Julius Lange

leaped to the reinforcement of the harrowing religious impressions which came to me from without It was not the attitude of my friends that impressed me.

All my more intimate friends were orthodox Christians, but the attempts which various ones, amongst them Julius Lange and Jens Polludenmuller, had made to convert me had glanced off from my much more advanced thought, without making any impression.

I was made of much harder metal than they, and their attempts to alter my way of thinking did not penetrate beyond my hind.

to set my mind in vibration there was needed a brain that i felt superior to my own and i did not find it in them i found it in the philosophical and religious writings of sir and kirkagore in such works for instance as sickness unto death the struggle within me began faintly as i approached my nineteenth year my point of departure was this one thing seemed to me requisite to live in and for the idea as the expression for the highest at that time was all that rose up inimical to the idea or ideal merited to be lashed with scorn or felled with indignation and one day as i penned this outburst heine wept over don quixote yes he was right i could weep tears of blood when i think of the book but the first thing needed was to acquire a clear conception of what must be understood by the ideal heiberg had regarded the uneducated as those devoid of ideals but i was quite sure myself that education afforded no criterion and i could find no other criterion of devotion to the ideal than a willingness to make sacrifices if i said i prove myself less self-sacrificing than any one of the wretches i am fighting i shall myself incur well-merited scorn but if self-sacrifice were the criterion then jesus according to the teachings of tradition was the ideal for who was as self-sacrificing as he this was an inclined plane leading to the christian spiritual life and a year later when i was nearly twenty i had proceeded so far on this plane that i felt myself in all essentials in agreement with the christian mode of feeling inasmuch as my life was ascetic and my searching striving incessantly working mind not only found repose but rapture in prayer and was elated and fired at the idea of being protected and helped by god but just as i was about to complete my twentieth year the storm broke out over again and during the whole of the ensuing six months raged with unintermittent violence was i at this stage of my development a christian or not and if not was it my duty to become a christian the first thought that arose was this it is a great effort a constant effort sometimes a minutely recurring effort to attain moral mastery over one's self and though this certainly need not bring with it a feeling of self-satisfaction much less ought to do so it does bring with it a recognition of the value of this self-mastery how strange then that christianity which commands its attainment at the same time declares it to be a matter of indifference to the revealed god whether a man has lived morally or not since faith or lack of faith is the one condition upon which so-called salvation depends the next thought was this it is only in the writings of kierkegaard in his teachings concerning paradox that christianity appears so definite that it cannot be confused with any other spiritual trend whatever but when one has to make one's choice between pantheism and christianity then the question arises are kierkegaard's teachings really historic christianity and not rather a rational adaptation and this question must be answered in the negative since it is possible to assimilate it without touching upon the question of the revelation of the holy ghost in the shape of a duck to the voice from the clouds and the whole string of miracles and dogmas the next thought again was this pantheism does not place any one unconditional goal in front of man the unbeliever passes his life interested in the many aims that man as man has the pantheist will therefore have difficulty in living a perfect ethical life there are many cases in which by deviating from the strictly ethical code you do not harm anyone you only injure your own soul the non-believer will in this case only hardly for the sake of impersonal truth make up his mind to the step which the god-fearing man will take accentuated by his passionate fear of offending god thus i was tossed backwards and forwards in my reflections What I dreaded most was that if I reached a recognition of the truth, a lack of courage would prevent me decisively making it my own.

dormant in the mind of the individual leaped to the reinforcement of the harrowing religious impressions which came to me from without It was not the attitude of my friends that impressed me.

All my more intimate friends were orthodox Christians, but the attempts which various ones, amongst them Julius Lange and Jens Polludenmuller, had made to convert me had glanced off from my much more advanced thought, without making any impression.

