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 Kierkegaard’s
International Reception

Tome III: The Near East, Asia, Australia

and the Americas
Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources
Volume 8, Tome III

Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources

is a publication of the Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre

General Editor
Jon Stewart
Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre,
University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Editorial Board
Katalin Nun
peter Šajda

Advisory Board
IstvÁn CzakÓ
FINN GREDAL JENSEN
David D. Possen
Joel D. S. Rasmussen
Heiko Schulz

This volume was published with the generous financial support

of the Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation
 Kierkegaard’s
International Reception
Tome III: The Near East, Asia, Australia
and the Americas

Edited by
Jon Stewart
First published 2009 by Ashgate Publishing

Published 2016 by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright © 2009 Jon Stewart

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identified as the editor of this work.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
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Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Kierkegaard’s international reception
Tome 3: The Near East, Asia, Australia and the Americas. –
(Kierkegaard research : sources, reception and resources ; v. 8)
1. Kierkegaard, Soren, 1813–1855
I. Stewart, Jon (Jon Bartley)
198.9

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kierkegaard’s international reception / edited by Jon Stewart.
Tome 3: The Near East, Asia, Australia and the Americas
p. cm. – (Kierkegaard research ; v. 8)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7546-6402-4 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Kierkegaard, Soren, 1813–1855. I. Stewart, Jon.

198’.9–dc22

ISBN 9780754664024 (hbk)

isBn 9781138257320 (pbk)

Cover design by Katalin Nun.

 Contents

List of Contributors)>> vii

List of Abbreviations)>> ix

Part Iç’•he Near East

Turkey:
The Reception of Kierkegaard in Turkey
Türker Armaner)>> 3

Israel:
Kierkegaard’s Reception in Fear and Trembling in Jerusalem
Jacob Golomb)>> 25

The Arab World:

The Reception of Kierkegaard in the Arab World
Habib C. Malik)>> 39

Iran:
Kierkegaard’s Reception in Iran
Ramin Jahanbegloo)>> 97

Part IIç’•sia and Australia

China:
The Chinese Reception of Kierkegaard
Wang Qi)>> 103

Korea:
The Korean Response to Kierkegaard
Pyo Jae-myeong)>> 125

Japan:
Varied Images through Western Waves
Satoshi Nakazato)>> 149
vi Kierkegaard’s International Reception
Australia:
An Archaeology of Silence of Kierkegaard’s Philosophical Reception
William McDonald)>> 175

part iii)>> the americas

Canada:
Kierkegaard on the Canadian Academic Landscape
Abrahim H. Khan)>> 197

The USA:
From Neo-Orthodoxy to Plurality
Lee C. Barrett)>> 229

Mexico:
Three Generations of Kierkegaard Studies
Leticia Valadez)>> 269

Hispanophone South America:

Kierkegaard’s Latin American Reception, An Oxymoron
Patricia Carina Dip)>> 285

Brazil:
Forty Years Later
Alvaro Luiz Montenegro Valls)>> 319

Index of Persons)>> 329

Index of Subjects)>> 341
 List of Contributors

Türker Armaner, Department of Philosophy, Galatasaray University, Ciragan

caddesi, No: 102, 80840 Ortaköy/Istanbul, Turkey.

Lee C. Barrett, Lancaster Theological Seminary, 555 W. James St., 17603 Lancaster,
PA, USA.

Patricia Carina Dip, Facultad de Filosofia y Letras, Universidad de Buenos Aires,

Puan 480.

Jacob Golomb, Department of Philosophy, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem,

Mount Scopus, Jerusalem 91905, Israel.

Pyo Jae-myeong, Department of Philosophy, Korea University, Anam-dong,

Seongbuk-gu, Seoul, 136–701, Korea.

Ramin Jahanbegloo, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, 29 Rajpur Road,
Delhi, 110054, India.

Abrahim H. Khan, Trinity College, University of Toronto, 6 Hoskin Avenue,

Toronto, Ontario M5S 1H8, Canada.

William McDonald, School of Social Science, University of New England,

Armidale, NSW, 2351, Australia.

Habib C. Malik, History & Cultural Studies, Humanities Division, School of Arts &
Sciences, Lebanese American University, Byblos Campus, Lebanon.

Satoshi Nakazato, Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Lterature, Tokyo

University, 5-28-20 Hakusan, Hunkyo-ku, Tokyo 112–8606, Japan.

Wang Qi, Institute of Philosophy, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, 100732

Beijing, China.

Leticia Valadez, Sociedad Iberoamericana de Estudios Kierkegaardianos, Aldama

45, casa 4 Col. Tepepan, 16020 Mexico, D.F., Mexico.
viii Kierkegaard’s International Reception
Alvaro Luiz Montenegro Valls, Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos Programa
de Pós-Graduaçâo em Filosofia, Av. Unisinos, 950, CEP 93022–000, São Leopoldo,
RS, Brazil.
 List of Abbreviations

Danish Abbreviations

B&A)>> Breve og Aktstykker vedrørende Søren Kierkegaard, ed. by Niels Thulstrup,

vols. I–II, Copenhagen: Munksgaard 1953–4.

Bl.art.)>> S. Kierkegaard’s Bladartikler, med Bilag samlede efter Forfatterens Død,

udgivne som Supplement til hans øvrige Skrifter, ed. by Rasmus Nielsen,
Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 1857.

EP)>> Af Søren Kierkegaards Efterladte Papirer, vols. 1–9, ed. by H.P. Barfod
and Hermann Gottsched, Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 1869–81.

Pap.)>> Søren Kierkegaards Papirer, vols. I to XI–3, ed. by Peter Andreas Heiberg,
Victor Kuhr and Einer Torsting, Copenhagen: Gyldendalske Boghandel, Nordisk
Forlag, 1909–48; second, expanded ed., vols. I to XI–3, by Niels Thulstrup,
vols. XII to XIII supplementary volumes, ed. by Niels Thulstrup, vols. XIV to
XVI index by Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1968–78.

SKS)>> Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter, vols. 1–28, K1–28, ed. by Niels Jørgen
Cappelørn, Joakim Garff, Jette Knudsen, Johnny Kondrup, Alastair
McKinnon and Finn Hauberg Mortensen, Copenhagen: Gads Forlag
1997ff.

SV1)>> Samlede Værker, ed. by A.B. Drachmann, J.L. Heiberg and H.O. Lange,
vols. I–XIV, Copenhagen: Gyldendalske Boghandels Forlag 1901–6.

English Abbreviations

AN)>> Armed Neutrality, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton:
Princeton University Press 1998.

AR)>> On Authority and Revelation, The Book on Adler, trans. by Walter Lowrie.
Princeton: Princeton University Press 1955.

ASKB)>> The Auctioneer’s Sales Record of the Library of Søren Kierkegaard, ed. by
H. P. Rohde, Copenhagen: The Royal Library 1967.
˘ Kierkegaard’s International Reception
BA)>> The Book on Adler, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton:
Princeton University Press 1998.

C)>> The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress, trans. by Howard V. Hong
and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1997.

CA)>> The Concept of Anxiety, trans. by Reidar Thomte in collaboration with

Albert B. Anderson, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1980.

CD)>> Christian Discourses, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong,

Princeton: Princeton University Press 1997.

CI)>> The Concept of Irony, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong,
Princeton: Princeton University Press 1989.

CIC)>> The Concept of Irony, trans. with an Introduction and Notes by Lee
M. Capel, London: Collins 1966.

COR)>> The Corsair Affair; Articles Related to the Writings, trans. by Howard
V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1982.

CUP1)>> Concluding Unscientific Postscript, vol. 1, trans. by Howard V. Hong and

Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1982.

CUP2)>> Concluding Unscientific Postscript, vol. 2, trans. by Howard V. Hong and

Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1982.

EO1)>> Either/Or, Part I, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton:
Princeton University Press 1987.

EO2)>> Either/Or, Part II, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton:
Princeton University Press 1987.

EOP)>> Either/Or, trans. by Alastair Hannay, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books

1992.

EPW)>> Early Polemical Writings, among others: From the Papers of One Still
Living; Articles from Student Days; The Battle Between the Old and the
New Soap-Cellars, trans. by Julia Watkin, Princeton: Princeton University
Press 1990.

EUD)>> Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna

H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1990.

FSE)>> For Self-Examination, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong,

Princeton: Princeton University Press 1990.
 List of Abbreviations xi
FT)>> Fear and Trembling, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong,
Princeton: Princeton University Press 1983.

FTP)>> Fear and Trembling, trans. by Alastair Hannay, Harmondsworth: Penguin

Books 1985.

JC)>> Johannes Climacus, or De omnibus dubitandum est, trans. by Howard

V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1985.

JFY)>> Judge for Yourself!, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton:
Princeton University Press 1990.

JP)>> Søren Kierkegaard’s Journals and Papers, ed. and trans. by Howard
V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, assisted by Gregor Malantschuk, vols. 1–6,
vol. 7 Index and Composite Collation, Bloomington and London: Indiana
University Press 1967–78.

KAC)>> Kierkegaard’s Attack upon “Christendom,” 1854–1855, trans. by Walter

Lowrie, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1944.

KJN)>> Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks, vols. 1–11, ed. by Niels Jørgen
Cappelørn, Alastair Hannay, David Kangas, Bruce H. Kirmmse, George
Pattison, Vanessa Rumble, and K. Brian Söderquist, Princeton and Oxford:
Princeton University Press 2007ff.

LD)>> Letters and Documents, trans. by Henrik Rosenmeier, Princeton: Princeton

University Press 1978 (A translation of B&A).

M)>> The Moment and Late Writings, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna
H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1998.

P)>> Prefaces / Writing Sampler, trans. by Todd W. Nichol, Princeton: Princeton

University Press 1997.

PC)>> Practice in Christianity, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong,

Princeton: Princeton University Press 1991.

PF)>> Philosophical Fragments, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong,

Princeton: Princeton University Press 1985.

PJ)>> Papers and Journals: A Selection, trans. with introductions and notes by
Alastair Hannay, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books 1996.

PLR)>> Prefaces: Light Reading for Certain Classes as the Occasion May Require,
trans. by William McDonald, Tallahassee: Florida State University Press 1989.
xii Kierkegaard’s International Reception
PLS)>> Concluding Unscientific Postscript, trans. by David F. Swenson and Walter
Lowrie, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1941.

PV)>> The Point of View including On My Work as an Author, The Point of View
for My Work as an Author, and Armed Neutrality, trans. by Howard V.
Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1998.

PVL)>> The Point of View for My Work as an Author including On My Work as an

Author, trans. by Walter Lowrie. New York and London: Oxford University
Press 1939.

R)>> Repetition, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton:

Princeton University Press 1983.

SBL)>> Notes of Schelling’s Berlin Lectures, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna
H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1989.

SLW)>> Stages on Life’s Way, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong,
Princeton: Princeton University Press 1988.

SUD)>> The Sickness unto Death, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong,
Princeton: Princeton University Press 1980.

SUDP )>> The Sickness unto Death, trans. by Alastair Hannay, Harmondsworth:
Penguin Books 1989.

TA)>> Two Ages: The Age of Revolution and the Present Age. A Literary Review,
trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton
University Press 1978.

TD)>> Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions, trans. by Howard V. Hong and

Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1993.

UD)>> Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, trans. by Howard V. Hong and

Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1993.

WA)>> Without Authority including The Lily in the Field and the Bird of the Air,
Two Ethical-Religious Essays, Three Discourses at the Communion on
Fridays, An Upbuilding Discourse, Two Discourses at the Communion on
Fridays, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton
University Press 1997.

WL)>> Works of Love, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton:
Princeton University Press 1995.
 PART I

The Near East

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 Turkey:
The Reception of Kierkegaard in Turkey
Türker Armaner

This article is an attempt to evaluate the conceptual history of Kierkegaard in

Turkey, and briefly to examine the terminological change in Kierkegaard studies. A
comparison of the four fundamental interpretations of Kierkegaard is related to the
various definitions of “cultural identity,” and the changes in these definitions lead to
the modifications in the philosophical terminology. The emphasis on the Sufi tradition
between the 1930s and 1970s, as a possible counterpart of Kierkegaard, fades away
in the last quarter of the century. Nevertheless the terms such as “daimon,” “death,”
“anxiety,” and “time” remain “problematic.”
Until the end of the first quarter of the twentieth century, it seems that Kierkegaard
did not really attract the attention of the thinkers of the Ottoman and Republican
period. This is a partial element of a large and highly complex situation, arising from
the political, religious, cultural, and linguistic conditions, which is too broad to be
discussed within the limits of an article.
This article consists of four main sections, and a “paralipomena” between the last
two. The first section is an exposition of the doctoral dissertation of Hüseyin Batuhan
defended in the mid-twentieth century. In all his career, Batuhan has investigated
the relation between the philosophical sphere and the scientific one, and related to
this, taught courses at the university in the field of symbolic logic. He acquired his
habilitation with a work entitled “The Development of the Idea of ‘Tolerance’ in
the Western World”; and until the end of his career he worked on the conception of
“objective knowledge” and examined the conditions of “real science.”
The second section explores one of the outcomes of the “identity crisis” in
Turkey during the upheavals of continental Europe. Nurettin Topçu and the journal
Fikir ve Sanatta Hareket fundamentally oppose the Westernization of an Eastern
culture, the tendency that disregards the element of belief in the scientific research,
and the modernist projects which shake the fundamental values of a conservative
society. Kierkegaard, in this approach, is taken as a “revolt” against the way of living
imposed by the official organ, a high authority elevating the religious way of living,
and a theoretician of subjectivity and innerness despising the superficial physical
world. Despite the fact that Batuhan and Topçu approach Kierkegaard from different
angles, they both agree on one point: the chief characteristic of Kierkegaard’s works
bear the mark of “action” rather than mere “contemplation.” Batuhan poses the
concept of “action” as “subjectivity” against “objective knowledge.”
˘ Türker Armaner
The last point that is mentioned with respect to Topçu also establishes a connection
between his circle and Hilmi Ziya Ülken, who is discussed in the third section.
Both Ülken and Topçu intend to take Kierkegaard and the Islam mystics (Sufism),
especially Hallaj Mansur, as counterparts. The nationalist aspect of Topçu is more
obvious, while Ülken, by contrast realizes this comparison in a more “textual,” and
even in a “sociological” way.
As is argued in the paralipomena, Kierkegaard scholars of the last quarter of
the century seem to abandon the necessity of finding counterparts. Due to many
dynamics in the country as well as in the world, the Orient/Occident dichotomy
is reshaped, and fewer people are interested in Sufism (the term “interest” is used
in the “scholarly” sense, as with Ülken). For research on Kierkegaard, French and
German translations of Kierkegaard are mostly replaced with the English and Turkish
editions, and very rarely with the original Danish ones.
The reflection of Kierkegaard’s and other existentialist thinkers’ ideas in literature,
painting, plastic arts, and cinema is quite interesting to mention. In this last phase
Kierkegaard, besides being a “religious philosopher,” became one of the investigators
of the “modern solitude” in Turkey. The distinction between “theist” and “religious”
existentialism is much less frequently indicated, and research on Kierkegaard’s
works stopped taking it in the context of a “nationalistic” framework.
In the concluding section, by mentioning an article by Şerif Mardin, a book by an
economist, Sabri Ülgener, and a book by a contemporary literary author and scholar
of Turkish language and literature, Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, I shall try to examine the
idea underlying the attitude that interprets Kierkegaard either as a mirror-image of
Sufism, or as a tool to justify “nationalism.” None of the three talks about Kierkegaard
in the referred texts, but they all display the structure of this attitude.

I. A Dissertation on a Dissertation: Hüseyin Batuhan

Hüseyin Batuhan (1921–2003), known as one of the leading academics in the domain
of symbolic logic and philosophy of science, acquired his doctoral degree in 1953
with a dissertation which focused on a subject entirely different from his reputation:
The Concept of Irony in Kierkegaard. Batuhan, in this dissertation, claims that
Kierkegaard is a philosopher who cannot be placed within a fixed philosophical system,
but belongs solely to the tradition of “non-systematic” philosophers such as Epictetus,
St. Augustine, Montaigne, Pascal, Hamann, and Nietzsche; for Kierkegaard’s major
concern was the interior life of man, underlining the moral and religious problems. For
Batuhan, Kierkegaard was a religious Christian before being a philosopher.
According to Batuhan’s understanding, classical philosophy which culminates
in Hegel’s system was an inquiry into the nature of “being” and elevates “reason”
and “totality,” while Kierkegaard, on the other hand, elaborates on “existence” and
takes his point of departure from the celebrated dictum: “Know thyself.” Hence


ç’•üseyin Batuhan, Kierkegaard’da İroni Kavramı, unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, University
of Istanbul 1953. Batuhan, after completing this work, never returned to Kierkegaard. Osman
Kafadar, Türkiye’de Kültürel Dönüşümler ve Felsefe Eğitimi [Cultural Changes and the
Education of Philosophy in Turkey], Istanbul: İz 2000, pp. 453ff.
 Turkey: The Reception of Kierkegaard in Turkey ˘
Kierkegaard, Batuhan elaborates, also diverges from the, in Batuhan’s terms, “so-
called existentialist philosophers” of the epoch such as Heidegger, Jaspers, and
Sartre. Because in the works of these thinkers the author does not appear as a human
being, the concept of “existence” remains an abstraction, yet Kierkegaard provides
a concrete content to this concept.
Batuhan, in spite of the fact that he admits Kierkegaard’s “later” divergence from
Hegel, frequently underlines the Hegelian impact on this “early” text of Kierkegaard.
The threefold approach to Socrates—Xenophon, Plato, and Aristophanes—is one of
Batuhan’s evidences. While the first asserts a thesis, Plato constitutes an antithesis,
and finally, Aristophanes achieves the synthesis. Batuhan asserts that Kierkegaard, in
his research on “irony,” criticizes Socrates in Hegelian terms, which he finds unfair.
Batuhan’s analysis of The Concept of Irony proceeds from references and
comparisons of some other books by Kierkegaard. In the “Introduction” of his
dissertation, he draws attention to a certain date in the journals, August 1, 1835, which
is, according to Batuhan, significant as a threshold in Kierkegaard’s life. Thus Batuhan,
interpreting Kierkegaard’s attitude towards philosophy as “subjectivity,” carries on his
research on Kierkegaard in the style of, in a sense, “monograph writing.”
This “subjective act,” which leads to the acquisition of the knowledge of “I,” at
the same time, renders the subject “conscious of God.” Thus the subject, obeying
the dictum “Know thyself,” obtains awareness of God as well. Referring to The
Concept of Anxiety and The Sickness unto Death, Batuhan draws the conclusion
that Kierkegaard synthesizes Christianity’s construction of “human being” and that
of idealism. The training of the soul is the striving of the “finite I” to transcend itself
and attain the “infinite I,” an inner path from the “real I” to the “ideal I.” Though
Batuhan admits that this approach is reminiscent of Kant’s distinction between the
“empirical I” and the “transcendental I,” he rejects regarding Kierkegaard entirely
in a Kantian way. The ground of this rejection is the relevance of “irony” to the
real/ideal dichotomy. Batuhan claims that irony, in a moral sense, is the initial point
of the awareness concerning this duality. Therefore irony is the beginning of ethical
life, i.e., its “theoretical” condition. “Irony is to see the ‘ideal,’ but not to realize it;
irony is to possess the ‘possibility’ of the ethical idea, not the ‘reality’ of it.” “Know
thyself,” Batuhan asserts, was reformed by the Christian “ethos” and transformed
into “Know thy Lord” in Kierkegaard.
Kierkegaard’s biographical turning points in the journals equip Batuhan to
evaluate the philosopher’s work on irony with respect to the concept of “melancholy.”
The “melancholic” detachment from everything that is immediate, according to
Batuhan, is an indication of the philosopher’s reflective attitude towards life, mainly,


)>> Kierkegaard, Über den Begriff der Ironie, trans. by H. Heinrich Schaeder, Munich:
Oldenbourg 1929.

