to say goodbye—because his departure, which for a long time had been postponed from day to day, finally seemed necessarily at hand—and on that day he was in an especially bad mood. It was still the time when I knew so little about him and understood so little of his whole frame of mind. Meanwhile, it was he who led the conversation.

He congratulated me on now being able to be quoted by Bishop Mynster,250 yes, in time I would be canonized, and—who knows—the faithful would make pilgrimages to the shrine that concealed my Christianly tempered bones. It is difficult to defend oneself against such congratulations—that I had had to learn for myself during the Corsair period—and when I nevertheless tried, he said that nothing would help, that by giving up The Corsair I had betrayed myself; it was not natural for me to pursue some “positive good” in public life here at home; the caustic Jewish nature demanded hate, and in hate I had and have my strength. His words had no trace of vulgar anti-Semitism—on the whole, Møller was far removed from that—but were more like a private, comradely conversation and in their quiet bitterness seemed to be based on an irrefutable world-historical fact. Neither were they totally novel at the time, just as they have not become outmoded; it is a view before which one can stand in embarrassment, justly accused, as it were, because there can be a likelihood in them—indeed, an element of truth, but a truth that on the whole and generally speaking is bound to be turned into an untruth.

To free myself from the impact his statement had on me, I shifted the format and asked him: What have you yourself accomplished by not choosing something positive? What effect, even if only literary, has your esthetics had on writing? Where is that for which we once hoped? —What do you have against my writing? —Then, as I remember, I criticized his writing, from “Arion”251 to his most recently published poetry.252 It is far worse to criticize a writer orally than in print; it more readily makes for bad blood. One word led to another, and we were a hair’s breadth from becoming outright philistine enemies. Fortunately, at the very last moment, I reminded him of the alliance we two had made: that for the sake of the truth of literature we would, if necessary, oppose each other and keep ourselves young and strong in the process. With this reminder of a singular and yet genuine common youthfulness, the storm vanished, and with a kind of elation he said: “Well, let’s fight, then! I can find occasion to say a lot on that score. Come on!”

I went home and wrote down almost verbatim what I had said but added my hopes for a bright and happy future as a result of his journey253 and sent it to him. He sent it back, and it was printed in Nord og Syd,254 Vol. I, p. 166, with the note that it had been communicated to him prior to his departure. [I, pp. 434-36]

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