I was made of much harder metal than they, and their attempts to alter my way of thinking did not penetrate beyond my hind.

to set my mind in vibration there was needed a brain that i felt superior to my own and i did not find it in them i found it in the philosophical and religious writings of cern kirkagort in such works for instance as sickness unto death the struggle within me began faintly as i approached my nineteenth year my point of departure was this one thing seemed to me requisite to live in and for the idea as the expression for the highest at that time was all that rose up inimical to the idea or ideal merited to be lashed with scorn or felled with indignation and one day as i penned this outburst heine wept over don quixote yes he was right i could weep tears of blood when i think of the book but the first thing needed was to acquire a clear conception of what must be understood by the ideal heiberg had regarded the uneducated as those devoid of ideals but i was quite sure myself that education afforded no criterion and i could find no other criterion of devotion to the ideal than a willingness to make sacrifices if i said i prove myself less self-sacrificing than any one of the wretches i am fighting i shall myself incur well-merited scorn but if self-sacrifice were the criterion then jesus according to the teachings of tradition was the ideal for who was as self-sacrificing as he This was an inclined plane leading to the Christian spiritual life, and a year later, when I was nearly twenty, I had proceeded so far on this plane that I felt myself in all essentials in agreement with the Christian mode of feeling, inasmuch as my life was ascetic and my searching, striving, incessantly working mind not only found repose but rapture in prayer.

under the influence of strong emotion i wrote an edifying discourse the profitable fear i began to regard it as my duty so soon as i was fitted for it to go out into the town and preach at every street corner regardless of whether a lay preacher like myself should encounter indifference or harvest scorn this course attracted me because it presented itself to me under the guise of the most difficult thing and with the perversity of youth i thought difficulty the only criterion of duty i only needed to hit upon something which seemed to me to be the right thing and then say to myself you dare not do it for all the youthful strength and daring that was in me all my deeper feelings of honor and of pride all my love of grappling with the apparently insurmountable to unite and in face of this you dare not satisfy myself that i did dare as provisionally self-abnegation humility and asceticism seemed to me to be the most difficult things for a time my whole spiritual life was concentrated into an endeavor to attain them just at this time i was nineteen my family was in a rather difficult pecuniary position and i quite a poor student was cast upon my own resources i had consequently not much of this world's goods to renounce from a comfortable residence in crown prince's street my appearance had moved to a more modest flat in the exceedingly unaristocratic solomon street where i had an attic of limited dimensions with outlook over roofs by day and a view of the stars by night quiet the nights were not inasmuch as the neighboring houses re-echoed with screams and shrieks from poor women whom their late returning husbands or lovers thrashed in their cups but never had i felt myself so raised so exhilarated so blissfully happy as in that room my days slipped by in ecstasy i felt myself consecrated a combatant in the service of the highest i used to test my body in order to get it wholly under my control ate as little as possible slept as little as possible lay many a night outside my bed on the bare floor gradually to make myself as hardy as i required to be i tried to crush the youthful sensuality that was awakening in me and by degrees acquired complete mastery over myself so that i could be what i wished to be a strong and willing instrument in the fight for the victory of truth and i plunged afresh into the study with a passion and a delight that prevented my perceiving any lack but month after month carried me along increasing in knowledge and in mental power growing from day to day seventeen this frame of mind however was crossed by another the religious transformation in my mind could not remain clear and unmoddy placed as i was in a society furrowed through and through by different religious currents issued as i was from the european races that for thousands of years had been ploughed by religious ideas all the atavism all the spectral repetition of the thoughts and ideas of the past that can lie dormant in the mind of the individual leaped to the reinforcement of the harrowing religious impressions which came to me from without It was not the attitude of my friends that impressed me.

All my more intimate friends were orthodox Christians, but the attempts which various ones, amongst them Julius Lange and Jens Polludenmuller, had made to convert me had glanced off from my much more advanced thought, without making any impression.