)>> Kierkegaard, Journal (Extraits 1834–1846), trans. by Knud Ferlov and J.J. Gateau,
Paris: Gallimard 1942.

)>> Kierkegaard, Le Concept de l’Angoisse, trans. by Knud Ferlov and J.J. Gateau, Paris:
Gallimard 1935.

)>> Kierkegaard, La Maladie à la mort, trans. by Paul-Henri Tisseau, Bazoges-en-Pareds:
Le Traducteur 1948.

)>> Batuhan, Kierkegaard’da İroni Kavramı, p. IX.
˘ Türker Armaner
his decision to break his engagement with Regine Olsen. But being an ironist
himself, Batuhan continues, Kierkegaard hides his melancholic attitude, which can
be observed most obviously in his pseudonyms. These names, for Batuhan, are the
outcomes of a certain method: indirect communication.
Batuhan, empathizing with Kierkegaard, or rather, trusting the philosopher’s
indications, asserts that the concept of “irony,” besides being a philosophical
problem, was a “form of life” for Kierkegaard. Batuhan seems to be quite convinced
that Kierkegaard, as a flesh and blood human being, was directly connected with his
subject-matter: “irony.”
“World-irony,” in Batuhan’s exposition of Kierkegaard, denoting the Romantics’
conception, can be avoided by Tawakkul (in Turkish transliterated as Tevekkül).
Selected for a correspondence to “apathy” (Antipathie), Batuhan uses this term for
Kierkegaard’s attitude against the Romantics, which signifies a resignation from the
destructive assaults of “world-irony.”
Batuhan criticizes Kierkegaard’s comments on the Romantics by implying that
Kierkegaard had imperfect knowledge of Fichte, Schelling, and Schlegel. This
imperfection, to Batuhan, originates from the above-mentioned Hegelian influence.
The only work by Schlegel that concerns Kierkegaard, Batuhan emphasizes, is
Lucinde, which again, according to him, Kierkegaard misinterpreted. Batuhan,
commenting on Kierkegaard, asserts that the main goal of Kierkegaard was not
to defend Hegel’s system, but to use this system as a shield for protecting—even
detoxicating—himself from the Romantic residues. Batuhan argues that the spiritual
ties that connect Kierkegaard to Socrates and to the Romantics are equally solid,
and while attempting to refute Socratic subjectivism, he nevertheless was craving
to transcend his own subjectivism. Thus Kierkegaard’s criticism of Socrates is a
self-critique. Likewise his attitude towards the Romantics, in Batuhan’s illustration,
resembles a man singing after overcoming his fear of darkness. The “daimonic”
faculty of man, which was developed by the Romantics as a creative capacity, is
elaborated by Batuhan as a reason for saving the Romantics from Kierkegaard’s
criticisms. Batuhan leaves the term daemon as it is, without suggesting a translation.
Batuhan observes how Kierkegaard ended his career: “Dr. Kierkegaard’s ironist
Socrates is replaced by the ethicist Socrates in Johannes Climacus’ Concluding
Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Fragments.”
Tawakkul might be a key word for reflecting the mental climate of the 1940s
and 1950s. It has an Arabic origin, frequently appearing in the texts of the medieval
mystics (Sufism) and the commentators of Sufist literature who, as an imperative,
assign their followers the task of putting a conscious distance between themselves
and the material realm. Nurettin Topçu’s examination of Kierkegaard and Hilmi Ziya
Ülken’s mentioning of Kierkegaard as a possible counterpart of Hallaj Mansur, whose
ideas shall both be explored below, are major examples for this attitude. Batuhan
never talks about Sufism, and I believe he does not mean it, but the appearance
of this term in the context of a quite different interpretation of Kierkegaard than


)>> Batuhan, Kierkegaard’da İroni Kavramı, p. 4. Here Batuhan refers to Himmelstrup’s
Sören Kierkegaards Sokratesauffassung, Neumünster: Wachholtz 1927.

)>> Kierkegaard, Post-Scriptum, trans. by Paul Petit, Paris: Gallimard 1941.
 Turkey: The Reception of Kierkegaard in Turkey ˘
Topçu’s and likewise Ülken’s, I think, proves that the intellectual paradigm of the
mid twentieth century in Turkey, like any other paradigm, was not able to escape the
domination of Zeitgeist totally.

II. Kierkegaard from a Particular Nationalist Aspect:

Nurettin Topçu and the Journal Hareket

The 1930s witnessed conflicts about the definitions of “cultural identity” in Turkey.
Taken in Fichtean terminology, the proposition “I = I,” an expression of the relation
of identity, was explored in diverse ways by various intellectuals. Nurettin Topçu
(1909–76), who received a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Sorbonne,
and who was strongly influenced by the thoughts of Maurice Blondel, took part on
one side of these debates following his return to Istanbul in 1934. In 1939, Topçu
published the first issue of the journal Hareket, which continued more than forty
years and gave rise to numerous discussions concerning cultural problems.
The core argument of Topçu and the journal Hareket in general is that the
tendency of the “young republic” inclined towards an occidental direction which led
to the corruption of society’s morality, in the sense that individuals have lost—or
forgotten—to master their wills. With respect to this view, a crucial role is assigned
to philosophy for regaining this ability to master the will, alongside the return to
“original” cultural identity. In this context, according to the theoreticians of the
above-mentioned journal, the chief function of philosophy is to provide the individual
with guidelines for using his or her reason. In conformity with the rules of reason,
the subject is supposed to achieve “spiritual harmony” and thus become a moral
being. Philosophy defined in this way, according to this approach, is the author of
the political order in which the democratic virtues flourish in the “original” way, that
is, the democracy that should be established should arise from its “original” roots,
from the national culture. Hence philosophy, which stands in the way of a chaotic
situation both for society and the individual, is indispensable; its absence is the loss
of freedom and the beginning of disorder. Philosophy, in their assertion, can only
arise in a country where the inhabitants have beliefs, history, and sorrows in common,
which also sketch the framework of the economic principles of this system.
Hareket entitles this system “Anatolian socialism,” and later “Islamic socialism.”
Living in such a system, it claims, will enable the Anatolian people, mostly
agriculturalists, to be the owners of the soil that they cultivate. The Koran, the sacred
scripture for Muslims, is the main reference text underlying this construction.10
Existentialist philosophy, specifically that of Kierkegaard, found a place in
the mental realm of this nationalist and religious approach. Topçu, commenting
on existentialist philosophy, claims that classical philosophy, until the nineteenth


ç’•he exact title is Fikir ve Sanatta Hareket. Roughly translated, it means “Action
in Thought and Art.” The word hareket, besides “action,” also corresponds to “motion” or
“movement.” But in this context, “action” correctly depicts Topçu’s approach. For the core
thought underlying Blondel’s influence on Topçu, as we learn from his own words, is la
philosophie d’action developed by the former.
10
)>> Hareket, ed. by Nurettin Topçu, January 1966, pp. 4–5.
˘ Türker Armaner
century, can be called “essentialist,” in opposition to existentialist philosophy which
asserts the proposition “Existence precedes essence.”11 Topçu, following the realist/
nominalist dichotomy, divides “essentialism” into two groups: theological (Plato, St.
Augustine) and conceptualist (Aristotle, St. Thomas).12
Kierkegaard’s concept of “innerness” is taken by the journal Hareket as the virtue
of a conservative society; modesty, respect, mercy, in short Tawakkul, “trust in God”
are the basic compulsory obligations of the representation of a conservative society.13
Topçu recognizes Kierkegaard as the avant-garde of existentialist philosophy and
asserts that “A Kierkegaard reader should reveal what he did not express in his texts.”
According to Topçu’s reading, “Kierkegaard evaluates abstract thinking as the attempt
to capture concrete reality through abstract methods. Nevertheless, existentialist
philosophers make an effort to grasp the abstract entities by concrete methods. That
is why the existentialists, instead of philosophical texts, prefer to write novels or
theatrical works.” According to Topçu, the existentialists in general and Kierkegaard
in particular view “existence” not as a “state,” but as the act of transgressing from
possibility to actuality. With this approach, Topçu continues, “Our essence is what we
are. Existence preceeds essence, because man chooses his own essence by himself.”14
Mehmet Ulaş,15 another writer in Hareket, resumes Topçu’s account together
with his view of the contemporary world. Ulaş grants Fichte’s philosophy its status
as the founder of the journal’s approach and claims that materialist philosophy has
always strived to separate science, philosophy, and religion from each other instead
of leaving them in their unity. Pascal, Blondel, and lastly Topçu, Ulaş elaborates,
have achieved this unity, by depicting the dignity of “man” and the perfect order of
the universe.16 The depression of twentieth century, on this approach, is the outcome
of the separation of religion from the human realm. Scientific inquiries, though
necessary, are insufficient on their own and are unable to provide an exhaustive
explanation for the inner realm, the spirit of man. Thus, metaphysics, religion, and
morality seem to be different aspects of the same sphere. It is not solely with rational
thinking but also with “mystical awakening,” intuitive knowledge, that human beings
can realize the order in themselves and on earth.17
Depicting the “ideal situation” in this way, Kierkegaard is located in this context
as a strong supporter. In this journal, Kierkegaard’s attitude towards philosophy is
considered as giving a religious explanation of the universe and inquiring into the
subjective problems of human beings.18
Topçu, as can be supposed, strictly opposes Sartre among the existentialists.
“What Sartre calls ‘freedom’ is not freedom at all.” Topçu and one of his colleagues
in the journal, Hasan Hüsrev, blame Sartre for reducing man to a “valueless” being.

11
)>> Hareket, February 1966, pp. 7–8.
12
)>> Hareket, March 1966, pp. 14–16.
13
)>> Hareket, May 1970, pp. 18–20.
14
)>> Hareket, April 1966, pp. 8–11.
15
)>> This author publishes only in this journal and his name appears as Mehmet Ulaş. His
birth and death dates are not found anywhere, he is probably younger than Nurettin Topçu.
16
)>> Hareket, November 1968, pp. 21–31.
17
)>> Hareket, March 1969, pp. 17–20.
18
)>> Hareket, April 1970, pp. 12–15.
 Turkey: The Reception of Kierkegaard in Turkey ˘
In a comparison between Sartre’s philosophy and some verses of the Koran, Hüsrev
concludes that the Koran does not leave man abandoned in the world; on the contrary,
man is supervised by God in his every action. For it is God who showed man the gate,
but it is man who will open it. Man, alone with his belief in God, is responsible to his
Lord and to himself for what he does on earth. Following these ideas, we can claim that
the Topçu circle does not see human beings forsaken on earth.19 Though being a Muslim
believer, Topçu sympathizes more with Christian existentialism than its “atheistic”
version. In his eyes, modern existentialist philosophy, with the exception of Sartre’s
version—along with Beauvoir’s and Bataille’s—was born in a Christian cradle.
Kierkegaard’s name, with respect to religious existentialism, is mentioned
together with Marcel and Unamuno. The concept of “anxiety,” in the Kierkegaardian
sense, is what makes the individual aware that beyond daily practices, there is a
metaphysical realm which can only be attained by “belief.”20
Topçu elaborates on the element of “belief”: the “genuine” Christian has
an inner and a personal contact with God. Therefore, modern existentialism was
originally proclaimed by Pascal, improved by Gabriel Marcel in Catholicism and
by Kierkegaard in the Protestant world. Topçu frequently quotes from Kierkegaard
phrases related to “act” or “action,” the crucial term in his approach, such as: “Truth
is the act of our freedom.”21 But the central point in this interpretation is that Topçu
is interested in Kierkegaard’s idea of the “withdrawal of reason”:

The free act, according to Kierkegaard, is an unconscious leap into the “unknown.”
The mover of this effort is the ambition of the “infinite.” That which is “real” cannot
be grasped by reason, because all I perceive in this world is a contradictory realm. Life
is a contradictory act and the only shelter is the “belief.” Belief in God cancels the
contradictions. God is not an “idea” and thus cannot be proved.22

Topçu seeks and sees a justification of mystical Islamic thought in Kierkegaard’s

thought. Hence Topçu’s opponent turns out to be the “atheistic” Occident, together
with its Oriental allies; and paradoxically, while attempting to establish a national
culture, the “genuine” Turkish culture founded on the mystical version of Islamic
philosophy, namely Sufism, avails itself of the benefits of the methodological devices
of Christian and “Occidental” philosophies, especially that of Kierkegaard.
Topçu’s criticism of Sartre and “atheistic existentialism” later led him to a
defense of “metaphysics,” or rather, a refutation of the rejection of metaphysics.
This rejection, according to Topçu, has been carried out by the “positivists,” and
initially by Auguste Comte. “All great civilizations,” says Topçu in his article
entitled simply “Metaphysics,” “begin with a certain metaphysics. The religious
metaphysics developed by Indian and Chinese cultures, likewise the Koran-based
mystical metaphysics established by Islamic culture, are the appropriate instances of
this claim.”23 According to Topçu’s definition, metaphysics is reason’s disclosedness

19
)>> Hareket, June 1967, pp. 23–4.
20
)>> Hareket, March 1971, pp. 18–21.
21
)>> Hareket, May 1966, pp. 22–4.
22
ç’•bid.
23
)>> Hareket, April 1968, pp. 20–2.
10 Türker Armaner
to the cosmos and, comprehending it in its totality, a non-empirical foundation of
sciences. Topçu regards art and morality in the same way; an artist, facing factual
events, is a metaphysician who retreats to his inner realm. By the same token, morality
is the metaphysical origin of human actions. Being an “enemy” of metaphysics, for
Topçu, means being immoral; outside metaphysics there lies only total disorder.
Topçu, surprisingly in agreement with Fichte’s Addresses to the German Nation
although without referring to him, adamantly claims that the nations which could not
develop their proper metaphysics, far from residing in a “genuine” culture, live in an
imitative way; the individuals who reject their own metaphysics lose their characters
and personalities. This means rejecting their spirit, their God, their past, history,
and lastly rejecting themselves.24 Kierkegaard’s denial of Hegelian metaphysics is
affirmed by Topçu as “a challenge to a foreign culture,” and Kierkegaard’s opposition
to the domination of the “universal” and emphasizing the “particular” is seen as “the
conservation of the personality against the imposition of the State politics,”25 which,
according to him, is nothing but the Westernization of an Eastern culture. Topçu assumes
life as a polarized tension between “love” and “death,” and claims that it is not our ideas
which regulate life but our “will.” He refers to Hallaj and Gandhi as colossal examples
of people who use their will in an immense way and test the limits of their endurance.26
“Inwardness,” as introduced by Kierkegaard and as has been achieved by Hallaj,
according to the journal Hareket, is the source of the “spiritual force,” the space of
“purification.” Belief, the sole means for appropriating moral qualities, is the borderline
of the material world, the obstacle to exploitation. Disconnecting from the material
realm, in Topçu’s understanding, is the precondition for being a “real” human being.
In this sense trade, as well as “hedonist” life-styles, are treated by Topçu in a critical
manner. The Socratic dictum “Know thyself,” for Topçu, signifies the attitudes of
Yunus Emre and Hallaj, the two eminent mystics; the former claims the inner “I” to be
the real one, while the latter utters An’al Haqq which means “I am the God.”27
Nevertheless, the idea of putting at a distance the external, material sphere, and
considering the “physical realm” to lie on the surface of “reality” by providing a
space for this “debauchery” is a typical feudal residue, and Kierkegaard has been
adopted by this journal as a religious alternative to capitalist society, to a “corrupt”
world supposedly menacing the Islamic community in Turkey. In the conclusion
some of the implications of these ideas shall briefly be discussed.
For Topçu and the journal Hareket, Kierkegaard signifies a cynical figure, a
hermit perhaps, for they always appraise his spiritual strength, his loathing of social
assemblies, his indifference to earthly goods, and mostly, his solitude. This can be
evaluated as an “ascetic” attitude, for the more the individual suffers, the more he
bears the burden of agonies, he is closer and closer to metaphysical reality, and retreats
from the pleasures, wealth, and the quality of sociability. Solitude, in this respect,
is the only way to salvation, and the spiritual strength that will accompany him
during this difficult journey is his belief. Thus, Muhiddin Arabi, Sadrettin Konevi,

24
ç’•bid.
25
)>> Hareket, March 1947, pp. 3–6.
26
ç’•bid.
27
)>> Hareket, July 1971, pp. 18–20.
 Turkey: The Reception of Kierkegaard in Turkey 11
Mawlana Jalaluddin Rumi, Hallaj Mansur, Yunus Emre, and lastly Kierkegaard, in
this approach, all share a similar conception.

