Søren Aabye Kierkegaard
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SØREN AABYE KIERKEGAARD If only Thoreau could have been Kierkegaard’s, rather than Emerson’s, handyman! HDT WHAT? INDEX SØREN AABYE KIERKEGAARD SØREN AABYE KIERKEGAARD 1813 May 5, Wednesday: Søren Aabye Kierkegaard was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 4th day 5th of 5 M 1813 / How has blindness & superstition been foster’d in the minds of the Weak & credulous of allmost all Ages of the World I have listened with attention to several Anecdotes related by my Mother at breakfast table this Morning. she said that just before the Lexington fight in the revolutionary War Aun Molly Wanton went to Hanover in Mass State to visit Aunt Joselin & while there the country was in an Alarm with a remarkable Phanonmenon lately appear’d in —— garden who lived in the neighborhood the Phenomen was Red Cabage a thing never seen nor heard of before in that Part of the country. The Opinions of many old men & women were taken on the subject who all agreed that it was ominous & presaged Blood in great effusion. one morning in came a neighbour with the Awful story of “Have you heard what has been seen in neighbor — garden?” the answer was No. The story was told, & Aunt Molly heard it with attention & reply’d why my father has the seed of red Cabage & plants them every year they are much used at R I as Pickle. This greatly abated the horror attendant on Many minds, but she said they seemed Allmost sure it could not be admitted as a very extrordinary affair. — She also related a story which her Grandmother used to tell soon after the first settlement of this Country before the lands were much cleared Mushrooms were not seen as at this Day at which time a large cap with a remarkable Prominance were fashionable among the Women about that time Mushrooms first appeard which so affrighted them that those caps soon went out of fashon, from the notion that Mushrooms looked like them & were sent as a warning of some hevy judgement soon to await the inhabitants of this country. This has Also been the day of the General Election & much stir as usual & great flocks of Children Passing the Streets — My mind has been on a low key from a sense of the depressed state of things in the World & what they may reduce me & every body else besides me in this town in Particular. Surely things never was more gloomy. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX SØREN AABYE KIERKEGAARD SØREN AABYE KIERKEGAARD 1838 May 19, Saturday:At 10:30AM in Copenhagen, Søren Aabye Kierkegaard had a mystical experience (his great earthquake den store Jordrystelse experience). In Concord, the news in the Yeoman’s Gazette was of the Reverend R. Waldo Emerson and the Cherokee and President of the United States Martin Van Buren:Governor Ellsworth of Connecticut wrote from New Haven MARTIN VAN BUREN to A.F. Williams: MY DEAR SIR,— Just before I left home, I received from you the Journal of Thome and Kimball, for which token of friendship I intended to have HDT WHAT? INDEX SØREN AABYE KIERKEGAARD SØREN AABYE KIERKEGAARD made you my acknowledgments before this; but I wished first to read the book. As far as time would permit, I have gone over most of its pages; and let me assure you, it is justly calculated to produce great effects, provided you can once get it into the hands of the planters. Convince them that their interests, as well as their security, will be advanced by employing free blacks, and emancipation will be accomplished without difficulty or delay. I have looked with great interest at the startling measure of emancipation in Antigua; but if this book is correct, the question is settled as to that island beyond a doubt, since there is such accumulated testimony from all classes, that the business and real estate of the island have advanced, by reason of the emancipation, one fourth, at least, in value; while personal security, without military force, is felt by the former masters, and contentment, industry, and gratitude, are seen in those who were slaves. The great moral example of England, in abolishing slavery in the West Indies, will produce a revolution on this subject throughout the world, and put down slavery in every Christian country. With sentiments of high esteem, &c, W. W. ELLSWORTH. HDT WHAT? INDEX SØREN AABYE KIERKEGAARD SØREN AABYE KIERKEGAARD 1840 Søren Aabye Kierkegaard took his masters degree at the University of Copenhagen. HDT WHAT? INDEX SØREN AABYE KIERKEGAARD SØREN AABYE KIERKEGAARD 1843 The 30-year-old philosopher Søren Aabye Kierkegaard, in agony, broke off his engagement to Regine Olsen. (Had Ellen Devereux Sewall accepted him, would Henry Thoreau, in agony, have broken off the engagement?) Although Thoreau had no awareness of them, during this period Kierkegaard’s EUTEN-ELLER (EITHER/OR: AFRAGMENT OF LIFE), his FEAR AND TREMBLING, and