He had, however, a severe struggle with his conscience, for his father had exacted a promise from him not to write for the stage till he had passed his examination. It was, therefore, an act of deceit to take help from his father and not to fulfil the conditions on which it was granted. But he silenced his scruples by saying to himself, "Father will be pleased enough if I have a speedy and great success." In that he was not far wrong.
But another element now entered into his life, and had a decided influence both on his views of things and his work. This was his acquaintance with two men,—an author and a remarkable personality. Unfortunately they were both abnormal and therefore had only a disturbing effect upon his development.
The author was Kierkegaard,[1] whose book, Either—Or, John had borrowed from a member of the Song Club, and read with fear and trembling. His friends had also read it as a work of genius, had admired the style, but not been specialty influenced by it,—a proof that books have little effect, when they do not find readers in sympathy with the author. But upon John the book made the impression intended by the author. He read the first part containing "The Confessions of an Æsthete." He felt sometimes carried away by it, but always had an uncomfortable feeling as though present at a sick-bed. The perusal of the first part left a feeling of emptiness and despair behind it. The book agitated him. "The Diary of a Seducer" he regarded as the fancies of an unclean imagination. Things were not like that in real life. Moreover John was no sybarite, but on the contrary inclined to asceticism and self-torment. Such egotistic sensuality as that of the hero of Kierkegaard's work was absurd because the suffering he caused by the satisfaction of his desires necessarily involved him in suffering and, therefore, defeated his object.
The second part of the work containing the philosopher's "Discourse on Life as a Duty," made a deeper impression on John. It showed him that he himself was an "æsthete" who had conceived of authorship as a form of enjoyment. Kierkegaard said that it should be regarded as a calling. Why? The proof was wanting, and John, who did not know that Kierkegaard was a Christian, but thought the contrary, not having seen his Edifying Discourses, imbibed unaware the Christian system of ethics with its doctrine of self-sacrifice and duty Along with these the idea of sin returned. Enjoyment was a sin, and one had to do one's duty. Why? Was it for the sake of society to which one was under obligations? No! merely because it was duty. That was simply Kant's categorical imperative. When he reached the end of the work Either—Or and found the moral philosopher also in despair, and that all this teaching about duty had only produced a Philistine, he felt broken in two. "Then," he thought, "better be an æsthete." But one cannot be an æsthete if one has been a Christian for five-sixths of one's life, and one cannot be moral without Christ. Thus he was tossed to and fro like a ball between the two, and ended in sheer despair.
Had he now read Kierkegaard's discourses, he might possibly have come a step nearer to Christianity—possibly—for it is difficult to decide that now, but to receive Christianity again seemed to him like replacing a tooth which had been torn out, and joyfully thrown into the fire, along with the accompanying toothache. It was also possible that if he had known that the book Either—Or was intended to scourge one to the Cross he might have thrown it away as a jesuitical writing and been saved from his embarrassment. All that he felt now, however, was a terrible discord. He had to choose and make the jump between ethics and æsthetics, but choose how? and jump whither? He could not jump out in space to embrace a paradox or Christ,—that would have been self-destruction or madness. But Kierkegaard preached madness? Was it the despair of the over-self-conscious at finding himself always self-conscious? Was it the longing of one who sees too deeply for the unconsciousness of intoxication?
John knew well what the battle between his own will and the will of others meant. He had given his father trouble enough when he crossed his plans; but the trouble was mutual; the whole of life consisted of a web of wills crossing one another. The death of one was life-breath to another; no one could gain an advantage without hurting the one he passed by. Life was a perpetual interchange and struggle between pleasure and pain. His sensuality or desire for enjoyment had not injured others nor caused them trouble. He had never seduced the innocent, and had never enjoyed himself without paying the price. He was moral from habit; from instinct, from fear of the consequences, from good taste or from education, but the very fact that he did not feel himself immoral, was a defect and a sin. After reading Either—Or he felt sinful. The categorical imperative stole on him under a Latin name and without a cross on its back, and he let himself be beguiled by it. He did not see that it was a two-thousand-years-old Christianity in disguise.
Kierkegaard would not have made so deep an impression on him, if a number of concurrent circumstances had not contributed to that result. In the letters of the æsthete, Kierkegaard expounded suffering as enjoyment. John suffered from public contumely; he suffered from his hard work; he suffered from unrequited affection; he suffered from unsatisfied desires; he suffered from drink, for he was intoxicated nearly every evening; he suffered as an artist from mental struggles and doubts; he suffered from the ugly scenery of Upsala; he suffered from the discomfort of his rooms; he suffered from examination-books; he suffered from a bad conscience because he did not study but wrote plays. But something else lay at the bottom of all this. He had been brought up to fulfil hard tasks and duties. Now he lived well amid ease and enjoyment. Study was an enjoyment; authorship, in spite of all its pains, was a wonderful enjoyment; the life with his comrades was sheer festivity and jollity. But his plebeian consciousness awoke and told him that it was not right to enjoy while others worked; his work was an enjoyment, for it brought him a good deal of honour, and perhaps money. This accounted for his persistently uneasy conscience which persecuted him without a cause. Was it that he felt already the signs of this awakening consciousness of tremendous guilt as regards the lower classes, the slaves who toiled, while he enjoyed? Did he already have a foreboding of that sense of justice, which in our days has laid so strong a hold on many of the upper classes that they have restored capital which was not quite honestly earned, have expended time and toil for the liberation of the lower classes, and have worked from impulse and instinct against their own interests, in order to do right? Possibly.
But Kierkegaard was not the man to resolve the discord. It was reserved for the evolutionary philosophers to make peace between passion and reason, between enjoyment and duty. They cancelled the deceptive Either—Or, and substituted Both—And, giving both flesh and spirit their due. The real significance of Kierkegaard became clear to John many years later. Then he saw in him the simple pietist, the ultra-Christian who wished to realise in modern society oriental ideals of two thousand years ago. But Kierkegaard was right in one point: if we were to have Christianity, we ought to have it thoroughly; but his Either—Or was only valid for the priests of the church who called themselves Christians.
Kierkegaard saw no further, and from him who wrote his book in 1843, and had a clerical education, one could not expect that he should say: "Either a Christianity like this, or none!" In that case people would probably have chosen none. Instead of that Kierkegaard said: "Whether you are æsthetical or ethical you must cast yourself into the arms of Christ." His mistake was to oppose ethics and æsthetics to each other, for they can go very well together. But John did not succeed in harmonising them till, after endless struggles, at the age of thirty-seven, he attempted a compromise when he discovered that work and duty are forms of enjoyment, and that enjoyment itself, well-used, is a duty.
But at that time, the book weighed on him like a nightmare. He was angry when his friends wished to regard it as mere literature. He was not pacified by their regarding it superior in richness, depth and style to Goethe's Faust, which it certainly did surpass by far. John could not at that time understand that the pillar-saint Kierkegaard had himself known what enjoyment was when he wrote the first part, and that the seducer and Don Juan were the author himself, who satisfied his desires in imagination. No, he thought it was poetry.