Soren Kierkegaard

the conservatives and the liberals but was clearly to the left of both groups.
And from that vantage point it soon spread fear and dread with reckless
attacks that brought it into constant conflict with the censors. Various police
chiefs, primarily Reiersen, a well-known figure of the day, were kept busy
pronouncing judgments and meting out jail time that was served by the
various straw-man editors whose names appeared on the front page in rapid
succession. A fellow named Lind, a rather alcoholic ex-greengrocer, who
could probably neither read nor write, served as editor of the first three
issues. Next came Buch, a wretched old sailor, whom Goldschmidt had met
by chance one evening on Højbro; for a few kind words and a bit of money
he assumed the post of editor. And so on. In the course of the first six
months,The Corsairhad no fewer than six straw editors of this sort, while
the name of the actual editor, Goldschmidt, was glaringly absent for the first
three years of the journal’s existence, appearing only in issue no. 161, when
his name appeared at the bottom of the back page, where he was merely
listed as the paper’s publisher. So when Kierkegaard subsequently referred
to “an editorial staff of scoundrels” he was not so far off the mark.
The changing editors led to spicy (and circulation-increasing) rumors
about a committee consisting of fifteen university students, sworn to se-
crecy, who held clandestine editorial meetings at various places around
town. The truth, however, was nearer the opposite of this. For when Lind
was sentenced to jail on bread and water, Chievitz, Bisserup, and Mahler
had such serious misgivings that they completely forgot about their revolu-
tionary tendencies. They withdrew from the paper, leaving Goldschmidt
to deal with both kinds of sentences, the judicial and the journalistic, from
then on. Quite literally. As a result of the so-called greatCorsaircase of
1842, Goldschmidt was sentenced to twenty-four days’ imprisonment plus
a fine of two hundred rixdollars, and was furthermore to be subjected to
lifelong prior censorship. All these difficulties only strengthened Gold-
schmidt, however, and starting with issue number 95 he signaled his rebel-
lious stubbornness by ornamenting the front page ofThe Corsairwith a pirate
ship sporting the tricolor, the Jolly Roger, and a fluttering stern pennant
bearing the slogan of the French Revolution—“C ̧a ira, c ̧a ira!”—a motto
chosen with care, which roughly translates as “Things will surely succeed!”
IfThe Corsairslipped past “Cape Reiersen,” it came out every Friday in
a press run of three thousand. It was available at all booksellers in Denmark,
Sweden, and Norway, and for only five marks every three months a person
could have the time of his life—until it was his turn to be ridiculed in its
satirical columns. This happened, for example, to J. L. Heiberg, who eigh-
teen years before his death had the opportunity to read his own obituary,
where it was stated with great emotion that his reign as the supreme judge