his REPETITION were being self-published in Danish. HDT WHAT? INDEX SØREN AABYE KIERKEGAARD SØREN AABYE KIERKEGAARD 1844 Although Henry Thoreau had no awareness of them, Søren Aabye Kierkegaard self-published PHILOSOPHICAL FRAGMENTS and THE CONCEPT OF DREAD in Danish. Although Henry James, Sr. likewise had no awareness of the writings of Kierkegaard, he had a life-altering experience which he described as “insane and abject terror.” —So, would this dread have been something which came over him before or after Thoreau’s visit at his home in Greenwich Village on Manhattan Island? HDT WHAT? INDEX SØREN AABYE KIERKEGAARD SØREN AABYE KIERKEGAARD 1845 Although Henry Thoreau had no awareness of it, Søren Aabye Kierkegaard was self-publishing STAGES ON LIFE’S WAY in Danish. HDT WHAT? INDEX SØREN AABYE KIERKEGAARD SØREN AABYE KIERKEGAARD 1846 Although Henry Thoreau had no awareness of this, Søren Aabye Kierkegaard was self-publishing CONCLUDING UNSCIENTIFIC POSTSCRIPT TO THE PHILOSOPHICAL FRAGMENTS. A MIMETIC-PATHETIC- DIALECTIC COMPOSITION, and AN EXISTENTIAL CONTRIBUTION, in Danish. HDT WHAT? INDEX SØREN AABYE KIERKEGAARD SØREN AABYE KIERKEGAARD 1847 Although Henry Thoreau had no awareness of this, Søren Aabye Kierkegaard was self-publishing EDIFYING DISCOURSES IN DIVERS SPIRITS and WORKS OF LOVE, in Danish. HDT WHAT? INDEX SØREN AABYE KIERKEGAARD SØREN AABYE KIERKEGAARD 1848 Although Henry Thoreau had no awareness of this, Søren Aabye Kierkegaard was self-publishing CHRISTIAN DISCOURSES, in Danish. HDT WHAT? INDEX SØREN AABYE KIERKEGAARD SØREN AABYE KIERKEGAARD 1849 Although Henry Thoreau had no awareness of this, Søren Aabye Kierkegaard was self-publishing THE SICKNESS UNTO DEATH, in Danish. HDT WHAT? INDEX SØREN AABYE KIERKEGAARD SØREN AABYE KIERKEGAARD 1850 Although Henry Thoreau had no awareness of this, Søren Aabye Kierkegaard was self-publishing TRAINING IN CHRISTIANITY, in Danish. What if Thoreau had had a chance to read the following? Force ought never be used; this is the mind of Christianity. Instead one ought to endure injustice and suffering, witnessing to the truth until the other party cannot hold out in doing wrong and voluntarily gives up doing it. This suffering battle also has a paralyzing effect. Just as a hypnotist puts his subject to sleep, and one limb after another loses its vitality, so suffering endurance paralyzes injustice; no evil can hold out against it. But the fact is that this method is slow; there is an apparently great short-cut which completely satisfies the impatient secular mind, which only all too often is itself in league with injustice: the use of force. Perpetuating injustice and in hasty impatience to want to protect oneself through force against injustice -- these are essentially the same secular-mindedness and essentially the same injustice; at best there is an entirely accidental difference, that the suffering party actually lacks an opportunity to commit injustice. (Journals and Papers, Volume 2 number 1195) HDT WHAT? INDEX SØREN AABYE KIERKEGAARD SØREN AABYE KIERKEGAARD 1855 November 11, Sunday: Cora Pond Thayer was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, a daughter of Eli Thayer and Caroline Maria Capron Thayer. In Copenhagen, Denmark, Søren Aabye Kierkegaard died of “excess of the spirit”: The crowd is the lie. Per James and John Haun’s diary of working their claims in and around Quincy, Nelson Point, and Rabbit Creek (La Porte), California, their labors of this day resulted in gold worth $13: “The ground was again white with snow. I built a good fire and went down to the ditch and washed, standing with my bare feet on the snow. It froze. I then read the 12th and 13th chapters of the Acts. We put in our time till noon splitting wood. In the P.M. John quick-silvered the contents of a sand bottle and got gold $13. I and Jack went down to the Point. Cloudy all day.” Major Jefferson Buford called for fellow southerners to sign up for a colonization effort to ensure that the Kansas Territory, when it eventually entered the federal union, would do so as an additional slave state. He offered free transportation, a homestead of 40 acres of 1st-rate land, and provisions for the 1st year. “Buford’s Expedition” would be made up of some 400 proslavery men for the most part from Alabama, South Carolina, and Georgia. THE 2D GREAT AMERICAN DISUNION Nov. 11th — 55 [Transcript] P. m. Up Assabet — As long as the sun is out it is warm & pleasant — The water is smooth — I see the reflections, not only of the wool- grass, but the bare buttonbush — with its brown balls beginning to crumble & show the lighter inside — and the brittle light brown twigs of the black willow — & the coarse rustling sedge — now completely withered — (& hear it pleasantly whispering) & the brown & yellowish sparganium blades curving over like well tempered steel — & the gray cottony mikania.