VI B 29 [2.20:25]):

As a poet, as a hymn writer, as a speaker, as a strong character who, powerfully moved in immediate passion, has worked day and night with rare perseverance, as a man with a very great deal of knowledge, even if it is not exactly under control, Grundtvig will always have his significance, but as a thinker his significance is very dubious. [VI B 33:114] If there exists a contractual relation between readers and authors, if a young teachable person, who perhaps with unusual admiration takes up reading an author, has a right to complain when he feels disappointed, then most certainly such a one would have this right against Grundtvig. The absolute, world-historical shout is raised; it can be heard over more than one kingdom. One plunges in—one reads, and even if it is a matter of life and death one cannot extract any category of thought out of it all. In time, of course, one becomes familiar with this concurrent noise, just as with living next door to a coppersmith. In time, one learns not to be fooled, even if one readily admits that in every way Grundtvig is serviceable wherever there seems there could be use for a man of power, a seer, a bard, and a prophet. His life does not suffer from monotony; it is rich in unique variety. Now he makes his entry into the contemporary age weeping, weeping over the darkness and ignorance of the age; now he opens bright, smiling vistas to the Golden Age that is to come; now he is as old as if he were born at the time of the Reformation; now he walks youthfully with a light flourish of the hat, and although his hair is turning gray his eyes sparkle, he says, with the fire of youth; now he stands on Tabor25 and prophesies but understands that it is the prophet’s lot not to enter the holy land himself, not to share in the matchless future he glimpses at a distance of one or two thousand years—until on the occasion of a folk festival he suddenly discovers that the fulfillment has come and that now one must call it a day. [VI B 33:115] No wonder, then, that he has recently become popular! After all, a generation as profoundly stirred as the present one always has use for extraordinary ambassadors, be it a seer, a skald, a martyr,* a prophet, a hero in the present. And when it so fortunately happens that one man can play all these roles with equal brilliance, that he needs only to remove his beard** in order to cease being a prophet and become a standard bearer.*** No wonder that this man becomes an indispensable artist!

As a thinker, his genius consists, among other things, in annulling the concept as he propounds it. Thus while it is a familiar sight in the world to see a genius accompanied by a follower who caricatures him, Grundtvig as a thinker offers the rare phenomenon that as a genius he is his own caricature, so absolute is he.…

* a strong man

** or put on a false nose

*** for young Denmark

—Pap. VI B 33 n.d., 1845

From final copy; see 1.40:28:

. . . . . of becoming intelligible to him, but rather in a wanhope, so that he should feel called upon loudly to stifle himself and every expression of dialectical conscience in his soul.—Pap. VI B 98:13 n.d., 1845

Deleted from final copy; see 1.41:38:

So the difference between these two men is this: Lindberg is a bright, intelligent head, with rare learning and rare dialectical perseverance, who with his wise moderation has been a ministering spirit; Grundtvig, on the other hand, is as a thinker a confused genius who gets carried away from himself into the heights, the depths, the world-historical. In the circumstances of their lives, the difference has always been that Lindberg has been ridiculed, mocked, insulted on all occasions, probably because his power has really been felt, and Grundtvig has enjoyed an inane recognition under the fading-into-the-blue categories: genius, seer, bard, prophet.—Pap. VI B 98:14 n.d., 1845

From final copy; see 1.44:14:

. . . . . case*

* Note. In a little pamphlet about Baptism, Prof. Martensen, otherwise equipped with fortunate qualifications for becoming a dogmatic thinker, has not exactly legitimized himself as such.[VI B 98:15 179] The professor establishes Baptism as decisive for salvation, but for the sake of caution** he still adds that if anyone has not been baptized he also can be saved. It is scientific in every way to be of service with fine sand and coarse sand.26 The only thing lacking, something I most respectfully do not doubt, is that many a person has been reassured about the matter of his salvation by reading this pamphlet.*** [VI B 98:15 180] This can be called satisfying the demands of the times and being understood by the age. Without infinitely interested passion the whole question and all the talk about an eternal happiness is coquetry, but God help the infinitely interested person in passion who would be set aside in a lonely cubicle with dogmatic guidance such as that.

In margin: ** he naively seems to assume and without making use of the dialectical means of caution.

In margin: *** (Strangely enough, in our day it is not at all difficult to reassure people about the matter of their salvation; rather, it is more difficult to alarm them about it)— Pap. VI B 98:15 n.d., 1845

In margin of draft; see 1.44:16:

Martensen’s self-contradiction in the little book about Baptism.27

Depression’s need for something superstitious in order to be rid of the dialectical.

—Pap.