1850
Eight Ways Not to Say Good-Bye
After the summer’s exchange of letters with Rasmus Nielsen, the remainder
of 1849 settled back into the regular ritual of Thursday strolls, but on Janu-
ary 17, 1850, the professor had to beg off, “seeing as and inasmuch as it has
pleased an esteemed head cold to dictate that I be placed under several
days’ house arrest.” On February 22 Nielsen was again unable to walk with
Kierkegaard, though this time he did not indicate a reason, just as (“embar-
rassingly enough!”) he had to miss their walk on April 4. On Thursday,
April 11, they were able to take their stroll, however.
It was not a very pleasant walk. Kierkegaard said quite bluntly that in his
opinion Nielsen’s three most recent books had been written more for the
sake of attracting attention to their author than for any reason connected
with their subject matter. Furthermore, Kierkegaard continued, Nielsen’s
polemic against Martensen was a blunder that was in no way connected
with Kierkegaard’s cause but rather was rooted in Nielsen’s personal dis-
agreements with his university colleague, the professor of theology, who to
Nielsen’s dismay had snatched away the membership in the Scientific Soci-
ety that ought to have gone to him. And finally, Nielsen was told that his
plagiarizingofKierkegaardhadreachedthepointofembarrassment;indeed,
even the conversations they had had over the years had made their way
directly into print. Nielsen protested and said that Kierkegaard was being
unfair to him; Kierkegaard merely replied that if that were the case, he was
not the worst person to be treated unfairly by. This did not make matters
much better: “He became somewhat angry, or, rather, testy. But I changed
course and spoke of other things and we strolled homein bona caritate.”
The following week, on April 18, Kierkegaard had planned to discuss
the subject further during their walk, but only if Nielsen was “willing to
listen to reason and accept the truth” and would “do something for the
cause as a reviewer and that sort of thing” while refraining from producing
any more of those weighty tomes. Just when Nielsen was supposed to have
turned up for their walk, a messenger arrived with a note for Kierkegaard:
“Dear Mr. Magister! First of all, owing to circumstances, I must give up642