I was made of much harder metal than they, and their attempts to alter my way of thinking did not penetrate beyond my hide.

to set my mind in vibration there was needed a brain that i felt superior to my own and i did not find it in them i found it in the philosophical and religious writings of sir and kirkagore in such works for instance as sickness unto death the struggle within me began faintly as i approached my nineteenth year my point of departure was this one thing seemed to me requisite to live in and for the idea as the expression for the highest at that time was all that rose up inimical to the idea or ideal merited to be lashed with scorn or felled with indignation and one day as i penned this outburst heine wept over don quixote yes he was right i could weep tears of blood when i think of the book but the first thing needed was to acquire a clear conception of what must be understood by the ideal heiberg had regarded the uneducated as those devoid of ideals but i was quite sure myself that education afforded no criterion and i could find no other criterion of devotion to the ideal than a willingness to make sacrifices if i said i prove myself less self-sacrificing than any one of the wretches i am fighting i shall myself incur well-merited scorn but if self-sacrifice were the criterion then jesus according to the teachings of tradition was the ideal for who was as self-sacrificing as he This was an inclined plane leading to the Christian spiritual life, and a year later, when I was nearly twenty, I had proceeded so far on this plane that I felt myself in all essentials in agreement with the Christian mode of feeling, inasmuch as my life was ascetic and my searching, striving, incessantly working mind not only found repose but rapture in prayer.

leaped to the reinforcement of the harrowing religious impressions which came to me from without It was not the attitude of my friends that impressed me.

All my more intimate friends were orthodox Christians, but the attempts which various ones, amongst them Julius Lange and Jens Polludenmuller, had made to convert me had glanced off from my much more advanced thought, without making any impression.

I was made of much harder metal than they, and their attempts to alter my way of thinking did not penetrate beyond my hind.

to set my mind in vibration there was needed a brain that i felt superior to my own and i did not find it in them i found it in the philosophical and religious writings of sir and kirkagore in such works for instance as sickness unto death the struggle within me began faintly as i approached my nineteenth year my point of departure was this one thing seemed to me requisite to live in and for the idea as the expression for the highest at that time was all that rose up inimical to the idea or ideal merited to be lashed with scorn or felled with indignation and one day as i penned this outburst heine wept over don quixote yes he was right i could weep tears of blood when i think of the book but the first thing needed was to acquire a clear conception of what must be understood by the ideal heiberg had regarded the uneducated as those devoid of ideals but i was quite sure myself that education afforded no criterion and i could find no other criterion of devotion to the ideal than a willingness to make sacrifices if i said i prove myself less self-sacrificing than any one of the wretches i am fighting i shall myself incur well-merited scorn but if self-sacrifice were the criterion then jesus according to the teachings of tradition was the ideal for who was as self-sacrificing as he This was an inclined plane leading to the Christian spiritual life, and a year later, when I was nearly twenty, I had proceeded so far on this plane that I felt myself in all essentials in agreement with the Christian mode of feeling, inasmuch as my life was ascetic and my searching, striving, incessantly working mind not only found repose but rapture in prayer.

under the influence of strong emotion i wrote an edifying discourse the profitable fear i began to regard it as my duty so soon as i was fitted for it to go out into the town and preach at every street corner regardless of whether a lay preacher like myself should encounter indifference or harvest scorn this course attracted me because it presented itself to me under the guise of the most difficult thing and with the perversity of youth i thought difficulty the only criterion of duty i only needed to hit upon something which seemed to me to be the right thing and then say to myself you dare not do it for all the youthful strength and daring that was in me all my deeper feelings of honor and of pride all my love of grappling with the apparently insurmountable to unite and in face of this you dare not satisfy myself that i did dare as provisionally self-abnegation humility and asceticism seemed to me to be the most difficult things for a time my whole spiritual life was concentrated into an endeavor to attain them just at this time i was nineteen my family was in a rather difficult pecuniary position and i a poor student was cast upon my own resources i had consequently not much of this world's goods to renounce from a comfortable residence in crown prince's street my appearance had moved to a more modest flat in the exceedingly unaristocratic solomon street where i had an attic of limited dimensions with outlook over roofs by day and a view of the stars by night quiet the nights were not inasmuch as the neighboring houses re-echoed with screams and shrieks from poor women whom their late returning husbands or lovers thrashed in their cups but never had i felt myself so raised so exhilarated so blissfully happy as in that room my days slipped by in ecstasy i felt myself consecrated a combatant in the service of the highest i used to test my body in order to get it wholly under my control ate as little as possible slept as little as possible lay many a night outside my bed on the bare floor gradually to make myself as hardy as i required to be i tried to crush the youthful sensuality that was awakening in me and by degrees acquired complete mastery over myself so that i could be what i wished to be a strong and willing instrument in the fight for the victory of truth and i plunged afresh into the study with a passion and a delight that prevented my perceiving any lack but month after month carried me along increasing in knowledge and in mental power growing from day to day seventeen this frame of mind however was crossed by another the religious transformation in my mind could not remain clear and unmoddy placed as i was in a society furrowed through and through by different religious currents issued as i was from the european races that for thousands of years had been ploughed by religious ideas all the atavism all the spectral repetition of the thoughts and ideas of the past that can lie dormant in the mind of the individual leaped to the reinforcement of the harrowing religious impressions which came to me from without It was not the attitude of my friends that impressed me.