III. Hilmi Ziya Ülken and the Exposition of the History of Philosophy

It is impossible for a work concerning the reception of any philosopher in Turkey

to avoid the comprehensive texts of H.Z. Ülken (1901-74). For the present article
I will consider two of his books: Being and Becoming28 and The History of Turkish
Thought.29 Ülken, in his earlier work The History of Turkish Thought classifies the
history of thought in general under three rubrics: “collective thought,” having no
particular author and consisting of “cosmogonies, theogonies, mythologies, and
sagacity”; “individual thought,” including “philosophy, mysticism, and literature”;
and lastly “technical thought,” the “objective” way of thinking, denoting “science,
economics, and administration.”30
Ülken, in his work Being and Becoming, describes the design of the text which is
the outcome of three principal phases. Initially, the book was conceived in 1933, in
Berlin, based on Spinoza’s philosophy, specifically on an interpretation of Spinoza’s
thoughts on the “creative aspect of desires.” The next phase was from 1933 to 1934,
during his lectures at Istanbul University concerning “Philosophy of History.” The last
one comprises the lectures on “Epistemology,” “Philosophy of Values,” and “History
of Logic,” which were given in collaboration with Professor Ernst von Aster. In these
years, Ülken emphasizes, his own system was quite distanced from that of Hegel,
and, in a sense, this last step was “a return to Plato and Schelling.” Finally, following
a series of other considerations, the book was published in 1968. Ülken presents the
ultimate version by means of a triad: the novelties in modern physics, the Platonic
concept of “dyad,” and the unity of the controversial dichotomy of “subject and object,”
developed by phenomenology, pioneered by Husserl. Ülken’s edification, constructed
on these three pillars, “was not in agreement with the notion of ‘identity’ in Schelling’s
sense, nor with the Hegelian idea, that is, the ‘synthesis of the contradictions.’ ”31
The concept of “being,” in Ülken’s understanding, necessitates an “essence,”
“attributes,” and “modalities.” The Aristotelian notion of “ousia,” signifying both
“substance” and “essence,” according to Ülken, does not give a clue for distinguishing
the two meanings. Ülken claims that medieval philosophy, especially that of Averroës,

28
ç’•ilmi Ziya Ülken, Varlık ve Oluş, Ankara: Ankara University Publications 1968.
29
)>> Ülken, Türk Tefekkürü Tarihi, Yapı Kredi Publications 2004 [Galatasaray: Galatasaray
High School Student Union 1933–4].
30
)>> Ülken, being a francophone writer, indicates these terms together with French
words corresponding to them. The last one, which I translated into English as “Sagacity,”
is originally “Hikmet” (sagesse). Ülken emphasizes the importance of this concept by the
following definition: “Sagacity is the practical and social world-view derived from the
collective experiences. In this aspect, though resembling ‘morality,’ they differ from each
other. For ‘morality’ solely concerns actions; ‘wisdom,’ on the other hand, belongs to the
sphere of praxis and world-view of men mediated by the relationship between human beings
and Being.” Cf. Ülken, Türk Tefekkürü Tarihi, pp. 7ff.
31
)>> Ülken, Varlık ve Oluş, pp. 1–3.
12 Türker Armaner
Avicenna and, in the “Occident,” Aquinas, Scotus, and Suàrez achieved the distinction,
and elaborated on the concept of “essence”; though neglected in modern philosophy, this
consideration has been revived by Hegel, and later by phenomenology. Nevertheless,
Ülken points out:

Hegel was deceived by Heraclitus’ idea of “perpetual flux.”…“Logos” is not a Being, but
a ground for Becoming which is in need of being grounded itself. If one implies a sort
of logic by “Logos,” then he finds himself in the domain of dogmatic metaphysics just
as Hegel who, while criticizing Aristotelian logic, replaces it with a more absolute and
more tyrranical one. For this reason, he was attacked, albeit for different aspects, by both
Schopenhauer and Kierkegaard.32

In criticizing the Hegelian concept of “contradiction,” Kierkegaard is the first and

foremost ally of Ülken, who frequently refers to the journals, the Postscript, and The
Concept of Irony. He argues that “it is ontologically impossible to synthesize two
contradictory terms.”33
Hegel’s system, according to Ülken, remained insufficient for explaining the
concept of “nothingness,” and in this respect, it contributed almost nothing to
what was already said in Plato’s Parmenides, Sophist, and Statesman. Considering
“man” as “a finite being surrounded by the darkness of the concept of anxiety,” in
Ülken’s words, it is only Heidegger who provided a profound sense to the idea of
“nothingness.” Ülken regards Heidegger’s philosophy as “atheistic,” in distinction
from Gabriel Marcel and Karl Jaspers who are considered “theist existentialists.”
Notwithstanding, according to Ülken, Heidegger’s “atheism” is considerably
different from that of Nietzsche and Hartmann. For “Heidegger never disregards
God, but fights with him. This atheistic view, though, ends up on the opposite pole,
and has never cut its genealogical roots from Kierkegaard’s theist philosophy.”34 This
“theist attitude” of Kierkegaard, in Ülken’s interpretation, led him to the concept of
“anxiety,” 35 and Heidegger’s and Sartre’s diverse “atheistic” approaches led them to
the concepts of “sorrow” (Sorge) and “nausea” (Nausée) subsequently.36
According to Ülken’s understanding of the Kierkegaardian concept of
“anxiety,” the following point must be noted: since it is problematic to find a
corresponding word in Turkish for“Angest” (or “Angst,” “angoisse,” “anxiety”),
Ülken hits upon a far-fetched solution. When he refers to this concept (or
to Kierkegaard’s book), he uses the term “fear of death” [Ölüm Korkusu],
which does not seem appropriate. Ülken relates this idea to the concept of
“consciousness,” specifically “self-consciousness,”37 for “this concept is the
initial characteristic of ‘human being’ who survives in the unity of body and soul.

32
ç’•bid., p. 112.
33
ç’•bid., p. 317.
34
ç’•bid., p. 139.
35
ç’•he French version of The Concept of Anxiety that Ülken used was translated by Knud
Ferlov and Jean J. Gateau, and published among Gallimard editions in 1935.
36
)>> Ülken, Varlık ve Oluş, p. 269.
37
)>> Ülken, apart from “Self-consciousness,” asserts that there exists a “consciousness of
cosmos” as well. According to him, consciousness (Şuur) can solely be grasped in cosmos
 Turkey: The Reception of Kierkegaard in Turkey 13
Each consciousness concerning life is the consciousness of becoming, change, and
corruption. Hence it is the awareness of decline and termination.”38 “Nothingness,” as
observed, is interpreted by Ülken as the termination of consciousness; and “anxiety,”
the awareness of this termination, as the fear of death. Yet Kierkegaard’s work itself
hesitates to admit Ülken’s definition. In the conclusion of this article I will attempt
to demonstrate that the confusion (or deliberate transformation) between Frygt and
Angest is closely related to the difference in the understanding of “time” in various
cultures. Ülken regards the Kierkegaardian conception of “time” as originating from
that of St. Augustine. In short, the “past does not exist anymore, and the future has
not come into existence yet.” This later gave way to “existentialism,” continued by
Heidegger—“the discourse wizard”—and Jaspers. “According to these philosophers
[sc. Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Jaspers], time is not a measurement, but something
that belongs to human existence.”39
Ülken denies and admits some points in modern existentialism which developed
mostly under Kierkegaard’s influence. Existentialist philosophy, according to
Ülken, has, with the exception of Gabriel Marcel, disregarded the existence of a
“transcendental being.” This position, considered “unacceptable” by Ülken, has
depicted the “human being” as living in an irreconciable solitude. These philosophers
reserve “history” only to “man,” not to “nature.” But Ülken grants the existentialist
conclusion that

man is open to the possibilities and projects his existence on to future.…But the idea that
we can never be in agreement is that, this philosophy considers “time” as finite.…The fact
that man is mortal can never take him to despair, for he, as Nietzsche wrote, transcends
himself by his “will to power.”…The ideas of effort, labor and progress have been born
from this capacity. The Koran, in many verses, appraises labor as the greatest capacity of
man.40

Labor, for Ülken, is the sole gate to “freedom,” and it is constructed by ignoring
death; in other words, overcoming the fear of dying. Selfhood or consciousness of
self (self-reflection), to Ülken, is acquired by one’s capacity to produce. Education
and culture, in this respect, enable man to transcend himself, and the consciousness
of “infinity” is the superiority of his soul. But, according to Ülken, the content of the
soul is inaccessible by human understanding. To strengthen his claim, he refers to the
Koran: “They ask thee concerning the Spirit (of inspiration). Say: ‘The Spirit (cometh)
by command of my Lord: of knowledge it is only a little that is communicated to
you, (O men!).’ ”41 Quoting from Either/Or, Ülken claims that the mutual relation
between selfhood and freedom in this text can be interpreted as defining freedom as
a consequence of human existence rather than as a moral postulate. Ülken admits
this Kierkegaardian approach, for he asserts that in order to ascribe “responsibilities”

(Âlem) and by cosmos; and the main feature of consciousness is “being realized in time.” The
becoming being, in consciousness, takes the shape of “consciousness of time.”
38
)>> Ülken, Varlık ve Oluş, pp. 267–9.
39
ç’•bid., p. 407.
40
ç’•bid., pp. 414–15.
41
)>> Koran, XVII 85 Bani Isra-il (the Children of Israel).
14 Türker Armaner
to man, an externally imposed moral freedom should be recognized as insufficient.
By contrast, Heidegger’s and Sartre’s notion of “freedom” are entitled by Ülken
“ontological freedom,” which leaves no room for “responsibility,” but only values
“self-responsibility.”42
Existentialist philosophy, in Ülken’s exposition of the history of philosophy, is
a consequence or a reply to the antinomy of “realism and idealism.” Antinomies of
thought, the dilemma of Sic et Non, for Ülken, is a problematic, arising from common
sense, science, physics, biology, human sciences, or philosophy. The dichotomy of
“one and many” is the first antinomy that philosophy poses; “experience-reason” is
the second, and “realism-idealism” is the third. “The realm of ‘experience’ has been
transformed into empiricism by Democritus and Epicurus, and that of ‘Reason’ into
rationalism by Parmenides, Heraclitus, and later by Plato.”43 Ülken evaluates Plato
as the starting point of realism, and sophists as that of idealism. Passing through
realism/nominalism in the Middle Ages, this dichotomy employed new actors:
Bacon’s and Locke’s realism, Descartes’ earlier idealism and later realism, a more
obvious idealism of Leibniz in opposition to Spinoza’s realism, Kant’s attempt to
reconcile both and its failure in favor of idealism, the elaboration of idealism by
Kant’s critical followers (Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, the neo-Kantians), and finally
Schopenhauer’s effort to escape from idealism. This effort became “existentialism”
in Kierkegaard and Nietzsche.44
Pragmatism, in Ülken’s exposition, was a no-man’s-land on this battlefield.
Departing from Nietzsche (without being named) and championed by Pierce, William
James, and John Dewey, “pragmatism,” according to Ülken, has been the second
grandiose reply to Hegel’s “Absolutism.” The first one was realized by Kierkegaard.
Nevertheless, pragmatism, locating pluralism against monism, and empiricism
against rationalism, could not succeed by staying neutral in this mental arena.45
Ülken considers the “mystical way of resolution” as one of the suggestions for
solving the above-mentioned antinomies. This method of explanation annihilates the
antinomies by dissolving them in an indefinite unity. This absolute totality is not
accessible by reason or mental faculties, or by the senses. Ülken underlines the fact that
the relationship between religious belief and Absolute Being should not be confused
with the one between mysticism and the Absolute Unity. For the former succumbs
to the Absolute without claiming to comprehend it, while the latter, mysticism, calls
upon grasping the mystical truth by “irrational” ways, namely, pleasure, wisdom,
love, etc. Thus, the mystics were not on good terms with science or religion.
According to Ülken, this might be the principal reason for Islam’s negative reception
of mystics like Hallaj, Junayd of Baghdad, and Bayazid of Bistam. On the other hand
in Christianity, Ülken asserts, there is no big gap between the mystery of religion and
the great mystics. “Because paradoxically, this religion (Christianity) is founded on a
mystical essence. Kierkegaard, in his The Sickness unto Death, frequently emphasized

42
)>> Ülken, Varlık ve Oluş, pp. 438–41.
43
ç’•bid., p. 458.
44
ç’•bid., pp. 460–1.
45
ç’•bid., p. 485.
 Turkey: The Reception of Kierkegaard in Turkey 15
this mystical essence of Christianity against Reason.”46 Ülken likens Islam mysticism
to Indian mysticism for the reason that both claim to attain the sacred secret, mystical
truth (Gayb, İrfan) through a path other than the rational one.47
This work of Kierkegaard, The Sickness unto Death, was mentioned by Ülken
in The History of Turkish Thought in a similar context. Admitting that it might
be a vague analogy, he nevertheless asserts Kierkegaard to be the “Occidental”
counterpart of an eminent Islam mystic, Hallaj Mansur, whose name was mentioned
above. This analogy suggests a textual comparison between Kierkegaard’s book and
Hallaj’s Kitab al tawasin:

Hallaj’s mysticism is “subjectivist”; and just like Kierkegaard, he departs from the
assumption that man is imperfect, insufficient, with a never-ending desire for uniting with
the Absolute Being.…But Kierkegaard’s philosophy led him to an irrational existentialism
instead of a “unificationism” (like Hallaj). But there are many similarities between Hallaj’s
understanding of “Pharaoh” and “Satan” and Kierkegaard’s idea of “Sin” and “Despair,”
which encouraged us to make this analogy.48

In the “Introduction” to his book, Ülken explains the reasons for inquiring into the
actors of “Turkish thought” in comparison with their “Occidental” counterparts:

In the course of the production of this text, we are confronted with many problems. First
of all, the subjects that are taken here are quite untouched; thus, the work turned out to be
an inquiry through the original sources which was more than an exposition. Consequently,
this inquiry necessarily led us to a comparison with other nations’ “history of thought,” in
order to trace the “Occidental” mental roots of some “Oriental” authors.49

IV. Paralipomena

Comparative research concerning Kierkegaard in recent years mostly considers

Heidegger, and Abraham’s story is constantly reiterated in the context of
existentialist philosophy. In relation to this fact, an increasing interest is observed in
phenomenology—particularly Husserl, Heidegger, and Gadamer—and hermeneutics.
Kierkegaard’s location, shifting from an ally of mystical thought, a legitimation for
the “subordinate morality,” for the appraisal of the “thrown individual’s solitude,”
can in some ways be interpreted as a change in the general ethos of interpretation.
Abraham’s “suspension” is examined as an analysis of a story, a possible, fictitious
human condition, or as the ontology of “making choices.”
Academic works on Kierkegaard in the last twenty years focus on the different
aspects of his works; roughly classified: aesthetical, religious, and ontological. The
concept of “irony,” taken in its educative function, produced a series of analytical
studies on Kierkegaard, as well as Hegel and the “German Romantics,” mostly in
the sphere of aesthetics. As far as I could observe, in this last period scholars have

46
ç’•bid., pp. 492–3.
47
ç’•bid., pp. 492ff.
48
)>> Ülken, Türk Tefekkürü Tarihi, p. 277.
49
ç’•bid., pp. 9ff.
16 Türker Armaner
conducted their research on this issue in a more “technical” way, in the sense that the
domain in which the inquiry is carried on is more specified. A thesis on “irony,” for
instance, can easily find the possible “counterparts” of Kierkegaard in the “Orient,”
and related to this fact, the invented Orient/Occident dichotomy is mentioned much
less. In other words, the last phase of Kierkegaard’s reception in Turkey, is quite
“Kierkegaard qua Kierkegaard.”
Works on the “religious” aspect of Kierkegaard, by the same token, constitute the
“theological reading” of Kierkegaard’s texts and attempt to locate some of his crucial
concepts, for example, “anxiety,” “fear,” “despair,” “sin,” “truth,” “subjectivity,” in
the context of Christianity.
The medieval question “Can belief be rationally grounded?,” in addition to the
realism/nominalism debate, became one of the kernels in Kierkegaard studies in the
recent academic climate of Turkey, and this was mirrored in theology departments.
The relationship between “reason and belief” is thus considered in parallel to the
relation between “religion and science.” There is some comparative research on
this issue concerning the ideas of Wittgenstein on “religion” by figures such as
P. Winch, N. Malcolm, James Conant, K. Nielsen, and D.Z. Phillips.50 Considering
a methodological resemblance between Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein, this approach
tends to apply Wittgenstein’s ideas to “religious epistemology” and count both figures
as “fideist” thinkers alongside St. Augustine and Gazali. “Fideism” is understood in
two versions, namely radical and moderate, and Kierkegaard is placed in the former,
as representing the most sophisticated version of Tertullian (“Credo quia absurdum”),
and St. Augustine in the latter (“Credo ut intelligam”) as a forerunner of Wittgenstein.
Concluding the research, although the author admits the “subjectivism” of Kierkegaard,
he evaluates this view as being too radical; and with respect to Wittgenstein, his attempt
to erase the borderline between “theoretical” and “practical” is seen as failed.
The ontological sphere, so to speak, comprises mostly the comparison between
Hegel and Kierkegaard with respect to the laws of logic, specifically “tertium non
datur” (the law of excluded middle). This law, together with the law of identity, and
the law of non-contradiction, are regarded as an expression of the ontology of “making
preferences.” At this point, to my mind at least, younger Kierkegaard scholars tend
to interpret his philosophy as an “exposition of life,” and that of Hegel as “logical
research.” The possibility of containing two contradictory attitudes is granted to the
“living person,” and Nietzsche is appealed to for support. This might be the outcome, or
a reciprocal condition at least, of the fading away of the sharp East/West dichotomy.

