Soren Kierkegaard

sweep him away: “This is actually how I am treated in Copenhagen. I am
regarded as a kind of Englishman, a half-mad eccentric, whom every
damned one of us, from the most aristocratic to guttersnipes, imagines he
can have a bit of fun with. My work as an author, that enormous productiv-
ity, the intensity of which, it seems to me, could move stones, the individual
segments of which (not to mention the totality) not one living writer can
compete with: This writing is regarded as a sort of hobby, like fishing and
that sort of thing.... I am not supported by a single word in reviews and
such. I am plundered by small-time prophets in foolish lectures at religious
meetings and the like. But mention me by name? No, that isn’t necessary.”
This fury, which however is not without a bit of mirth, was occasioned
by situations Kierkegaard repeatedly referred to in his later journal entries.
Thenumberof these entries, and theenergywith which Kierkegaard dealt
with the same themes over and over again, are in themselves so overwhelm-
ing that it is difficult to free ourselves of the suspicion that the preoccupation
with painful situations, which had started out as therapeutic activity, had
ended up in sheer auto-suggestion. It would be very helpful if we could
hear Kierkegaard read this particular journal entry in hisown voice, whose
emphasis and rhythm would invest the lines with invaluable interpretive
information. Without that voice, these unvarnished reactions often seem to
be entirely out of proportion. Thus, a stupid little bit of teasing in the March
6, 1846, issue ofThe Corsairto the effect that Kierkegaard did not deign to
remove his hat for anyone—an allusion to a charming dialectical twist in
the preface to thePostscript—made Kierkegaard flash with fury: “But that is
an enormous and disgusting bit of crudity. A little remark by a pseudony-
mous figure (the remark by Climacus about removing his hat), a little hu-
morous remark by a humorist (and excellent in itself) in the preface of an
enormous book, which only a very few people know exists: This remark is
torn out of context and is printed in a journal for the riffraff (which is read
by the entire population, because in Denmark everyone is riffraff, which is
of course proved by the fact that everyone reads the journal for the riffraff),
and it is made to look as if it were me (S. Kierkegaard) who had uttered
these words, and that I had spoken them to the actual inhabitants of Copen-
hagen. This is written for every brewer, bartender, bricklayer, et cetera, et
cetera, for schoolboys, et cetera, et cetera. And to make sure that they will
all be able to recognize me, a drawing is provided. And now everyone is
inflamed against me—because out of pride I refused to remove my hat for
them.Pro dii immortales. It is certain that a country in which this can happen
is no country; it is a provincial town, a demoralized provincial town.—
Even today (two years later) a man refers to the fact that I said this in the
preface to a book (which, naturally, he has never read).”