All my more intimate friends were orthodox Christians, but the attempts which various ones, amongst them Julius Lange and Jens Polludenmuller, had made to convert me had glanced off from my much more advanced thought, without making any impression.

I was made of much harder metal than they, and their attempts to alter my way of thinking did not penetrate beyond my hind.

to set my mind in vibration there was needed a brain that i felt superior to my own and i did not find it in them i found it in the philosophical and religious writings of sir and kirkagore in such works for instance as sickness unto death the struggle within me began faintly as i approached my nineteenth year my point of departure was this one thing seemed to me requisite to live in and for the idea as the expression for the highest at that time was all that rose up inimical to the idea or ideal merited to be lashed with scorn or felled with indignation and one day as i penned this outburst heine wept over don quixote yes he was right i could weep tears of blood when i think of the book but the first thing needed was to acquire a clear conception of what must be understood by the ideal heiberg had regarded the uneducated as those devoid of ideals but i was quite sure myself that education afforded no criterion and i could find no other criterion of devotion to the ideal than a willingness to make sacrifices if i said i prove myself less self-sacrificing than any one of the wretches i am fighting i shall myself incur well-merited scorn but if self-sacrifice were the criterion then jesus according to the teachings of tradition was the ideal for who was as self-sacrificing as he this was

Frederick Nutshorn read the Edda and the Nibelungenlied with me in the originals.

With Jens Poldemulier I went through the New Testament in Greek, and with Julius Lange, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Pindar, Horace and Ovid, and a little of Aristotle and Theocritus.

Catullus, Martial, and Caesar I read for myself.

But I did not find any positive inspiration in my studies until I approached my nineteenth year.

All the atavism, all the spectral repetition of the thoughts and ideas of the past that can lie dormant in the mind of the individual, leaped to the reinforcement of the harrowing religious impressions which came to me from without.

It was not the attitude of my friends that impressed me.

All my more intimate friends were orthodox Christians, but the attempts which various ones, amongst them Julius Lange and Jens Poludun Muller, had made to convert me had glanced off from my much more advanced thought without making any impression.

I was made of much harder metal than they, and their attempts to alter my way of thinking did not penetrate beyond my hide.

Frederick Nutsorn read the Edda and the Nibelungenlied with me in the originals.

With Jens Poldemulier I went through the New Testament in Greek, and with Julius Lange, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Pindar, Horace and Ovid, and a little of Aristotle and Theocritus.

Catullus, Marshall and Caesar I read for myself.

But I did not find any positive inspiration in my studies until I approached my nineteenth year.

All the atavism, all the spectral repetition of the thoughts and ideas of the past that can lie dormant in the mind of the individual leaped to the reinforcement of the harrowing religious impressions which came to me from without.

It was not the attitude of my friends that impressed me.

All my more intimate friends were orthodox Christians, but the attempts which various ones, amongst them Julius Lange and Jens Poludun Muller, had made to convert me had glanced off from my much more advanced thought without making any impression.

I was made of much harder metal than they, and their attempts to alter my way of thinking did not penetrate beyond my hide.