1837
1837
Jan. 17. There are many people who reach their conclusions about life like schoolboys; they cheat their master by copying the answer out of a book without having worked out the sum for themselves.
At every step philosophy sloughs a skin into which creep its worthless hangers-on.
If something is really to become depressing the foreboding that there is something wrong must first of all develop in the midst of the most favourable circumstances, one does not become conscious oneself of anything so wrong; but it must lie in the family history, then the all-consuming power of original sin shows itself, which can grow into despair and have far more terrible effects than the fact whereby the truth of the foreboding is confirmed. That is why Hamlet is so tragic. That is why Robert le Diable, driven by a terrifying foreboding, asks why it should be that he does so much evil.—The blessing is changed into a curse—it is a highly poetic move to make the girl, who alone is in a position to know what is behind Robert le Diable’s assumed madness (his penance)—dumb.
Feb. A certain foreboding seems to precede everything which is to happen, but just as it can act as a deterrent so too it can act as a temptation, awakening in man the thought that he is, as it were, predestined; he sees himself led on to something as though by consequences which he cannot influence at all. One must therefore be very careful with children, never believe the worst, or, as the result of an ill-timed suspicion, or a chance remark (the infernal-machine which sets fire to the tinder which is in every soul) induce that state of anxiety in which innocent but weak souls are easily tempted to believe themselves guilty, to despair, and so take the first step towards the goal foreshadowed by the alarming foreboding—a remark which gives the kingdom of evil, with its stupefying, snake-like eye, an opportunity of reducing them to a state of spiritual impotence. Woe to him by whom the scandal cometh applies in this case too.
It made a terrible impression upon me the first time I heard that the indulgences contained the statement that they remit all sins: “etiam si matrem virginem violasset.” —I still remember the impression it made upon me when some years ago, filled with a youthful and romantic enthusiasm for a master-thief, I went so far as to say that it was only the misuse of powers, and that such a man might still be converted, and father said very solemnly: “there are offences which one can only fight against with God’s continual help.” I hurried down to my room and looked at myself in the glass (cf. F. Schlegel’s Works, Vol. VII, p. 15)—or when father said, as he often did, that it would be a good thing to have “a venerable confessor to whom one could open one’s heart.”
When one first begins to reflect upon Christianity it must certainly have been an occasion of scandal to one before one enters upon it, one must even have wished that it had never come into the world or at least that the question had never arisen in one’s consciousness. That is why one is sickened by all the chatter of fussy go-betweens about Christ being the greatest hero, etc. etc., the humorous interpretation is far better.
May 8. Oh God, how easily one forgets such resolutions! Once again I turned back to the world for some time, deposed in my inmost self, to dominate there. Oh, what does it help a man to win the whole world and injure his soul. To-day again (May 8) I tried to forget myself, not in the noise and bustle of the world, that substitute is no help, but by going to the Rordams4 and talking with Bolette and by trying (if possible) to get my demoniacal wit to remain at home, the angel which, as I deserve, stands with a sword of fire between me and every innocent girl—I thank thee, O Lord, that when thou overtookest me thou didst not let me go mad at once,—I have never been so afraid of it, and I thank thee for having once more inclined thine ear towards me.
Again the same scene to-day-nevertheless I got out to the Rordams—merciful God, why should that inclination awaken just now—Oh, how I feel that I am alone5—Oh, cursed be that arrogant satisfaction in standing alone—all will despise me now—but thou, 0 my God, take not thy hand from me now—let me live and better myself.
July 9. I stand like a lonely pine tree egoistically shut off, pointing to the skies and casting no shadow, and only the turtle-dove builds its nest in my branches.
Sunday, July 9, in the gardens of Frederiksberg after a visit to the Rørdams.
I am a Janus bifrons; I laugh with one face, I weep with the other.
July 13. I have often wondered how it could be that I had such a strong disinclination to note down individual remarks; but the more I get to know individual great men in whose writings one does not sense the kaleidoscopic shaking up of the same set of ideas (perhaps the example of Jean Paul has made me unnecessarily anxious on that score) and the more I recollect that a writer as spontaneous as Hoffman kept notes and that Lichtenberg recommends it, the more interested I am in discovering why something in itself entirely blameless should become unpleasant and almost revolting to me. The reason evidently was that in each case I had before me the possibility of publication, which would probably have necessitated a fuller treatment and not wishing to be bothered with it, and weakened by that abstract possibility (a sort of literary hiccoughs and nausea) the aroma of the conceits and moods evaporated. I believe on the contrary that it is a good thing, by making frequent notes, to let my thoughts appear with the umbilical cord of their first mood, and to forget as far as possible the use to which they might be put, since in any case I shall never use them by looking up my note-books; by thus expectorating myself as though in a letter to a close friend, I gain a double advantage, the possibility of knowing myself later on, and a certain fluency in writing, the same freedom of articulation in the written word which I have to some extent in the spoken, the knowledge of a number of lesser traits which up till now I have passed by with a hasty glance, and finally one other advantage if, as Hamann says, it is true that some ideas occur only once in a lifetime. Practice of this kind, behind the scenes, is essential to all those who are not so gifted that their development is, in a sense, public.
Thanks, Lichtenberg, thanks! for having said that there is nothing so feeble as the conversation of learned literary men who have never thought for themselves but know a thousand historical-literary facts.6 “It is almost like a reading from a cookery book when one is hungry.” Oh thanks for that voice in the wilderness, for that comfort, which sets the imagination working like the cry of a wild bird in the silence of the night; I imagine it was written after a protracted session with one of those learned jades, which perhaps robbed him of some happy moments. Unfortunately in my copy I found a mark which has disturbed me; for I already see some journalist or other going carefully through the work in order to fill the papers with aphorisms, with or without Lichtenberg’s name; and that has, unfortunately, robbed me of some of the surprise.
Oct 7. How dreadful it is when everything historical vanishes before a diseased probing of one’s own miserable history! Who is to show us the middle course between being devoured by one’s own reflections, as though one were the only man who ever had existed or ever would exist, and —seeking a worthless consolation in the commune naufragium of mankind? That is really what the doctrine of an ecclesia should do.