V. Kierkegaard from a Literary and Artistic Point of View

The reception of Kierkegaard in the domain of literature and fine arts illustrates
one of the most interesting pictures. A small but significant remark by an eminent

50
)>> Recep Alpyağıl, Dini Epistemolojide Fideizm [Fideism in the Religious Epistemology],
unpublished M.A. thesis, Samsun: On Dokuz Mayıs University 2002. (A chapter in this thesis
was latterly published as a book by the same author: Kierkegaard ve Wittgenstein’dan Hareketle
Din Felsefesi Yapmak [Conducting Philosophy of Religion Departing from Kierkegaard and
Wittgenstein].)
 Turkey: The Reception of Kierkegaard in Turkey 17
contemporary literary author, Oğuz Atay (1934–77), in his novel Tutunamayanlar
[Beautiful Losers] (1972)51 is worth mentioning: A journalist, following his return to
work after two years abroad, finds an envelope on his desk. It was written by an engineer
who disapeared some time ago, with it being unknown whether he was dead or alive,
and sent to the journalist with the intention of its being published, after receiving the
consent of each person in the file, for the work had been composed collaboratively. In
addition to this, he informs the journalist that they once met during a train journey and
had a conversation. In the second layer of the novel, the engineer is depicted by a third
character. He, the lost engineer, is in grief because of the unexpected death of a very close
friend who committed suicide. The engineer visits his belated friend’s mother to present
his condolences, and asks her permission to look at her son’s private room where he
finds a bunch of notes, a sort of diary. The first note is entitled What is to Be Done?
(with an allusion to Lenin’s book), the second one is a piece of paper, telling about a
clumsy and accidental dialogue with someone in the street. At the foot of the paper
was written “Boredom” in capital letters, together with some cartoons drawn nearby.
The third paper that the engineer draws from his friend’s notebooks is entitled
“The philosophers and literary authors that have to be read most carefully,” and it
follows: Søren Kierkegaard, Oswald Spengler, Franz Kafka, Friedrich Nietzsche. At
the bottom of the page was written in English: “The Tragic Aspect.” Depicting the
middle-bourgeoisie of 1970s with a subtle irony and equipped with highly-developed
literary techniques, Atay’s insertion of Kierkegaard in this fictitious context is quite
appropriate.
The personification of major figures in Tutunamayanlar reflects, in a sense, the
ironic suspension that Kierkegaard suggests. That is to say, the engineer who fell
into the trap of middle-bourgeois living practice, is on the edge of a knife which
is sharp on both sides; either he will sacrifice the “cosy” atmosphere of a family
apartment and take into account staying in a state which is solitary, nevertheless
open to self-reflection, isolated from the average but largely accepted social aura; or
he will continue living in the suffocating, kitsch, unaesthetic, but comforting cell-
like apartment. Either he will victimize the aesthetic face of the world for the moral
order, or he will victimize himself for the sake of his proper desires: the suspension
of the ethical life, or obedience to public morality.
Three years after the appearance of Tutunamayanlar, the contemporary poet
Behçet Necatigil (1916–79) mentions the name of Kierkegaard in an essay on Hans
Christian Andersen:

About a century ago, you could have encountered three figures strolling in the streets of
Copenhagen. Those people were the eminent contributions of Denmark to world culture,
namely, the priest N.F.S. Grundtvig, one of the chief representatives of the Danish romantic
movement; the famous philosopher Søren Kierkegaard; and Hans Christian Andersen [the
author of around a hundred and seventy tales]. Grundtvig would be recorded in the history
of pedagogy as a genious folk educator, and Kierkegaard, strolling in the streets with his
umbrella was an “agora philosopher” like Socrates, the master of irony....Kierkegaard

51
)>> Oğuz Atay, Tutunamayanlar, Istanbul: İletişim Publications 1998 [1972].
18 Türker Armaner
later on began to influence the international intelligentsia, and once he became widely
known, his philosophy belonged to the property of the crème de la crème.52

One should note that Necatigil, besides being a significant poet, was also an essayist
and a translator. Having a profound acquaintance with the German language, he
translated many novels including ones by K. Hamsun. Literary and philosophical
circles in Scandinavian countries were among Necatigil’s particular interests, and
in this essay mentioned above he briefly introduces Andersen’s tale “Snow White,”
specifically focusing on the “Satanic aspect.”
The reflection of Kierkegaard’s philosophy in the visual arts, cinema, painting
and sculpture, retrospectively speaking, might have been the most favourable
context for Kierkegaard’s reception. A doctoral dissertation concerning a particular
analysis of certain movies focuses on the concept of the “moment” in Kierkegaard,
and interprets it as a “temporal interval determined by the authentic life.”53 Ingmar
Bergman’s film The Seventh Seal, classified under the category of “auteur” cinema,
according to this work, elaborates on the concept of “anxiety” in the Kierkegaardian
sense. The interval, the lonely moment which belongs to a sole subject, filled out
with the concrete encounter with a fear that has no determinate object, is Bergman’s
cinematographical sequence of emancipation. In this dissertation, the dialogue
between death and the knight in Bergman’s film, is interpreted as a perfect expression
of what Kierkegaard intended in The Sickness unto Death.

VI. Conclusion

If the reception of Kierkegaard is thought to be a matter for “intellectuals,” then this

title is in need of specification. Şerif Mardin, in an article dated 1984, calls to mind a
crucial distinction, that is, that between “literati” and “intellectuals.”54 Mardin depicts
“literati” as belonging to traditional societies and likens their way of conserving
knowledge to a sort of “guild spirit.” Thus, the “literatus,” whose profession is “to
know,” has the duty of both preserving and transferring the basic values of society
to the future generations. In this sense, the acquisition of knowledge is supposed
to be realized within the borders of a certain space and hidden from people who
are foreign to that community. This definition of “literatus” can be appropriately
attributed to the Sufi orders, for example.
According to Mardin, this situation of the “literati,” mastering the written material
and controlling it for the stability of society’s “essential culture,” is closely related
to traditional societies’ attitude of ignoring or never being aware of the “daimonic

52
)>> Behçet Necatigil, “Sonsuzluğunu Masallarla Garantileyen Andersen: Çok Yönlü
Bir Dünya” [Andersen, One Who Assures His Eternity With Tales: A Multilateral World],
in Bütün Eserleri 5 [Complete Works, vol. 5], ed. by Ali Tanyeri and Hilmi Yavuz, Istanbul:
Cem Publications 1983, pp. 314–23.
53
)>> Hakan Savaş, Sinema ve Varoluşçuluk [Cinema and Existentialism], unpublished
Ph.D. Thesis, Anadolu University, Eskişehir 2001.
54
)>> Şerif Mardin, “Aydınlar Konusunda Ülgener ve Bir İzah Denemesi” [Professor
Ülgener and Turkish Intellectuals], Toplum ve Bilim, vol. 24, 1984, pp. 9–16.
 Turkey: The Reception of Kierkegaard in Turkey 19
creative faculty” of the individual. Mardin, in his evaluation of Ülgener’s account,
asserts that this lack of “daimonic cult,” grasping the “daimonic” only in its external
form, and taking it as an equivalent of “Evil” (Şer) and “Satan” (Şeytan) have been
among the chief features of the Ottoman mentality, which also explains the absence
of works on Fichte and Schelling, who sought the riddle of the cosmos in the human
being, while the “literati” and the thinkers of the “enlightenment” searched for it in
the universal picture. Mardin concludes,

One of the most evident features of Islamic culture, apart from Sufism, is not admitting—
and even vehemently denying—that the daimonic side of men might be a creative faculty.
Despite all our “modernism,” I suppose that this belief has been recorded to the official
theses of modern Turkey. In this respect, the most leftist, the most “radical” thinkers of
Republican Turkey are by no means different from the Ottoman “literati.”55

The “cultural problematic” arising from the term “daimonic” causes translation
problems as well. This difficulty is mentioned in the preface of the translation of The
Concept of Anxiety56 and in an article on Kierkegaard. Viewed in this way, it can be
claimed that Topçu and his journal utilize Kierkegaard’s defense of the particular
against the universal in order to justify the high rank of the universal (Islamic
culture) above the particular (Muslim fidel). Moreover, Kierkegaardian—or broadly
“theist”—existentialism serves the conservative projects of Topçu as a “mystical”
ground, an “Occidental” ally for defending “Oriental” values.
The texts of the Sufi tradition have long been the sources of the “overwhelming
ethos,” as mentioned in the previous section. Sabri Ülgener (the economist that
Şerif Mardin examined in the above-mentioned article), in his work The Moral and
Intellectual Issues of the History of Our Economic Decline interrogates the possible
reasons for the Ottoman Empire’s failure to transform itself into a capitalist society.57
In the present article, this research shall briefly be taken in its aspect concerning
“Islamic mysticism” (Sufism). For the asserted affinity between this cult and
Kierkegaard might be clarified after an examination of the common denominator
underlying the fundamental texts of Sufism.
Ülgener considers Sufist literature as an expression of medieval morality. He thus
distinguishes between “medieval mentality” and “medieval morality,” which correspond
to “is” and “ought to.” The most significant characteristic of medieval morality, depicting
the “ideal life” and represented in Sufist literature, is defined by Ülgener as follows:

This idealized life is not quite different from the “meta-economical” approach that
grounds generally the “pre-capitalist” phases....a lifestyle, introverted, calm and modest,
that requires wide distances in the individual’s conscience against the physical world....
Hence it can be supposed that the medieval morality is a “distance-consciousness.”58

55
ç’•bid., p. 16.
56
)>> Kaygı Kavramı, trans. by Türker Armaner, Istanbul: İş Kültür Publications 2003 [2nd
ed., 2004].
57
ç’•abri Ülgener, İktisadi İnhitat Tarihimizin Ahlak ve Zihniyet Meseleleri, Istanbul:
Istanbul University Publications 1951.
58
ç’•bid., pp. 57–9.
20 Türker Armaner
Ülgener elaborates on this indication of “distance-consciousness” with respect to both
space and time; at this point we shall focus on the latter. Reserving a distance to the
temporal sphere in the consciousness, in Ülgener’s examination, leads the individual
to an indifference to the future; by the same token, the economic undertakings are
not concerned with anything beyond the present moment.
Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, a contemporary literary author and professor of Turkish
Language and Literature, introduces a similar view on this issue by referring to
Massignon. He claims, “In the Orient there is no continuous time, but merely discrete
moments.”59 At this point, it can be claimed that “Orient” and “Occident” are not
geographical locations, but determinations or modifications of consciousness. That
is to say, rather than the physical territories, it is the medieval imagination, carrying
pre-capitalist feudal traces, which depicts the Oriental realm. Medieval morality, in
this sense, presents the picture of a static image of life, and suggests a carelessness
“beyond the neighbourhood and today.”60
The admission of these definitions reveals a paradoxical attitude of the “literati”
who consider Kierkegaard and Sufism to be compatible. Kierkegaard, especially in
The Concept of Anxiety, asserts that we grasp life retrospectively, but live by looking
at the future. Considering man as a synthesis of temporal and infinite (among other
syntheses), and present time as eternity itself, Kierkegaard describes the concept of
“anxiety,” in its relation to “time,” as concerning the future. Being anxious about
a disillusion that happened in the past, in Kierkegaard’s account, arises from the
fact that the individual views it as a possibility that might be repeated in the future,
rather than a past event left behind. Kierkegaard, as known, suggests that if one
really thought that it was something belonging to the past, one would have felt
regret, instead of anxiety. Hence the account concerning Kierkegaard and Sufism
as counterparts, if it is permitted to say so, evaluates Kierkegaard as one-sided, and
disregards the fact that the concept of the “moment” in Kierkegaard is a subjective
entity, not a shared, communitarian temporal interval.
Another point that Ülgener raises is our second reason for hesitating in taking
Sufism together with Kierkegaard. In his book mentioned above, it is claimed that
“authority and hierarchy are two indispensable conditions for medieval life.”61 This
applies both to religious and commercial practices: it is not possible to attain divine
grace, to master a profession without a mediacy. In the religious orders, in order
to grasp celestial truth, it is a sine qua non to yield to the authority of the leader;
likewise, in a guild, one cannot be a master in the absence of the guidance of a former
one. Sufist literature, one of the major ideological sources for medieval morality,
according to Ülgener, praises abstaining from the knowledge of the physical world.
Kierkegaard’s emphasis on “immediacy,” and the compulsory mediation in the
religious orders, their apparent “anti-individualistic” character, encourage us to say
that the “non-hierarchical and immediate conception of belief” in Kierkegaard is not
compatible with the “rank-based hierarchy” and “mediated fidelity” in the orders.

59
)>> Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, 19. Asır Türk Edebiyatı Tarihi [The History of Nineteenth-
Century Turkish Literature], Istanbul: Çağlayan Publications 1997 [1949], p. 16.
60
)>> Ülgener, İktisadi İnhitat Tarihimizin Ahlak ve Zihniyet Meseleleri, pp. 56–62.
61
ç’•bid., p. 83.
 Turkey: The Reception of Kierkegaard in Turkey 21
Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar evaluates Sufism as an “exit” for the Oriental individual.62
According to him, Sufism was not expanding the mental aspect of life, but suggesting
living in abstinence from the physical world. Sufism, in Tanpınar’s interpretation,
relieves human beings and annihilates anxiety from the individual’s world; for that
reason, considering the world as aspects of the one Being, the mystical tradition
leaves no room for the emergence of “tragedy.” Ülgener and Tanpınar agree on one
crucial point—that the absence of the bourgeoisie and the lack of “tragic cult” are
two reciprocal conditions that determine each other. “The Orient was forcing the
drawn borders, but never transgressing them.”63
Consequently, as far as I can see, despite the changes in the reception of
Kierkegaard in Turkey, some presuppositions continue to be maintained in the
past fifty years, and among them the crucial ones can be summed up as follows.
As mentioned above, the term “daimon” remained in its obscurity, likewise the
“daimonic aspect” of the individual is still ignored in everyday practice, chiefly in
the process of the “production of knowledge.” To exemplify this assumption, which
takes its support from the quoted texts of Mardin, Ülgener, and Tanpınar, one notes
that one who expresses an individual, “daimonic” creativity, might still be regarded
as the bearer of an “evil conduct.” In this sense, the distinctions between “daimonic,”
“satanic,” and even “diabolic” in Turkey are vague and somehow equated. A second
ongoing hindrance for the examination of Kierkegaard is the conception of death.
Ülken, in the 1960s, mentioned the concept of “anxiety” as the “fear of death,” and in
a very recent reference to Kierkegaard, the “sickness unto death” appears as “despair
as a mortal sickness.” The last obstacle, an item that perhaps comprises everything,
is the understanding of “time.” There are two words for this term in Turkish, Vakit
and Zaman, which seem frequently equivalent, but this is not the case. While the
former indicates a continuity, a duration, the latter is a “conceptualized” form of this
duration. One can take another person’s Vakit, but not his or her Zaman, for instance.
Following this confusion, the tendency to relate “anxiety” immediately to “death,”
and thus cancel the projection of the “non-existing possible future moments” can be
more comprehensible.

62
)>> Tanpınar, 19. Asır Türk Edebiyatı.
63
ç’•bid., p. 30.
 Bibliography

I. Turkish Translations of Kierkegaard’s Works

“İlim Dışı Eklenti” [Philosophical Fragments (translation of a short passage of the

work)], trans. by Vahap Mutal, ed. by F.N. Magill, Fikir ve Sanatta Hareket, July
1970, pp. 11–14.
“Ya / Ya da” [Either/Or (translation of a short passage of the work)], trans. by Oruç
Aruoba, in Kara Mizah Antolojisi [The Anthology of Black Irony], ed. by Enis
Batur, Istanbul: Hil Publications 1987, pp. 38–40.
“Diapsalmata,” trans. by Güven Savaş Kızıltan, Gergedan, June 1988, p. 133.
“İbrahim’e Methiye” [Eulogy to Abraham (translation of a passage from Fear and
Trembling)], trans. by Oruç Aruoba, Metis Çeviri, vol. 1, no. 3, 1988, pp. 113–19.
Korku ve Titreme [Fear and Trembling], from English trans. by N. Ekrem Düzen,
Ankara: Ara Publications 1990.
“Regine’ye Mektuplar” [Letters to Regine (translated from French, Lettres fiançailles,
Paris: Falaize 1956)], trans. by Sema Rifat, Cogito, Spring 1995, pp. 214–16.
Baştan Çıkarıcının Günlüğü [“The Seducer’s Diary”], from English trans. by Süha
Sertabiboğlu, Istanbul: Ayrıntı Publications 1996 [2nd ed., 2002].
Ölümcül Hastalık Umutsuzluk [The Sickness unto Death], from French trans. by
Mehmet Mukadder Yakupoğlu, Istanbul: Ayrıntı Publications 1997 [2nd ed., 2001].
Kahkaha Benden Yana [The Laughter is on my Side], from English trans. by Nedim
Çatlı, Istanbul: Ayrıntı Publications 2000. (Originally as The Laughter is on my
Side:€An Imaginative Introduction to Kierkegaard, ed. by Roger Poole and Henrik
Stangerup, Princeton:€Princeton University Press€1989.)
Korku ve Titreme [Fear and Trembling], from English trans. by İbrahim Kapaklıkaya,
Istanbul: Anka Publications 2002.
İroni Kavramı [The Concept of Irony] from English trans. by Sıla Okur, Istanbul: İş
Kültür Publications 2003 [2nd ed., 2004].
Kaygı Kavramı [The Concept of Anxiety], from Danish and English trans. by Türker
Armaner, Istanbul: İş Kültür Publications 2003 [2nd ed., 2004].
Ölümcül Hastalık Umutsuzluk [The Sickness unto Death], from French trans. by
Mehmet Mukadder Yakupoğlu, Istanbul: Doğu-Batı Publications 2004.

