Soren Kierkegaard

expressed amazement at how “piety could command silence about the living
and allow speech about the dead.” On December 23,Kjøbenhavnspostencar-
ried an anonymous poem, and the next day—Christmas Eve—the same
paper carried an article in which a certain “æsculap” [Danish for Asclepius,
the ancient Gree kgod of medicine and healing] asserted that Kier kegaard,
who had started out as an “original,” was now lacking “all but three of the
letters” in that word—that is, that Kierkegaard had now becomegal[Danish:
“insane”; “original” is the same in Danish and English]. It is quite under-
standable that in his journals the target of this attac ksuggested thatKjøben-
havnspostenchange its name to “stuff and nonsense.”
Madness became a theme on which variations were to be played for the
next half-year. Thus, at one point Kierkegaard was counseled to take “a
restorative journey twenty-eight miles outside the city”; this was the dis-
tance to Sankt Hans, a well-known insane asylum. On December 27, some-
one named “J. L. from Nørrebro” published a piece inFlyve-Postenin which
he cited lengthy passages from Kierkegaard’sFædrelandetarticle, supposedly
in order to reveal what he called the “Kierkegaardian comedy-pathos.” In
his “offensive article” against Martensen, Kierkegaard had unconsciously
revealed his “innermost, basic character.” It was indisputable that Kierkeg-
aard possessed both “great gifts” and “a wealth of cultivation,” but he was
totally lacking in one thing: “seriousness.” J. L. continued: “And this is why
everything he has went into his virtuosity as a writer. Mr. Kierkegaard is a
peerlessly stimulating, brilliant author, with a sparkling artistic style that is
capable of aesthetic, philosophical, and theological wor ksuch as has never
been known before,” but despite all this, the frightful result is and remains
that “Mr. Kierkegaard is the man lacking in seriousness.” It is not known
with certainty who was concealed behind the initials “J. L.,” but since he
seemed to know Kierkegaard personally and based his criticism in part on
philological observations, there is much that indicates that it was Israel
Levin, Kierkegaard’s former secretary [in nineteenth-century Danish, the
letters “J” and “I” were often used interchangeably], who now had a chance
to avenge himself on the employer he had come to hate. Naturally, Kier-
kegaard could not take notice of such cutups and their caprices: “So people
will understand that I cannot pay attention to what every anonymous per-
son, every ‘æsculap,’... publishes in a newspaper, or to what a serious man
from Nørrebro, invoking the seriousness ofFlyve-Posten, informs people
about my lac kof seriousness.”
One of the somewhat greater spirits to get involved was Rasmus Nielsen,
who paid Martensen a nocturnal visit, counseling him to offer Kierkegaard
the requisite admission, or “concession,” as Nielsen called it. At the end of
a letter he had begun on December 15 (though it was apparently concluded