Soren Kierkegaard

Andersen, whose biography Møller included in hisDanish Pantheonand
whose fairy tales he defended against Heiberg and Heiberg’s gossipy, deni-
grating consortium, or “the family,” as Møller called that clique in his corre-
spondence with Andersen. It was certainly understandable that the two lit-
erary parvenus, Møller and Andersen, would be allies in the battle against
the intellectually snobby Heibergians, who had rebuffed their uncultivated
advances early on. And of course the circumstance that Møller was also a
supporter of Scandinavian nationalism and had been an enthusiastic attendee
at Grundtvig’s 1838 lecture series “The Memory of Man” only caused “the
family” to wrinkle its collective nose even more.
Nor was Møller’s record exactly a spotless one. He had a remarkably
flexible notion of the truth. For example, Møller had written an unusually
nasty piece about H. P. Holst inThe Corsair, but when Holst ran into Møller
on the street and complained about it, Møller flatly denied having had any-
thing whatever to do with the matter and told Holst that Goldschmidt could
corroborate his innocence. Møller then rushed over to Goldschmidt and
asked him to lie to Holst if the latter were to pay a visit to the editorial
offices. Goldschmidt tried to get out of it, but he could have spared himself
the trouble, not because Holst failed to show up but also because a bit later
Møller sent Holst a letter in which—in Goldschmidt’s words—“in a bitter
and gloating fashion, portraying himself as an embattled proletarian in con-
trast to Holst’s more fortunate social position, [Møller] acknowledged hav-
ing written the article.” Heiberg was subjected to similar treatment. When
he and his wife spent the summer of 1842 at Bakkehus, their suburban
residence in Frederiksberg, Møller dropped by uninvited to offer his assur-
ance that the anonymously authored critical articles against Heiberg that
someone was attributing to Møller had absolutely not been written by him.
Heiberg brushed off the whole matter, but Møller repeatedly protested his
innocence, proclaiming in the most flattering terms how much he respected
Heiberg, both as an author and as a person. And then, indeed, “Six months
later this same P. L. Møller declared that the articles had been written by
him.” Hans Christian Andersen, who defended Møller to the last, related
what he had once heard Mrs. Gyllembourg, Heiberg’s mother, exclaim:
“What sort of a dreadful person is this Møller, who dares to go around
attacking my Ludvig!”—whereupon all the Heibergian fellow travelers
went around saying exactly the same thing. In 1843 Møller vainly attempted
to improve his reputation by publishing a little periodical entitledArenain
which he lashed out at the “rag merchants” of the day, as he called Heiberg
and company.
What was worst of all, however, were the rumors, including one that
was truly bizarre. Møller was not only abel espritwho sang the praises of