II. Secondary Literature on Kierkegaard in Turkey

Akyağıl, Recep, Kierkegaard ve Wittgenstein’dan Hareketle Din Felsefesi Yapmak

[To Conduct Philosophy of Religion Departing From Kierkegaard and
Wittgenstein], Istanbul: Anka Publications 2002.
 Turkey: The Reception of Kierkegaard in Turkey 23
Armaner, Türker, “Kierkegaard’da ‘Özne’ Kavramı” [The Concept of “Subject” in
Kierkegaard], Yeditepe’de Felsefe, July 2003, pp. 174–90.
Atasoy, Kamil, “Tanrı, İbrahim ve Kierkegaard” [God, Abraham and Kierkegaard],
Birikim, May 1997, pp. 50–4.
Bahadırlı, Ayse Serpil, Søren Aabye Kierkegaard’ın Felsefesinde “Estetik Varoluş”
un Anlamı [The Meaning of “Aesthetical Existence” in Kierkegaard], unpublished
Ph.D. Thesis, Istanbul University, Istanbul 1992.
Batuhan, Hüseyin, Kierkegaard’da İroni Kavramı [The Concept of Irony in
Kierkegaard], unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, Istanbul University, Istanbul 1953.
Becermen, Metin, Søren Aabye Kierkegaard’da Felsefe ve Mitos İlişkisi [The
Relationship Between Philosophy and Myth in Kierkegaard], unpublished M.A.
Thesis, Uludağ University, Bursa 2001.
Çınar, Ruhi, “Dindar Bir Varoluşçu Søren Kierkegaard” [Søren Kierkegaard as a
Religious Existentialist], Hisar, October 1965, pp. 11–13.
Demirhan, Ahmet (ed.), Kierkegaard ve Din: Jacques Derrida, Søren Kierkegaard,
Emmanuel Levinas, John Milbank, Dorota Golwacka, Hent de Vries [Kierkegaard
and Religion: Jacques Derrida, Søren Kierkegaard, Emmanuel Levinas, John
Milbank, Dorota Golwacka, Hent de Vries], Istanbul: Gelenek Publications 2003.
Deren, Seçil, “Angst ve Ölümlülük” [Anxiety and Mortality], Doğu-Batı, April
1999, pp. 101–15.
Gökel, Nazım, The Concept of Either/Or, unpublished B.A. Thesis, Yeditepe
University, Istanbul 2002.
Gülsoy, Aliye, Kierkegaard’s Concept of Irony, unpublished M.A. Thesis, The
Middle East Technical University, Ankara 1995.
Hüsrev, Hasan, “İnsanoğlunun Soylu Yalnızlığı,” [The Noble Solitude of the Human
Being], Fikir ve Sanatta Hareket, June, 1967, pp. 23–4.
Kurtoğlu, Demet, Hegelian Contradiction in Thought and Kierkegaardian
Contradiction in Life: An Attempt to Demonstrate the Relation between Logic
and Life, Ankara: The Middle East Technical University 1999.
Mutal, Vahap, “Egzistansiyalizme Dair” [On Existentialism], Fikir ve Sanatta
Hareket, March 1971, pp. 18–21.
Necatigil, Behçet, “Sonsuzluğunu Masallarla Garantileyen Andersen” [Andersen,
One Who Assures His Eternity With Tales: A Multilateral World], Milliyet Sanat,
vol. 124, July 1975 (republished in Bütün Eserleri 5 [Complete Works, vol. 5], ed.
by Ali Tanyeri and Hilmi Yavuz, Istanbul: Cem Publications 1983, pp. 314–23).
Soykan, Ömer Naci, “Varoluş Yolunun Ana Kavşağında: Korku ve Kaygı—
Kierkegaard ve Heidegger’de Bir Araştırma” [Fear and Anxiety: Kierkegaard and
Heidegger on the Crossroads of the Way to Existence], Doğu-Batı, April 1999,
pp. 35–53.
Topçu, Nurettin, “İradenin Davası” [The Struggle of the Will], Fikir ve Sanatta
Hareket, March 1947, pp. 3–6.
—— “Existentialisme,” Fikir ve Sanatta Hareket, February, 1966, pp. 7–8.
—— “Existentialisme II,” Fikir ve Sanatta Hareket, March, 1966, pp. 14–16.
—— “Existentialisme IV—Allahsız ve Dinci Existentialisme,” Fikir ve Sanatta
Hareket, May 1966, pp. 22–4.
24 Türker Armaner
—— “Varoluş Felsefesi” [The Existentialist Philosophy], Fikir ve Sanatta Hareket,
April, 1966, pp. 8–11.
—— “Metafizik” [Metaphysics], Fikir ve Sanatta Hareket, April, 1968, pp. 20–2.
—— “Bahtiyar Belde” [Felicitious Country], Fikir ve Sanatta Hareket, June 1970,
pp. 4–6.
—— “İnsan” [The Human Being], Fikir ve Sanatta Hareket, July 1971, pp. 18–20.
—— “Kuvvet” [The Force], Fikir ve Sanatta Hareket, June 1971, pp. 18–22.
—— “Ruh Kuvveti” [The Spiritual Force], Fikir ve Sanatta Hareket, August 1971,
pp. 18–20.
—— “Mevlâna’da Alem ve İnsan” [The Universe and the Human Being in Mawlana
Jalaluddin Rumi], Fikir ve Sanatta Hareket, January 1974, pp. 53–9.
Ulaş, Mehmet, “Asrımız ve Felsefe” [Our Age and Philosophy], Fikir ve Sanatta
Hareket, November 1968, pp. 21–31.
Ülken, Hilmi Ziya, Varlık ve Oluş [Being and Becoming], Ankara: Ankara University
Publications 1968.
—— Türk Tefekkürü Tarihi [The History of Turkish Thought], Istanbul: Yapı Kredi
Publications 2004 [Istanbul: Galatasaray High School Student Association
1933–4].
Yıldırım, Tamer, Kierkegaard’ın Din Felsefesi [Kierkegaard’s Philosophy of
Religion], unpublished M.A. Thesis, Marmara University, Istanbul 2002.

III. Secondary Literature on Kierkegaard’s Reception in Turkey

None.
 Israel:
Kierkegaard’s Reception in Fear
and Trembling in Jerusalem
Jacob Golomb

In this survey of Kierkegaard’s presence in Israel and the study of his thought
(approximately from the independence year of 1947), I will also speculate about certain
reasons for his somewhat delayed and sometimes ambivalent reception in Zion.
The first scholarly edition of Kierkegaard translated from Danish appeared as
late as 1986. Before that, a collection of arbitrarily chosen passages from some
of his writings, translated from German and hence involving a double infidelity,
had appeared in 1954. There was also the aesthetically pleasing but fragmentary
Letters to Cordelia: From the Diary of the Seducer. The same deplorable situation
prevailed in Israeli scholarship on Kierkegaard, which only in the last thirty years
has really begun to flourish, as is documented by the bibliography to this article.
How can we account for the somewhat slow and at first quite reluctant reception
of Kierkegaard in Israel? Unlike many other European thinkers (notably among
them Nietzsche), Kierkegaard was less attractive to Jews in the first days of modern
Israel because his religiously existential objectives clashed with the mainstream
agenda of Zionism, which viewed the history of the Jewish people in secular terms
and prescribed for the “new Jews” (namely, the “first Hebrews”) an atheistic, most
frequently even socialist, point of view. This ideological thrust was also viewed,
mainly by Central and Western European Zionist leaders and intellectuals, as one of


ç’•his stands in contrast to the much more enthusiastic and earlier, though no less
ambivalent, reception of Nietzsche in Zion. Some think that the main reason for this delay was
the language barrier: unlike German, few Israelis know Danish. However, technical reasons alone
cannot adequately explain the discrepancy between Kierkegaard’s and Nietzsche’s reception by
the Israeli-Jewish public, as I claimed in “Kierkegaard in Zion,” Kierkegaardiana, vol. 19, 1998,
pp. 130–7. Cf. also Jacob Golomb, Nietzsche and Zion, Ithaca: Cornell University Press 2004.

)>> Hil Ureada [Fear and Trembling], trans. from Danish by Eyal Levin, ed. by Jacob
Golomb, Jerusalem: The Hebrew University Magnes Press 1986 (2nd ed., 1993).

)>> Mivhar Ktavim [Selected Writings], ed. by Josef Shechter and Ilan Karoh, Tel-Aviv: Dvir
1954 (2nd enlarged ed., 1991). And see my critical review (in Hebrew) of the second edition of
this unscientific selection (1991) in Iton 77: Literary Monthly, vol. 140, pp. 26–8, under the title
“Betrayal of Authenticity.”

ç’•elected and translated by Shmuel Tamari, Tel Aviv: Eked 1961.
26 Jacob Golomb
the more effective means to fight the intolerable syndrome of “Jewish marginality”
that most of the Western European acculturated Jews barely endured.
The term “marginal Jews” refers to prominent Jewish men of letters such as
Morris Cohen (alias the great Jewish-Danish literary critic and sage Georg Brandes
(1842–1927)), Arthur Schnitzler (1862–1931), Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), Stefan
Zweig (1881–1942), Alfred Döblin (1878–1957), Franz Kafka (1883–1924), Walter
Benjamin (1892–1940), and many others. They were Grenzjuden in the spiritual
sense since they had lost their religion and the tradition of their forefathers and
yet still were not fully accepted into European secular society. Thus, the problem
of personal identity and authenticity was acutely present for them and became a
distressing and fundamental existential issue. For some, the hatred of the ancestral
roots within their personality led them to self-destruction or self-dissipation. They
were tragic because they were homeless and without a stable identity: doomed to
create from their own resources new and authentic selves. They often rejected their
affinity with the Jewish community and were, at the same time, unwelcome among
their non-Jewish contemporaries.
Political, cultural, spiritual, and socialist versions of Zionism attempted, among
other things, to solve this unbearable state of double alienation. The first Zionist
leaders and intellectuals, like Theodor Herzl (1860–1904), Max Nordau (1849–
1923), Martin Buber (1878–1965), Gershom Scholem (1897–1982), and many
others believed that the creation of Jewish solid national identity would put an end
to this syndrome of existential marginality.
Moreover, as I have shown in another work, the European acculturated Jews
tried to shed their religion and heritage to become sole authors of their new life. The
weakening of religious sentiments among them by the end of the nineteenth century
attracted them to such staunch atheists as Nietzsche, who, against the religious
gospels of salvation from the hardships of life, posited their antithesis: salvation
from these transcendental types of salvation by incitement to create an authentic self
and live a “healthy” atheistic life.
On the other hand, in the midst of Jews who were undergoing the painful process
of secularization and the search for a new personal identity, there also appeared
the no less enticing thought of Søren Kierkegaard. In the crucial matter of religion,
Kierkegaard seemed to them less radical than other thinkers. Thus, for example,
Kierkegaard (like Nietzsche) stressed personal experience and the authentic pattern
of life, but he did this under the auspices of faith in God and within his embrace.


)>> For an elaboration, see Jacob Golomb, “Nietzsche and the Marginal Jews,” in Nietzsche
and Jewish Culture, ed. by Jacob Golomb, London and New York: Routledge 1997, pp. 158–92
and “Nietzsche und die ‘Grenzjuden,’ ” in Jüdischer Nietzscheanismus, ed. by Werner Stegmaier
und Daniel Krochmalnik, Berlin und New York: Walter de Gruyter 1997, pp. 228–46.

)>> On Herzl’s marginality and its overcoming see my “Thus Spoke Herzl: Nietzsche’s
Presence in Herzl’s Life and Work,” Leo Baeck Year Book, vol. 34, 1999, pp. 97–124.

ç’•ee Golomb, Nietzsche and Zion.

)>> For a more extensive treatment of these themes, see the “Conclusion” of my Nietzsche’s
Enticing Psychology of Power, Ames: Iowa State University Press 1989, pp. 267–331.

)>> See Jacob Golomb, “Kierkegaard’s Ironic Ladder to Authentic Faith,” International
Journal for Philosophy of Religion, vol. 23, 1991, pp. 65–81.
 Israel: Kierkegaard’s Reception in Fear and Trembling in Jerusalem 27
The marginal Jews, threatened by their marginality, could thank Kierkegaard for
providing them with a less radical solution to their identity problem. His solution
enabled them to keep their new, delicately balanced, identity intact. This was an
identity of believing Jews, who strayed from their forefathers’ tradition and from
the Rabbinical Jewish orthodoxy that insisted on observing all the religious
commandments that the marginal Jews were not able or not willing to follow in letter
and in spirit. Kierkegaard was less radical than Nietzsche in matters of faith, though
he was no less radical in matters of religion: both rejected the social-institutional
framework that believers all over the world work for in order to maintain and spread
the rituals of their faith. This was Kierkegaard’s main charm for Zionist intellectuals
and philosophers like Gershom Scholem, Martin Buber, and Hugo Bergman (1883–
1975), as well as for religious Zionists in contemporary Israel, most notably the
late Prof. Isaiah Leibowitz (1903–94), one of the most influential Jewish thinkers
in Israel, some aspects of whose thought recall that of Kierkegaard.10 The latter
also vehemently rejected the attempts to mobilize the Jewish religion for the cause
of nationalist fanatics and untiringly struggled for a clear separation of the state
from religion and faith. The still controversial issue regarding the relation between
the state of Israel and the Jewish religion plagued Israeli society almost from its
inception. Thus, not surprisingly, as can be seen from the bibliography below, the first
discussions of Kierkegaard in Hebrew focused on the “Akeda of Isaac [the sacrifice
of Isaac].” This sacrifice gave serious headaches to the greatest interpreters of the
Bible, and their exegeses dealt extensively with the problem of how to reconcile the
demand for human sacrifice with the strict forbiddance of it from the beginning of
the Hebraic religion. The natural curiosity about how Kierkegaard dealt with this
problem and how he regarded the relation between ethics (namely the ethos of the
state) and faith prompted many of first investigations of his thought in Israel.
Undoubtedly, Gershom Scholem, Martin Buber, Hugo Bergman, and Isaiah
Leibowitz were the four towering figures who significantly facilitated the introduction
of Kierkegaard to Palestine and then to Israel. Even a quick glance at the bibliography
of Kierkegaard in Israel gives the impression that these four figures were the most
inspiring sources for his contemporary reception and the ever-increasing scholarship
and debates on different aspects of his thought. Hence, a more elaborated exposition
of the respective contributions of these four thinkers to Kierkegaard scholarship in
Israel is called for.
The young Gershom Scholem emerges from his recently published diaries as a
young man who is not religious according to the laws of the Torah (the Jewish Law)
but is trying, at first hesitantly, to find his own unique way to an authentic Jewish
faith. It was difficult for him to pray, and indeed to whom could this highly talented,
deeply marginal Jew pray? “I could only seek after God, but could not pray to him,”
he confesses. Thus, one should not be surprised to learn that Scholem identified
himself with the Danish religious thinker and poet who, like him, wanted to create
his genuine personal identity by forging for himself an authentic faith. This common

)>>
10
See, for example, Avi Sagi (Schweitzer), “The ‘Akeda’—A Comparative Study of
Kierkegaard and Leibowitz,” Daat: A Journal of Jewish Philosophy and Kabbalah, no. 23, 1989,
pp. 121–34 (in Hebrew).
28 Jacob Golomb
existential ground enables one to understand the reason for Scholem’s enthusiasm
when he read Brandes’ book on Kierkegaard.11 It is not a mere coincidence (since,
as stated earlier, Brandes was also one of the most outstanding marginal Jews)
that through this 1877 essay many Jewish intellectuals became acquainted with
Kierkegaard. In his diary entry of November 1914, Scholem ecstatically states:
“Søren Kierkegaard! I looked for him and I found him!...The seeker of God! Few
have such grandiose religious feelings as his,”12 and he goes on to make some
intimately personal “comparisons between him and myself.”13 Nonetheless, he also
frequently refers to Martin Buber, whom he admired most for his Zionist activities
in Germany but also for his monumental work on Hasidism.
Thus Scholem also became influenced by Buber’s attitude to Kierkegaard, but
before dwelling on Buber’s attitude toward Kierkegaard, it will be quite instructive
to explicate here a recurring pattern. What happened to Buber with regard to
Kierkegaard is paradigmatic of the character of the relations that Jewish intellectuals
had toward this great thinker. When some of the marginal Jews solved in one way
or another their identity problems, they became more attracted and responsive to
Kierkegaard. In other words, when they had overcome the mental schism between
European culture and their attraction to Zion, where they hoped to return to the
genuine Jewish faith, i.e., when they had already completed the existential as well
as the geographical move expressed so poignantly by the title of Scholem’s book
From Berlin to Jerusalem: Memories of my Youth,14 they became more attentive to
and preoccupied with Kierkegaard. The latter presented them with a poetical model
of authentic faith: Abraham, the “Knight of Faith” with whom they were already
familiar from their youth.
Moreover, when the more or less secular identity of the Israeli Jews qua Israeli
was relatively secured and solidified by the sense of belonging to a new and thriving
society of its own making, many Israeli intellectuals dared to begin their journey
to recover their lost religious sentiments. In other words, when the state of Israel
became a reality, those intellectuals moved in the opposite direction from before,
namely, not from Jewish religiosity to secular Hebraism but from secularity to
more pronounced feelings of a deepening identity with Jewish religiosity. Then,
of course, Kierkegaard, instead of being seen as an enemy of Jewish Zionist
secularization became a loyal ally for the processes of the existential return to
religious Judaism.
Martin Buber was the most prominent case in point for this existential pendulum; he
began the significant shift, which he made from the idol of his youth—Nietzsche—to
the more serious appreciation and sober evaluation of Kierkegaard, more extensively

11
)>> Georg Brandes, “Søren Kierkegaard (1877),” in his Gesammelte Schriften, vols. 1–20,
Munich: Langen 1902–7, vol. 3, pp. 258–445.
12
ç’•ershom Scholem, Tagebücher: nebst Aufsätzen und Entwürfen bis 1923, ed. by Karlfried
Gründer and Friedrich Niewöhner, Frankfurt am Main: Jüdischer Verlag 1995, p. 41. )>>
13
ç’•bid., see especially pp. 42–4.
14
ç’•riginally in German as Von Berlin nach Jerusalem: Jugenderinnerungen, Frankfurt am
Main: Suhrkamp 1977. (In English as From Berlin to Jerusalem: Memories of my Youth, New
York:€Schocken Books 1980; revised and enlarged Hebrew ed., Tel-Aviv: Am Oved 1982.)
 Israel: Kierkegaard’s Reception in Fear and Trembling in Jerusalem 29
in his mature days in Israel. One may even speculate that Kierkegaard played a very
significant role in Buber’s “liberation” from Nietzsche. And thus it is highly significant
that Buber’s intellectual autobiography ends with a discussion of Kierkegaard. 15
As the result of Buber’s relatively early exposure to the Austrian-German culture
of his age, he became estranged for a time from his Jewish roots. Hence the motif that
recurs frequently in his writings is his longing for a return. In Hebrew this notion is
known as teshuvah (‫ )תשובה‬literally, an answer. This term, however, also contains the
root shuv, which means coming back after taking a leave. In Buber’s case, it means
a return to his Jewish roots. But his was not a regressive return to what one was—
his return did not entail a faithful adoption of the antiquarian heritage accumulated
by the Jewish people for thousands of years. He attempted instead to recreate his
heritage for productive use in the present. He sought to establish a new, more personal
meaning in Judaism by emphasizing different trends in its rich past. By propagating
his personal and humanist Jewish religion, Buber sought to overcome the catastrophic
consequences—for his people and for Europe as a whole—of what he called the Eclipse
of God—rather than the death of God, as Nietzsche proclaimed it.16 The eclipse of God
is a temporary event; its passing enables one to return to him and to his renewed glory.
However, the way toward God presents itself to Buber less as the renewal of the entire
Jewish tradition and more as one’s own personal, creative path.
And thus, Buber enlists certain motifs from Kierkegaard and propagates the
return to faith and to the I-God relationship that will secure the dominance of the
authentic I-Thou relationship in an age where “the It-world...seemed to dwarf man’s
small strength with its uncanny power...of the particularization and alienation.”17
We ought to return to the “essence” of “the spirit” and recreate our fundamental and
absolute relation to the Divine Thou. Buber sees the “redemption” from our “falling
off” by means of “the return.”18
We should assist “grace” by “fundamental return” to the “essence.” This will
bring us closer to the realm of truly authentic relations to the Absolute. But it would
be a grave mistake to think that Buber regards faith as a means to “regain” our
personal authenticity. Like Kierkegaard, he regards authentic faith as an absolute,
unconditional, unmediated relation to the Almighty. When Kierkegaard states that
“the purity of the heart is to will one thing,”19 Buber reiterates: “The free man...

