Soren Kierkegaard

Of course, it is a tough business and the competition is keen, but if one
merely makes use of untraditional methods, success is within reach. Thus
he praises the advertiser who came up with the shrewd idea of having “his
advertisement printed on paper which is ‘solely, only, and exclusively man-
ufactured for’ and destined to be read on the toilet.”
As for the contents, they are of course intellectually undemanding. There
has simply never been any market for intellect or spirit: People prefer hot
air. Listed on the payroll as a permanent employee and provider of a “regular
column in the magazine” is a certain “von Hearsay” who knows all there
is to know about “the transmission of sound” through “the medium called
the crowd,” which causes sound to be transmitted in so sophisticated a
fashion that when one says one thing it turns into something entirely differ-
ent. The journal will also have room for small announcements and classified
advertisements with news of recently published books. For example, one
can purchase an “Ecclesiastical Phrase Book or a Handbook for Pastors,
Containing 500 Platitudes, Alphabetically Arranged by Esais Beachsand,
former Sexton,” while a man employed as an “alehouse keeper” has taken
it upon himself to judge “Professor Madvig’s Latin Grammar from a Com-
munistic Point of View.” In order that readers not get tired out from too
much high culture, there is a column titled “Criticism and Taste” where
the journal’s own reporter provides animated reportage on yesterday’s exe-
cution of two murderers out on Amager, where “a sizable, respectable, and
cultivated audience” turned out: “Even though the weather was by no
means favorable, the happiest and most dutiful mood was everywhere in
evidence. That worthy artiste, Mr. Madsen, Copenhagen Executioner,
managed his demanding task with unusual virtuosity and bravura.” Indeed,
the public was so delighted with the beheadings that they wanted an encore,
a request that Executioner Madsen, however, was unable to satisfy. Nor is
there any neglect of the theater, specifically the Italian opera, concerning
which the following could be reported: “In the parquet there were ninety-
three persons and five children; thirty-five of these were of the male sex
and fifty-eight of the female sex. In the parterre there were sixty persons,
none of the female sex. In the loges there were two hundred thirty persons,
who were distributed as follows. (To be continued)” Other sections make
for less demanding reading. Thus “The Battle on the Common between
the Crows and the Gulls” is very quickly read, since A.B.C.D.E.F. Good-
hope never got further than the headline. There is an unusual liveliness
in “The Pastime of Battling the Wind,” in which an experienced master
generously dispenses useful tips: “I have for this purpose a large umbrella
with a strong shank. Now I will go out to one of the stormiest places, open
the umbrella, and hold it in front of me, into the wind, just as with bayonet