15
)>> Martin Buber, “Autobiographical Fragments,” in The Philosophy of Martin Buber,
ed. by Paul Schilpp, La Salle, Illinois: Open Court 1967. Cf. Jacob Golomb, “Buber’s ‘I and
Thou’ vis-à-vis Nietzsche and Kierkegaard,” Existentia, vol. 12, 2002, pp. 413–27.
16
ç’•artin Buber, Eclipse of God: Studies in the Relation between Religion and Philosophy,
trans. by Maurice S. Friedman et al., New York: Harper 1952.
17
ç’•artin Buber, I and Thou, trans. by Walter Kaufmann, New York: Charles Scribner’s
Sons 1970, p. 107.
18
)>> “das Abgefallensein,” see ibid., p. 110. Buber clearly is sensitive enough to the
theological meanings of this term that he used several years before Heidegger. For details
see my analysis of Sein und Zeit (from 1927) in chapter 5 of In Search of Authenticity from
Kierkegaard to Camus, Tel Aviv: Schocken 1999, and in “Heidegger on Authenticity and
Death,” Existentia, vol. 11, 2001, pp. 457–72.
19
)>> SKS 8, 138 / UD, 24.
30 Jacob Golomb
has only one thing.”20 Genuine authenticity and community in themselves are the
required conditions and necessary means for attaining human legitimate existential
aims, but with our genuine faith in God they might also become (though not
necessarily) the happy outcomes of our “return”: “The purpose of relation is the
relation itself—touching the You. For as soon as we touch a You we are touched by
the breath of eternal life.”21
Unlike Kierkegaard, who made the encounter with God the necessary condition
for attaining one’s personal authenticity, Buber reverses the order and makes
authenticity a primary event, which may or may not be fully or partly actualized
in I-You relations or, even more significantly, in the I-Eternal Thou encounter. He
stresses this point in several places, believing that this essential difference makes
him less Kierkegaardian than he is usually considered to be. And thus he argues
(against Kierkegaard) that personal authenticity precedes I-God relations, and, for
the sake of the actual authenticity of a person, it is not to be “immersed” within the
divine circles.22
Nonetheless, following Kierkegaard, Buber accepts Kierkegaard’s idea of an
authentic faith: our relation to God is intentionally created in our hearts, though we
obey him as ontologically aloof in heaven. In other words, God needs us to create
him (i.e., our intentional relations toward the transcendental entity); but we need him
to be creative. This is about the closest we can come to understanding what kind of
“reciprocity” and “mutuality” prevails between the I and God, which is constructed
by Buber on the model and extrapolation of the I-You relations. This basic question
bothered Buber, as attested in his 1957 “Postscript” to this essay, where he admits:
“The existence of mutuality between God and man cannot be proved any more than
the existence of God.”23
As we have seen above, Buber’s “return” to authentic faith in God was performed
under the auspices of the most influential existentialist religious thinker and poet of
the modern age—Søren Kierkegaard. And indeed, together with the personal and
highly individual ramifications of religiousness that resemble Kierkegaard, Buber
also stressed the universalistic dimensions of the authentic faith with which all kinds
of believers in one absolute God could identify, be they Christians, Moslems, or Jews.
An authentic faith does not distinguish between colors, language of the prayers, the
theological contents of different creeds, and so on. Thus just as Kierkegaard could
use Abraham’s attempt to sacrifice his son Isaac to exemplify the “knight of faith,”
so also Buber could use the example of Jesus for the same purpose.24 This does not
mean, however, that Buber accepted Kierkegaard’s existentialist faith without any

20
)>> Buber, I and Thou, p. 109.
21
)>> Ibid., pp. 112–13. See also “History is a mysterious approach to closeness. Every
spiral of its path leads us into deeper corruption and at the same time into more fundamental
return. But the God-side of the event whose world-side is called return is called redemption.”
(Ibid., p. 168).
22
ç’•bid., p. 137.
23
ç’•bid., p. 182.
24
)>> “How powerful, even overpowering, is Jesus’ I-saying, and how legitimate....For it is
the I of the unconditional relation in which man calls his You ‘Father’ in such a way that he
himself becomes nothing but a son.” (Buber, I and Thou, p. 116).
 Israel: Kierkegaard’s Reception in Fear and Trembling in Jerusalem 31
reservation. He expressed his criticism in two main publications: in his essay “The
Question to the Single One,”25 and in his lecture from 1951 “On the Suspension of
the Ethical.”26
First, in his famous essay “The Question to the Single One” Buber accuses
Kierkegaard of an “acosmic worship of a God.”27 Against this definitely individualistic
goal of Kierkegaard “to become a Single One,”28 Buber claims that “God wants us
to come to him by means of the Reginas he has created and not by renunciation of
them.”29
Secondly, in his other important statement on Kierkegaard, in a lecture from
1951, “On the Suspension of the Ethical,” Buber attacks one of Kierkegaard’s most
controversial theses that deals with the “teleological suspension of the ethical”
announced in Fear and Trembling. It seems that Buber’s objection to this thesis
stems not only from his firm roots in the making of a new society and state but also
from his deep identification with the Hasidic community in whose highest hours
the separate spheres of religion and ethics merge into human holiness. Referring
to Kierkegaard’s interpretation of Abraham’s attempt to sacrifice Isaac, Buber does
not deny Kierkegaard’s starting point: God’s command to Abraham was a unique
revelation by God that could not be put into any framework of universal morality.
But Buber objects that Kierkegaard takes for granted what even the Bible could not,
namely that the voice one hears is always and undoubtedly the voice of God, that
the only right response is obedience. Speaking amidst an emerging new society and
being deeply involved in its creation, education, and ethos, Buber could not abruptly
sever the bonds between religion and ethics.
I cannot elaborate on this here, but it suffices to point out that this Buberian
critique of Kierkegaard reopened a lively dispute between him and the other founder
of Israeli philosophy—Shmuel Hugo Bergman (1883–1975), who in the most
extensive Hebrew treatment of Kierkegaard until then, took the side of the Danish
philosopher against Buber.30
Not surprisingly, Bergman devoted to Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling quite an
extensive treatment. And though his term “dialogical philosophy” was undoubtedly
taken from Martin Buber, and despite the fact that he too, like Buber, was committed
to religious faith, he made several critical observations regarding Buber’s criticism
of Kierkegaard.
(1) Referring to Buber’s article discussed above, “On the Suspension of the
Ethical,” Bergman claims that “Buber’s intention is not clear when he observes that, for

25
)>> Martin Buber, “The Question to the Single One,” in his Between Man and Man, trans.
by Ronald Gregor Smith, New York: Macmillan, 1948, pp. 42–82.
26
)>> Martin Buber, “On the Suspension of the Ethical,” in his Man’s Face: Studies in
Philosophical Anthropology, Jerusalem: Bialik Institute 1962, pp. 311–15.
27
)>> Buber, “The Question to the Single One,” p. 52.
28
ç’•bid., p. 50.
29
ç’•bid., p. 52.
30
)>> Shmuel Hugo Bergman, “Søren Kierkegaard,” in his Dialogical Philosophy from
Kierkegaard to Buber, Jerusalem: Bialik Institute 1974, pp. 9–163. (English edition translated
by Arnold A. Gerstein, Albany: State University of New York Press 1991, pp. 1–139.) The
references here are to page numbers of the English edition.
32 Jacob Golomb
Kierkegaard, a Christian, it is obvious that the only one to demand the sacrifice is God. Is
this not also obvious to the Jews? Is it not clearly written, ‘And God tried Abraham?’ ”31
(2) Referring to Buber’s observation that for the people in biblical times it was
clear when God was speaking and when it was Satan with all his deceptive voices,
Bergman protests that already during the biblical period the distinction between the
voice of God and the voice of Satan was not a simple one, and “even the example
Buber himself gives attests to the difficulty of this distinction.”32
(3) Then Bergman offers a more general objection to Buber’s exposition of
Kierkegaard’s version of the sacrifice of Issac, saying that, for Buber, the insecurity
of Abraham and his terrible responsibility occurs “only when one no longer knows
how to take in with assurance the presence of God.”33 And though Bergman refers
to Buber’s passage in his abovementioned article that mentions Nietzsche’s words,
“God is dead,” we can detect in Buber’s wavering faith the syndrome of the “marginal
Jew” presented above. We should not forget that Buber emigrated to Palestine in
1938, while Bergman did so in 1920 and from then onwards was strongly committed
(in practice and in theory) to the Zionist cause. Bergman’s more solid Israeli identity
and his more active commitment to Israeli affairs and to the solution of the problem
of religion versus the state made his religious commitments more steady, and hence
he did not write such treatises as Buber’s Eclipse of God.34
(4) Hence, Bergman was, more than Buber, concerned with and sensitive to the
fundamental problem that Kierkegaard posited in his discussion of Isaac’s sacrifice,
namely, to the possibility of a conflict between faith and ethics. Thus, he concludes
his criticism of Buber’s exposition of Fear and Trembling by focusing on Buber’s
final remark about the “fundamental ethical”:

From these words of Buber, one must conclude that he does not recognize the problem
posed by Kierkegaard and does not acknowledge the possibility of a conflict between
God’s demands and morality. God requires of man “not more than the fundamental
ethical.” These remarks appear unsatisfactory. They provide no solution to Abraham’s
problem. The question remains, can there be an incompatibility between the morality of
man and the decrees of God?35

Here Bergman definitely sides with Kierkegaard’s exposition of Abraham’s ordeal,

making it into a universal and contemporary problem: “Kierkegaard rightly points
out that…whether the ethical injunction can be suspended is as vital a question today
as ever.”36 According to Bergman, this is one of “life’s most crucial problems. In
our own time, murder and the breakdown of communal life are widely seen as a
sacred obligation and a divine command.”37 Here, amazingly, Bergman foresaw the
recent terrorist acts committed against humanity by religious fanatics. He continues:

31
ç’•bid., p. 91 (my emphasis).
32
ç’•bid., p. 92.
33
ç’•bid.
34
)>> Buber, Eclipse of God.
35
)>> Bergman, “Søren Kierkegaard,” p. 92.
36
ç’•bid., pp. 92–3.
37
ç’•bid.
 Another Random Document on
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 His companion promptly agreed, and they hurried across the
bridge, turned into a path that led by the river and disappeared.
 CHAPTER III
A PAPER CIRCUS

But it was not Polly who had made off with the two saddle-
horses; for as the two soldiers dashed up the slope after Roxy the
runaway had appeared from his hiding-place, carrying the loaf of
bread in one hand, and had hastened to where the two horses stood
nibbling at the wayside grass; without a word to Polly he slipped the
bread into a big pocket of one of the saddles, seized the swinging
bridle reins and mounted the horse, and leading the other, was off at
a gallop down the road toward Sharpsburg.
Polly stared after him until the sound of the hoofs of the speeding
horses died away in the distance, and then turned her horse toward
home. Her quick glance had noted the loaf of bread, and that
something resembling the frame of a chicken bulged from the young
man’s pocket.
“He must have been hiding there all the time. I wonder where he
got the bread?” thought the surprised girl, and she smiled at the
thought of the two men who were in search of him and who had
been so cleverly misled.
“If Roxy had known about the man and planned to help him she
could not have done anything better,” thought Polly. “Poor little Roxy!
They frightened her half out of her senses,” and Polly resolved to go
over that very evening and see her friend and tell her of the hidden
man and of his escape from his pursuers.
But it was from Dulcie that Roxy first heard the news. Dulcie
peering over the wall had seen the young man as he ran toward the
horses, mounted and galloped out of sight, and when the gray-clad
Confederate soldiers dashed past her she had chuckled with delight.
“Dey won’ be a-ridin’ off so gran’ as dey are spectin’ to,” she said.
“Wot dey mean anyway a-prospectin’ roun’ in Marylan’? Dis state ain’
fer upsettin’ de United States Gubbermint. ’Deed it ain’t,” and Dulcie
shook her head disapprovingly over the idea that Southern soldiers
should so fearlessly enter a loyal state. Dulcie well knew that the
great conflict between North and South meant not only the freedom
of the negroes, if the Northern Armies were successful, but a united
and undivided nation. Mrs. Miller talked freely with her colored
servants, and Dulcie was sure that whatever “Ole Miss” said was
true; and she now hurried back to the farmhouse to tell the family
what she had seen.
Roxy and her mother were in the big sitting-room, and the little
girl was still greatly excited over her encounter with the soldiers; and
beside that she was fearful and anxious as to the safety of the
Yankee soldier. She had not mentioned him, remembering her
promise, and her mother and grandmother did not imagine that
Roxy had ever seen the man for whom the two soldiers were
searching. That she should be frightened seemed only natural,
although Grandma Miller carefully explained that the soldiers would
only, had they overtaken her, have questioned her about the
runaway.
“I know it,” Roxy whimpered. “I wasn’t afraid of them. The tall
one looked like my father.”
“What made you run then?” asked Mrs. Delfield, but before Roxy
could answer Dulcie, smiling and bobbing her turbaned head,
appeared in the doorway.
“What is it, Dulcie?” Mrs. Miller questioned, wondering if the
fleeing Yankee had been overtaken.
“De Yankee-man was hid up, Miss, down clus to de road; an’
when dose sojers come a-racin’ up de slope de Yankee-man put out
ob de bushes an’ hists hisse’f on to one hoss, an’ he hoi’s on to de
udder one and off he goes!” and Dulcie flourished both hands to
show how swiftly the fleeing man had disappeared.
“Oh, goody! Goody!” exclaimed Roxy, jumping up from the sofa
where she had been sitting beside her mother, and running toward
Dulcie. “Which road did he take? Was he out of sight before the men
knew he was gone? Did he get away?” she questioned eagerly.
 “For de lan’ sakes!” exclaimed the bewildered Dulcie. “W’ich one
ob dose questions you spect me ter reply to, Missy? You kinder be-
willers me!”
“Oh, Dulcie!” and Roxy jumped up and down in front of the old
negress. “Tell me if he got away.”
“Ain’ I jes’ tole you? He got clare out ob sight, an’ he tuk de extra
hoss! Yas’m, he was right clever, dat Yankee feller was. I spect he’s
in Sharpsburg ’fore dis time.”
Roxy smiled so radiantly as she turned toward her mother that
Mrs. Delfield smiled in response, well pleased that her little daughter
should forget the fear and excitement of her adventure.
“What became of Polly Lawrence?” asked Mrs. Miller.
“Oh! Miss Polly jes’ druv toward home. She didn’ wait fer de gray
coats to get back either,” and Dulcie went off chuckling with
satisfaction.
“Well, Roxy, I think the Yankee boy owes his escape to you,”
declared Mrs. Miller. “Your running off made the soldiers think you
could tell them of the escaped prisoner, and so they ran after you,
and that gave the man his chance.”
“As if the child could know——” began Mrs. Delfield, but was
interrupted by an outcry from the cellar, and Dulcie’s complaining
voice as she made her heavy way up the stairs and came hurrying to
the sitting-room.
“What can be the matter now?” exclaimed Mrs. Miller, starting
toward the door.
“Ole Miss—Ole Miss! We’s robbed! Yas’m!” exclaimed Dulcie,
nearly breathless. “My roas’ chicken bin stole. Yas’m! An’ I cayn’t lay
eyes on my egg baskit, an’ my bread am took!” and Dulcie stood
rolling her frightened eyes and trembling with excitement.
“Why, Dulcie! It can’t be! I have never had a thing taken from the
house in all my life,” declared Mrs. Miller, and with Dulcie beside her
she hurried off to the kitchen.
Roxy gave a little exclamation, and Mrs. Delfield hastened to
assure her that probably Dulcie was mistaken, and had forgotten
where she had set the food. But the little girl seemed so troubled, so
grave and quiet, that her mother felt anxious.
“Don’t you want to finish the ‘Circus,’ dear?” she suggested.
“You’ll need a herd of camels, several elephants, beside lions and
zebras.”
But Roxy shook her head. Not even her beloved “Circus,” on which
she had worked several hours each day since her arrival at Grandma
Miller’s, seemed to interest her. When she had given the man the
basket of food she had not thought of the fact that it would be
promptly missed, and that Dulcie would make such an outcry over it.
But, as no special person was suspected of taking it, Roxy quickly
decided that all was well. Dulcie would scold and wonder about her
loss, and Grandma Miller would endeavor to find out who had really
made off with the chicken, but no real harm had been done, so in a
little while Roxy was quite ready to follow her mother’s suggestion
and begin on the animals that were to be a part of the “paper
circus”; and when Mrs. Delfield followed Mrs. Miller to the kitchen to
find out what had really occurred Roxy was happily at work near one
of the wide windows that looked across the green wheat field toward
the distant mountains.
A broad low table, that Grandma Miller said was Roxy’s table,
stood near this window. It had two deep wide drawers, and the
straight-backed cushioned chair in front of it was exactly the right
height and size for a little girl ten years old. Roxy could lean on her
table and look out over the pleasant countryside, and see a distant
bend of the slow-moving river.
She opened the upper drawer of the table and took out some
squares of heavy brown paper, a pair of pointed scissors and a box
of crayons; then Roxy ran across the room to a closet and opened
the door and from one of the lower shelves she drew out a thick
book and carried it to her table, opened it and turned the leaves
carefully.
It was a wonderful book! On the very first page there was a
picture of an amiable lion, with his family resting peacefully about
him. On the next page were pictured a group of monkeys gathering
cocoanuts, and further on were shown camels journeying across a
desert; there were pictures of zebras, tigers, rhinoceros, and there
were pages of wonderful birds with all their fine plumage.
Roxy turned to the page where a tall camel was pictured, and
then taking one of the sheets of brown paper and a freshly
sharpened pencil she began, very carefully, to draw the outlines of
the strange animal. Its queer head, long legs and humped back
were easy to copy, and with a little smile of satisfaction Roxy held up
the drawing she had made, and then, scissors in hand, she cut
carefully into the paper following her pencil marks until a paper
camel lay on the table before her.
“There! Now I can cut out two or three more from this one!” she
said aloud, and pulled open the lower drawer and placed the camel
with a number of other animals cut from the brown paper. Later on
Roxy planned to use all these paper figures in the “Paper Circus.”
It was Grandma Miller who had suggested, during a week of rainy
days when Roxy and her mother had first arrived at the farm, that
the little girl should begin it, and told her that when her mother was
a small girl there was no game she enjoyed more. And Roxy’s
mother had brought out the “Animal Book” and shown Roxy how to
trace the pictures.
Grandma Miller had explained that the animals were only a part of
the circus; there would be a clown, who wore strange garments,
men who must be mounted on prancing horses, and all could be
assembled in a procession.
Grandma Miller knew just how to make the figures stand upright
with clever little braces of stiff paper pasted on their backs; and
Roxy’s mother had suggested that Roxy could use her box of colored
crayons to color the lion’s mane, the stripes on the zebras, and to
mark the eyes of the monkeys.
As Roxy added the camel to the pile of figures in the lower drawer
she thought happily that her paper menagerie was now nearly
complete.
“Then I’ll cut out clowns and circus-men,” she decided, “and then
I can get ready to surprise Grandma,” for Roxy was making a plan to
celebrate her grandmother’s birthday, that came in mid-July, by an
entertainment in which the “paper circus” was to have a prominent
place. Polly had promised to help Roxy with this plan, and no one
else was to be in the secret.
For the moment Roxy had nearly forgotten the adventures of the
afternoon, but the sound of voices just outside the open windows
made her jump up from the table and run toward the door.
“There’s Polly!” she exclaimed. “Oh, I hope it’s just as Dulcie said,
and that the Yankee soldier did really escape.”
Polly was on the front porch talking to Roxy’s mother, and as Roxy
appeared she saw that Polly was carrying the missing egg basket,
and heard her explain that she had found it near a thicket of
dogwood as she came up the slope.
 CHAPTER IV
SIGNALS

“Dat Yankee sojer took de chicken, an’ de bread, an’ de eggs; an’
I’m right shuh dat some ob dose cakes were tuk!” declared Dulcie,
as Mrs. Delfield handed her the basket.
“No, Dulcie! No, he didn’t!” exclaimed Roxy, who with Polly beside
her had followed Mrs. Delfield to the open door of the kitchen.
Dulcie shook her head solemnly. “Den you tells me how cum dat
basket whar he hides hisse’f? An’ you tells me likewise who did make
off wid all my food?” and Dulcie gazed so sternly at Roxy that the
little girl began to feel sure that her secret had been discovered.
“Of course the poor fellow must have been half starved,” said
Grandma Miller, “but if he had only asked we would have gladly
befriended him. I don’t like to think of any soldier slinking into a
house in this fashion!”
“He didn’t! He didn’t!” again declared Roxy nearly ready to cry; for
the little girl realized that the young soldier need not have been so
hungry, so nearly starved, as he had declared, if he had been willing
to steal food; and Roxy felt it was unfair that he should be thought a
thief when she herself had taken the things. She well knew that she
would be praised for carrying him the food, but her promise to the
fleeing stranger that she would never tell anyone that she had seen
him now prevented her from protecting his honesty.
“Why, Roxy, dear! Who else could have taken the food? He must
have crept in when Dulcie was in her cabin, and when you were
riding with Polly,” said Mrs. Delfield, putting her arm about her little
daughter and thinking Roxy had not yet wholly recovered from her
fright.
Roxy looking up met Polly’s questioning glance. “Oh! Polly looks as
if she knew all about it,” she thought, wondering if it could be
possible; but neither of the girls said a word as to the fact of their
disagreement or that Roxy had not, after all, gone to Sharpsburg
that afternoon. Dulcie had apparently forgotten Roxy’s early return,
and now reminded her mistress that suppertime was well past.
“Yo’ suppah am ready. Dar ain’ so much as dar ought ter be ’count
ob dat Yankee a-stealin’ ob it; but I reckons you’ll make out,” she
said soberly, and Grandma Miller led the way to the dining-room.
Polly declared that she had had her supper before leaving home,
but she sat at the table beside Roxy and nibbled at one of Dulcie’s
cakes.
Grandma Miller spoke again of the young soldier who had caused
so much excitement in her quiet home.
“He is in safety by this time; with two good horses he can soon
reach Washington. I wonder if it was the Richmond prison from
which he escaped?” she said thoughtfully.
“My father thought the Confederates very brave to ride on so near
to Sharpsburg in search of him,” said Polly; “he says they might
easily have been captured themselves by some body of Union troops
on the march.”
“Oh, no one ever questions the courage of the Southern soldiers;
I should not be surprised to see an army of them, with General
Robert Lee at their head, come riding into Maryland any day,” said
Mrs. Delfield, but little imagining that before many months her
prediction was to be fulfilled, and the courageous Lee lead his brave
troops to raise the standard of revolt on Northern soil, and that
along those peaceful slopes and in the valley bordering the Antietam
River would rage one of the fiercest and most decisive battles of the
Civil War.
Nor could any one of the little group gathered that June evening
about the table in the peaceful room whose windows looked off
toward South Mountain imagine that the young Yankee soldier who
Roxy had that day helped on his way to safety would be one of the
conquering army under General McClellan.
Now and then Roxy and Polly exchanged a friendly smile, both
well pleased that their disagreement of the early afternoon was
forgotten, and when they left the dining-room and sauntered from
the porch to the shade of a big butternut tree that stood a short
distance from the house, leaving Grandma Miller and Roxy’s mother,
Mrs. Delfield said:
“I am so glad Polly and Roxy are such good friends. Polly is such a
sweet-tempered, good girl.”
“Indeed she is,” agreed Grandma Miller, “and just the right
companion for our impulsive Roxy who has not yet learned to think
first before acting on an impulse.”
“But the child’s impulses are all good ones,” replied Mrs. Delfield,
“and I believe in letting her follow them.”
Grandma Miller smiled wisely. “All the more reason, my dear, for
being glad that Roxy has Polly for her friend,” she said.
While this conversation went on the two girls under the butternut
tree were making pleasant plans for the next day. Polly had made a
wonderful discovery and was eager to share it with Roxy.
“Roxy, you know that from the end window in your chamber you
can look straight across the fields and see the end windows of our
attic,” she began. But Roxy shook her head.
“I can see the top of your house, but I don’t remember about
windows,” she said thoughtfully.
“I’m sure you can,” Polly insisted, “because I looked out from our
attic and I could see your window just as plain as could be; and the
muslin curtain blew out, back and forth, while I was looking, just as
if somebody was waving it,” and Polly smiled and nodded as if
expecting Roxy to discover some particular meaning in the waving
curtain, but Roxy’s gray eyes were fixed questioningly on her
companion and she made no response.
“Oh, Roxy! What a little owl you are!” said Polly laughingly. “Don’t
you understand what the waving curtain means? Signals!” and at the
last word, Polly’s voice dropped to a whisper. But Roxy had sprung
up, a little angry flush showing on her brown cheeks.
“I am not an ‘owl,’ Polly Lawrence,” but before Polly could say a
word Roxy had clasped the older girl’s arm, and was saying: “Oh,
Polly, I’ll be an owl if you want me to. I don’t know why I get mad
so quickly!”
 Polly put her arm about the little girl and said smilingly: “An owl is
the wisest bird of all the birds, even if he can’t see in the daytime!”
“Can’t an owl see in daytime?” questioned Roxy. “Why can’t he?”
But at this question Polly shook her head.
“You’ll have to ask Grandma Miller; she knows all about birds,” she
answered. “What I meant, Roxy-poxy, was that you did not see what
I was driving at about windows and curtains; if I can see your
window-curtain from my attic windows, why can’t we have signals?
If, for instance, I promise to come over here and can’t come I could
fasten a white towel in my attic window; you would see it from your
window and then you wouldn’t expect me.”
Roxy’s face brightened with delight. “Oh, Polly! you think of the
nicest things! Why, we can have a lot of signals, can’t we?”
“Of course we can,” Polly agreed; “we can have signals that mean
‘come over this afternoon’ and a signal that means a ride or a walk.”
Roxy was now all eagerness to carry out Polly’s plan; and before
Polly started for home the two girls had written out a set of
“signals,” to be carried out by white cloths fluttering from the upper
windows of the Miller and Lawrence houses. Beside this Polly had
suggested that on the following day they should go for a walk up the
pasture slope beyond the Lawrence house.
“Maybe we can find a few late strawberries,” said Polly; “and
young wintergreen leaves are just right to gather now. Your
grandma would like you to bring her home some of those.”
“Yes, indeed! Will we meet by the big sycamore?” rejoined Roxy.
“Yes, I’ll be there at ten o’clock,” said Polly, and Roxy, sure that
nothing would prevent her being there at the time, agreed promptly.
The big sycamore was on the further slope from the Miller house
that led up toward the Lawrence farm. It was a huge tree, that
leaned protectively over a clear little brook that ran down the hills to
empty into the Antietam, or as Dulcie called it, the “Anti-eatem”
River. This tree was about half-way distant between the two places,
and was a favorite meeting place for the two girls. There was a little
hollow among the big roots well cushioned with soft, green moss
where they often rested, and from this pleasant seat they could see
two of the stone bridges that spanned the river.
After a few more words about their “signals,” and deciding that
they would keep it a secret, Polly said good-night and ran down the
path, while Roxy walked slowly toward the house, thinking over all
the wonderful events of the day.
The long June day had come to an end; the sun had set, and long
rose-colored clouds lay along the western horizon; one faint star
shone in the evening sky, and the fragrance of the white roses that
grew about the porch filled the air with sweetness. Mrs. Delfield was
on the porch steps and as Roxy came toward her she heard her
mother singing:

“For life or death, for woe or weal,

Thy peerless chivalry reveal,
And gird thy beauteous limbs with steel,
Maryland, my Maryland.”

As Roxy heard the words of the song she exclaimed:

“Oh, Mother! The soldiers in gray were singing that very tune.”
“Were they, dear? Well, perhaps all the South is singing it by this
time,” said Mrs. Delfield, a little sorrowfully, for her Virginia cousins
were in the Confederate Army while her husband and friends fought
for the Union. The song “Maryland, my Maryland,” by James R.
Randall, had been published the previous year, and its haunting
cadences appealed to all.
“Mother! I hope the Yankee soldier is safe, don’t you?” said Roxy,
as they went indoors.
“If he is he ought to be grateful to you, my dear,” replied Mrs.
Delfield, and a little smile came over Roxy’s face. She thought it was
a fine thing if she had really helped a Yankee soldier to win his
freedom and reach safety. But Roxy was not altogether happy as she
remembered that she had permitted the young soldier to be thought
a thief.
 “I know he’d want me to tell now,” she thought. “It isn’t fair not
to,” and in a moment she was telling her mother the story of the
afternoon: her anger toward Polly, the first meeting with the
mounted soldiers on the bridge, and the hungry runaway’s plea for
help.
Mrs. Delfield listened in amazement.
“I had to tell, didn’t I, Mother?” and her mother promptly agreed.
“Of course you did, dear child; and I think Grandma and Dulcie
must be told at once so that they may know the young man did not
take the food. You did just right, Roxy,” and Mrs. Delfield smiled so
approvingly that the little girl was no longer troubled, and went
happily to bed with thoughts of all she would have to tell to Polly on
the following day.
 CHAPTER V
NEW ADVENTURES

Dulcie chuckled over the story of Roxy’s carrying the food to the
runaway, and Grandma Miller was well pleased that her little
granddaughter had realized the importance of telling what had really
occurred; and Roxy was now eager to tell Polly, who she was sure
suspected the truth about who had secured the food for the hungry
soldier.
“Polly didn’t say anything about luncheon, but perhaps I’d better
take something to eat in my basket?” Roxy suggested on the
following morning, as she put on the wide-rimmed hat of rough
straw, and went to the closet for the small covered basket that she
often carried in her walks with Polly.
“Dar ain’ no col’ chicken, Missy,” Dulcie reminded her, “but I
reckon I kin fin’ somt’in’ ter gib you,” and she took the basket and
started for the pantry, and Roxy was confident the little basket would
be well filled.
Roxy, basket in hand, trudged happily off across the pasture
turning to wave a good-bye to Grandma Miller who stood on the side
porch looking after her; a few minutes later the little girl was out of
sight as she went down the slope toward the big sycamore.
A little cloud of yellow butterflies floated over her head and Roxy
stopped to watch their wavering flight until they settled over a
hedgerow of bittersweet. She had started in good season, and
realized that she would reach the big sycamore long before Polly; so
she lingered along her way, stopping to gather a bunch of the
orange-colored blossoms of butterfly-weed, one of the most
gorgeous of the wild flowers of Maryland.
The June morning was growing very warm and Roxy was glad to
reach the shade of the wide-spreading branches of the sycamore,
and taking off her hat she tucked the butterfly-weed blossoms under
its ribbon band and gazed at them admiringly. “I wish Amy Fletcher
could see them, and the blue mountains, and the bridges,” she
thought a little wistfully. For Amy Fletcher had lived next door to the
Delfields in Newburyport, and the two little girls were fast friends,
and Roxy often wrote to Amy telling her of all the adventures that
befell her among the hills of Maryland. “I guess Amy will think it is
almost like a story when I write her about what happened
yesterday,” she thought, well pleased at having so real an adventure
to describe; and at the sound of Polly’s well-known call: “To-who-to-
whoo!” she called back: “Who-to-whoo.” Roxy smiled happily,
thinking that no one except Polly and herself knew the real meaning
of these calls. To any chance listener it would, the girls thought,
mean the note of a bewildered young owl, but the first call: “To-
who-to-whoo,” really meant: “I’m on the way,” while “Who-to-whoo”
meant: “I am waiting.”
Polly now came in sight, her red hair shining as the light flickered
upon it.
“Oh, Polly! How can you go bareheaded when the sun is so hot?”
was Roxy’s greeting.
“I like it,” replied Polly as she flung herself down on the soft moss
beside her friend.
“Polly, you always look just right,” declared the admiring Roxy as
she touched the loose sleeve of Polly’s tan-colored linen dress.
“If I look just right you talk just right, little Yank—I mean Roxy-
poxy,” responded Polly.
“You needn’t have stopped at ‘Yank,’” laughed Roxy. “I like it,
since the soldier told me my father would be proud to be called
Yankee. And I liked the tall soldier too, even if he did run after me.
Oh, Polly! It was I who carried the basket of food to the runaway
man!”
Polly’s smile vanished, and her blue eyes regarded Roxy sternly.
“And you let Dulcie call him a thief! And you let your grandmother
think that he crept into her house and stole! I wouldn’t have
believed it,” she said.
 In a second Roxy was on her feet and had grabbed up her hat
and basket.
“You are hateful, Polly Lawrence! Yes, you are! I don’t care if you
are handsome. I couldn’t tell because I’d promised not to; but then I
did tell because I knew I must! So there now!” exclaimed the angry
girl, and without giving Polly a chance to speak she dashed off
toward home.
But in a breath the long-legged Polly was after her and Roxy ran
her best, resolved not to be overtaken. But Roxy’s eyes were
clouded by angry tears, and she stumbled over a trailing vine and
went headlong, her basket flying in one direction and her hat in
another, as the prickly vines caught at her cotton dress and her
outstretched hands were scratched and hurt by their thorns.
“Oh, Roxy! Roxy! I am so sorry,” exclaimed Polly, endeavoring to
pull away the clutching vines and lift the little girl to her feet; but
Roxy struggled against her, sobbing with pain and anger: “Go away!
Go away!” until Polly could only stand back and let her alone.
“I am so sorry, Roxy! Do let me help you!” she pleaded, as Roxy
now scrambled to her feet and looked about for her hat and basket.
For the moment she did not notice her scratched hands and the long
tear in her skirt.
Polly picked up the basket, whose contents had been saved by its
cover from being spilled, and Roxy grabbed it from her before Polly
could offer it, seized her hat from the thick growth of wild rose
bushes where it had landed, and without a word or look toward Polly
rushed down the path.
Polly stood watching her for a moment, and then with a little sigh
turned toward home. She told herself that she was the one to
blame; that she had been unfair to Roxy, and that Roxy was right in
resenting her words.
“Roxy is only a little girl; I forget that I am nearly five years older
than she is,” she thought, and resolved that in future she would be
more careful and patient toward this little girl from far-off New
England.
 While Polly was making these resolutions Roxy had run down the
path bordering the brook, hardly noticing the direction she had taken
until she found herself beside a quiet pool where the brook widened.
On the further side there was a thick growth of hazel-bushes, while
the path ended at the edge of the pool, and just along the water’s
edge beyond the path grew tall water-weeds and waving grass.
A willow-tree leaned over the water, and Roxy, hot, tired and
angry, sat down in its shade and leaned her head against its rough
trunk.
“Polly spoils everything!” she thought. “She spoiled my ride
yesterday, and now she has spoiled to-day! Oh, dear,” and the little
girl began to whimper unhappily.
But after she had bathed her hot face and scratched hands in the
cool water, she began to feel less unhappy; and as she noticed her
lunch basket a little smile crept over her face.
“I’m sure there are plum tarts in it,” she said aloud. “Dulcie always
makes plum tarts on Thursday mornings.”
In order to find out Roxy lifted the cover of the basket, drew out
the white napkin that was so carefully folded over the contents, and
looked in.
“Yes, indeed! Two apiece!” she exclaimed.
“Well, Polly can’t have even a taste!” she said, and helped herself
to one of the flaky puffs that was well filled with delicious plum jelly.
It was so good that Roxy promptly began on a second and had soon
finished a third, then remembering that it was not yet the middle of
the morning and, unless she went directly home, she would soon be
hungry again, she reluctantly pushed the basket away, and now her
unhappy thoughts about Polly again filled her mind.
“I wish there was another girl to play with,” she thought a little
mournfully, and suddenly exclaimed: “Oh! There are other girls!
There’s the three little Hinham girls! And their father asked me to
come and see them. I’ll go now!” And Roxy jumped up and seized
her hat. “I guess it wouldn’t look very polite to carry a lunch,” she
decided, and so ate the remaining plum tart and one of the spice-
cookies.
 “I’ll come after the basket on my way home,” she resolved, and
turned back and crossed the pasture to the highway. She knew
where the Hinham house stood, a low, rambling building with
shabby barns, nearly a mile below the bridge where she had
encountered the mounted soldiers, but she had never seen the three
little girls whom she had now set out to visit; but their father had
come to the Miller farm one day on business, and on seeing Roxy
had said that he had three little girls and that Roxy must come and
see them; and Grandma Miller had politely responded that she
hoped the three little Hinham girls would come and visit Roxy.
As Roxy now trudged along the road, keeping on the shady side,
she remembered this, and told herself that Grandma Miller would be
pleased when she heard of the visit.
“Maybe I’ll ask the little Hinham girls to come to Grandma’s
birthday party, and I can tell them about my paper circus. I guess
Polly Lawrence will find I don’t have to play with her,” she thought,
but someway even the prospect of three new little girls as possible
friends and playmates did not make Roxy wholly happy. The
remembrance of Polly’s radiant smile, of the plan of signalling from
the upper windows, all the jokes they shared together and that no
one else knew, crept into her mind and made the distance to the
Hinham house seem very long, and when Roxy came in sight of the
lane that led up to the farm buildings she was not only tired but very
hot and thirsty.
“Oh, dear! I hope they’ll ask me if I don’t want a drink of water,”
she whispered to herself, as she left the highway and started up the
lane.
But Roxy had gone only a little way when the sharp bark of a dog,
quickly echoed by several others, made her stop suddenly and as
she looked up the lane she saw a number of dogs come dashing
toward her. Their barks sounded very threatening to the tired little
girl, and for a moment Roxy was tempted to turn and run, but she
was too tired, and she quickly remembered that these dogs must
belong to the Hinhams and, as there were three little girls in the
family, the dogs would not be surprised to see another little girl, so
Roxy walked bravely on toward them.
 CHAPTER VI
ROXY MAKES NEW FRIENDS

A sharp whistle brought the dogs to a standstill, and Roxy saw a

tall boy come hurrying toward her.
“Lucky I was close by,” he muttered; “those dogs don’t like
strangers! Say!” and he smiled approvingly on Roxy. “You had some
courage to walk right along toward ’em! How’d you know they
wouldn’t eat you up?”
“I guess I was too tired to run away,” confessed Roxy, and before
she could say that she had come to visit the little Hinham girls the
tall boy exclaimed:
“I’ll bet you’re the little Yankee girl, ain’t you?”
Roxy nodded. She was almost too tired to speak.
“Well, we’re sure glad you came over,” the boy continued, his
black eyes twinkling with friendliness as he clasped Roxy’s hand and
led her up the rough lane.
“My name is Roland,” he announced, “Roland Hinham, and I’m the
oldest of the family, nearly fifteen,” and he smiled again; and the
tired Roxy thought the tall boy must be very good-natured; he
seemed always smiling.
“My name is Roxana Elizabeth Delfield,” she responded, “and I’m
ten years old.”
“You’re older than my sisters. Jasmine isn’t nine yet, and Myrtle is
seven, and Ivy about five. They are all little girls,” replied Roland.
“What pretty names!” exclaimed Roxy admiringly, but before she
could say anything more the three little Hinham girls came out on
the porch of the house and stood looking at their brother and the
little girl who clung to his hand.
“I’ve brought you a visitor,” Roland called, and in a moment Roxy
found herself at the porch steps, and heard Roland say: “Jasmine,
this is Miss Roxana Elizabeth Delfield, come to visit us,” and instantly
the three little girls, each one of whom was dressed in a stiffly
starched white muslin dress, made a curtsy to the newcomer and
announced in soft musical voices: “We’re right pleased to see you,”
and Jasmine, whose eyes and hair were as black as Roland’s, drew
forward a small rush-bottomed rocking-chair and with a smile as
friendly as her brother’s said: “Won’t you sit down?” and Roxy, too
tired to say a word in response, sank into the comfortable chair
while the three dark-haired girls in their white dresses gathered
about her, and looked at her a little wonderingly.
Roland had disappeared, and Roxy began to feel that she ought to
explain her torn skirt. “I fell down and my skirt caught in some briers
and tore,” she said soberly, holding up the skirt of her pink cambric
dress, and looking at it a little sorrowfully. “I guess my hands are not
very clean,” she continued apologetically, noticing how neat and trim
were the little girls beside her.
Jasmine whispered to Myrtle who promptly ran indoors, followed
by little Ivy, and Jasmine drew a chair close beside Roxy’s and said
softly: “Did you hurt you when you fell?”
“Not much,” replied Roxy, feeling an uncomfortable lump in her
throat, and beginning to wish herself safely home in her own
chamber where she could rest, “but I guess I’m tired. You see, I
walked all the way from Grandma Miller’s. Your father asked me to
come,” she explained.
Jasmine nodded. “He told us about you; we were coming to see
you as soon as our mother gets home from Sharpsburg,” she said,
and at the sound of approaching steps she turned toward the open
door that led into a big cool room.
“Here’s Nonny!” she exclaimed, and a young colored woman
closely followed by Myrtle and Ivy came out on the porch carrying a
small tray that held a blue pitcher and a lustre mug.
“Maybe you’d like a drink, Missy?” said the negro, and filling the
glass with foamy milk handed it to Roxy who drank eagerly.
“Now if Missy’ll jes’ step in de house I’ll fix dat skirt,” suggested
Nonny, and with Jasmine close beside her Roxy went in, and
followed Nonny up a broad flight of stairs to a pleasant chamber,
where Jasmine and Nonny quickly persuaded her to slip off the torn
dress and take off her shoes and stockings.
Nonny bathed Roxy’s tired feet, as well as her face and hands,
brushed out the tangles of the wavy brown hair, and Roxy, curled up
in a big cushioned chair, with her three new friends gathered around
her while Nonny carried off the pink dress to press out its wrinkles,
began to be well pleased that she had decided to visit the Hinham
family.
Little Ivy had brought a family of dolls to entertain the unexpected
guest; Myrtle had opened the lower drawer of the bureau and taken
out her fine new leghorn hat trimmed with a wreath of pink
rosebuds for Roxy to admire, while Jasmine sat close beside her new
friend, watching Roxy with admiring eyes.
“Your hair is so pretty,” Jasmine declared; “it has little waves all
through it, and you have a dimple in your chin, just as Ivy has.”
This was very pleasant to Roxy, and when Nonny brought back
the pink cambric dress, neatly mended and pressed, and she found
herself being led downstairs to luncheon Roxy had almost forgotten
her quarrel with Polly Lawrence, and was thoroughly enjoying
herself.
“Father is away so Roland is taking care of things!” said Jasmine,
as Nonny said luncheon was waiting, and Roland came into the
dining-room and lifted Ivy to her seat at the table.
Roxy was sure it was the best luncheon that she had ever eaten:
the golden omelette, the delicious cold ham and creamed potatoes,
the early peas, the plum jam and hot biscuit, and the glass of cool
milk were all delicious to the hungry girl, and she did not give a
thought to the basket she had left beneath the sycamore.
After luncheon Jasmine was eager for Roxy to try their swing
under the big oak tree, and Roland was ready to send them
swinging through the air until they declared themselves tired. Roland
listened gravely when Roxy told of the two Confederate soldiers
whom she had encountered on the previous day. Roland knew well
that the Union Army of the Potomac was making preparations for its
grand assault on Richmond; he had heard his father declare that at
any time Union and Confederate forces might meet on Maryland soil
and a serious battle ensue; and as Roxy told of the fleeing Union
soldier and the pursuing Confederates the boy wondered if the
Southern Army might not be planning to enter Maryland.
But Jasmine was greatly excited over her friend’s adventure.
“Why, it was really you, Roxy, who helped the man escape!” she
declared, looking at her new friend with admiring eyes. “What do
you s’pose his name was?” she added thoughtfully.
Roxy shook her head. “I didn’t think about his name,” she replied.
“Maybe it was the Richmond prison from which he escaped,”
suggested Roland, but Myrtle had begun to sing and Roxy was
listening so eagerly that for the moment she entirely forgot the
Yankee soldier.

“A-swinging, a-swinging,
Under a rose-tree swinging—
I saw a green fairy
Who wore a gold crown.
I heard fairy bells ringing,
And fairies were singing,
And dancing and bringing
Fairy honey to the one
Who wore the gold crown!”

As Myrtle sang she danced about the swing, followed by little Ivy;
and in a moment Jasmine laughingly followed, all three of the girls
joining in the song as they circled about the swing where Roxy sat
smiling delightedly.
“Sing some more!” she exclaimed, as she left the swing and
danced on behind the others, and Jasmine nodded, and began:

“Every leaf on every bough

Dances now, dances now.”
 As the girls danced they bowed to the left and right, with graceful
movements that Roxy endeavored to imitate, and the group made a
pretty picture.
Roland had returned to his work, and when the girls tired of
dancing Myrtle suggested that perhaps Roxy would like to see the
flock of bantams, and led the way to the group of farm buildings at
some distance from the house where Roxy exclaimed over the tiny
bantam chickens.
“You can have a pair if you want them,” said Myrtle. “When we
come over to see you we’ll bring you a pair,” she promised.
Roxy’s face flushed with pleasure as she thanked her new friend;
and when they all wandered to the pasture that Roxy might see the
three gray ponies that belonged to the little Hinham girls Roxy told
herself that Jasmine and Myrtle and Ivy were the most fortunate
girls in the world.
“You have everything,” she declared admiringly, as they returned
to the shady porch where Nonny promptly brought them glasses of
raspberry shrub and tiny frosted cakes.
“Yes, indeed!” said Jasmine, and Myrtle and Ivy both nodded and
smiled. They felt rather sorry for their visitor because she did not
have a brother like Roland and small sisters to play with.
The tall clock in the front room struck four, and, with a little
exclamation of surprise, Roxy said she must at once start for home.
“Roland is going to drive you over; he said he would,” Jasmine
told her, and in a short time the two gray ponies harnessed to a
pretty basket-phaeton trotted up to the porch and Roland helped
Roxy to a seat beside him, while Jasmine, Myrtle and Ivy all
promised to return her visit as soon as their mother came home.
“It’s the nicest visit I ever had!” Roxy called back to them, as the
ponies trotted briskly off toward the highway.
 CHAPTER VII
A RAINY DAY

“If you please I will get out at the bridge,” Roxy had told Roland,
as the gray ponies trotted swiftly over the road that had seemed so
endless a distance to Roxy only a few hours earlier. “I left a basket
near the brook, and I can go home across the pasture,” she
explained; and at the bridge Roland bade her good-bye, promising
that his sisters would soon return her visit.
Roxy found her basket, and now hurried up the slope eager to tell
her mother about the three little girls with such beautiful names:
“Jasmine, Myrtle, Ivy,” and Roxy repeated them over admiringly.
Then the swing under the apple trees, the bantam chickens! But
suddenly Roxy’s happy smile vanished as she remembered that she
would have to explain how she happened to leave Polly and walk the
long distance to visit three little girls whom she had never seen.
And now Roxy remembered something even more important, and
exclaimed aloud:
“I promised Grandma not to go beyond the bridge unless
someone was with me!” And at the remembrance of this Roxy sank
down on the hillside.
“How could I forget it!” she whispered. “And what will Grandma
say? Oh, I can’t tell her!” And now Roxy instantly resolved to say
nothing of her visit to the Hinham girls or of her running away from
Polly.
“I’ll wait and tell Mother first,” she thought, and now went soberly
on toward the house, stopping to empty her lunch basket for the
benefit of a flock of chickens that were running about the slope.
It was now late in the afternoon, but no anxiety had been felt
over Roxy’s absence. Believing her to be with Polly Lawrence, Mrs.
Delfield had not been troubled, and when she saw Roxy coming
slowly up the slope came to the door to welcome her; but before
Roxy had reached the house one of the negro field-hands was seen
running across the yard and Roxy heard him call out:
“Sojers! Sojers! A’ army. Missus! Marchin’ down de road!” and the
little girl turned and looked eagerly toward the highway and saw a
group of mounted soldiers, in blue uniforms, as they rode swiftly
down the road that led toward Harper’s Ferry.
It was the 27th of June, 1862, and on that very day General Lee
had driven the Union forces under General Porter across the
Chickahominy, putting General McClellan on the defensive, and
creating alarm as to the security of Washington; and the little group
of Union soldiers that Roxy now watched so eagerly were riding to
join McClellan’s forces that were so soon to prove their unfaltering
courage on the field of battle.
“My lan’! Ain’ we be’n seein’ sojers all de spring!” declared Dulcie.
“’Tain’ no great sight on dese roads; an’ so long as de blue coats
don’ run ’cross de gray coats I guess ’tain’ much ’count! But jes’
s’pose dey happens to meet up wid one ’nudder some day long de
Anti-eatem!” and Dulcie shook her head solemnly, as Roxy stood on
the porch looking after the soldiers.
But the passing of the “blue coats” had reminded Mrs. Delfield
and her mother of how near they were to the scenes of the great
conflict, and their faces grew sad as they spoke of the threatening
advance of Jackson’s Confederate army in the Shenandoah Valley, of
the recent battle at Fair Oaks, and of the new Commander-in-Chief
of the Southern forces, General Robert E. Lee, an officer honored by
every American, and fitted for the greatest command.
Talking of these things they paid but little attention to Roxy, who
went slowly up to her chamber and kneeling down on the window-
seat looked off wistfully toward the Lawrence farm, and began to
wish that she was on the old friendly terms with Polly Lawrence.
“Perhaps Polly is looking over this way now. I wish we had
thought of a signal that meant ‘I’m sorry,’” and Roxy sighed deeply.
Then she sprang up and ran to the corner of the room, seized a
towel and hurried back to the window. She leaned out and waved it,
and then fastened it to the green wooden shutter.
 “That means ‘Come over the minute you see this,’ and Polly will
come. I’m sure she will. Polly never stays angry,” thought Roxy, and
when her mother called her to supper she ran down sure that her
quarrel with Polly was over.
But it was hard for Roxy not to speak of all that had happened,
and she was so quiet at supper, so ready to go to bed at an early
hour that her mother thought she must be tired out by the long day
wandering about with Polly.
The next morning Roxy was awake at an early hour. She could
hear the sleepy notes of nesting birds in the trees near the house,
and the voices of the negro farm-hands as they started off to the
fields. Her first waking thought was the “signal,” and in a moment
she was out of bed running to the open window.
“There it is! There it is!” she whispered joyfully, as she saw the
white signals fluttering from the attic window of Polly’s home.
“That means that Polly will come over as soon as she can,” Roxy
thought happily, and when her mother came in at the usual hour she
found Roxy dressed and ready for breakfast.
She had put on a fresh gingham dress, and now remembered the
torn pink cambric. For a moment she wondered what her mother
would say to the neat stitches that Nonny had set, but the sound of
horses’ hoofs in the yard sent her flying to the window and at the
sight of Polly on horseback she forgot all about the pink dress and
ran down the stairs and out to meet her friend.
Polly smiled down at the little girl and said quickly:
“Everything all right, Roxy? Or did you want me for something
special?”
“Just to be friends!” said Roxy soberly. “Can you not come in to
breakfast, Polly? Do!” she pleaded, and Polly instantly slipped from
the saddle and said:
“I told Mother I might spend the day, for it is cloudy all along the
mountains and that means rain; and it will be just the day to work
on your circus.”
A negro boy led the brown horse to the stable and Polly and Roxy
went in the house.
 “Polly’s going to spend the day,” Roxy announced, and her visitor
was warmly welcomed, and Dulcie brought in plates of steaming
waffles, and Polly declared that Mrs. Miller’s bees made the best
honey in Maryland as she accepted a liberal helping.
Before breakfast was over it had begun to rain.
“A fine day to put my quilt into the frames,” declared Grandma
Miller, “and Roxy can have her first lesson in quilting; there’ll be time
for your paper animals this afternoon.”
“Yes, indeed!” Roxy eagerly agreed, “and may I help you mark the
pattern, Grandma?”
Grandma Miller nodded. “I think we’ll mark a ‘Rising Sun,’” she
said thoughtfully; and as Dulcie now brought the wooden quilting
frames into the dining-room, and Mrs. Miller started upstairs for the
bed-quilt she had pieced of bits of gingham, calico and cambric, the
two girls looked at each other smilingly.
“It will be fun to help quilt,” Polly said, and Roxy watched her
admiringly as she helped Mrs. Miller and Dulcie fasten the pretty
quilt to the frames, that rested on the backs of four straight-backed
chairs.
“Now for the ‘Rising Sun,’” said Grandma, who held a ball of twine
which she began to rub with white chalk. “Polly, fasten the end of
this twine in that corner,” she directed, and Polly promptly obeyed.
“You shall ‘snap’ the chalked twine, Roxy,” Grandma Miller continued,
as she drew the twine cornerwise across the quilt, and in a few
moments Roxy was running from one side of the quilt to the other,
“snapping” the taut chalked twine as Grandma directed, and which
left white lines behind each “snap.” These lines ran from the corners
and sides of the quilt to the centre, and made a pattern known as
the “Rising Sun.”
When the marking was finished a thimble was found for Polly and
she took her seat beside Mrs. Delfield on one side of the quilt, while
Grandma Miller and Roxy were seated on the other side, and Roxy’s
first lesson in quilting began.
“Put your left hand under the quilt, my dear; now take as small
stitches as you can directly along the chalk-line,” said Grandma, and
Roxy began, thinking this was even more fun than cutting out paper
animals. But Mrs. Delfield did not let the girls “quilt” long. She knew
that Roxy’s arms would easily tire, and in a little while she asked
Roxy and Polly if they would not like to go to the kitchen and ask
Dulcie to make a honey-cake for dinner, and the girls were quite
ready to do this.
“Can’t we help make the cake, Dulcie?” asked Polly, and Dulcie
nodded.
“I reckons yo’ can. De eggs has to be beat consid’bul fer honey-
cake. Firs’ de whites has ter be all ob a foam, an’ den de yolks has
ter be smoof as silk, an’ den yo’ has ter beat de butter so’s it mo’ like
honey dan butter, an’ den——”
“Oh, Dulcie! Let me beat the whites! They bubble up so much like
soap-bubbles,” said Roxy, and Dulcie brought out the egg basket and
two big yellow bowls.
“Jes’ fetch two ob de biggest silver spoons, Miss Roxy. I don’ mak’
no cake wid common spoon,” she said, beginning to break the eggs,
while the girls hastened to bring the spoons.
The big kitchen was a pleasant place that morning, and while
Roxy and Polly beat the eggs and creamed the butter for the honey-
cake Dulcie prepared vegetables and a chicken pie for the midday
meal, and at last declared herself ready to “mix up de cake.”
“I can hardly wait to taste it,” Roxy said, as she watched Dulcie
set the cake in the oven.
Before it was taken out Mrs. Miller and Roxy’s mother called the
girls to come and help them roll up the quilt on its frames and set it
in the hall.
“By the time you are ready for dinner the cake will be baked,” said
Grandma, as the two girls ran upstairs to brush their hair and wash
their hands.
“We will work on the ‘Circus’ after dinner,” said Polly. “It is only
two weeks before your Grandma’s birthday, and there is a lot to do
before the ‘Circus’ will be finished.”
“Polly! I know who I’ll ask to come to my ‘surprise’ for Grandma.
I’ll ask the little Hinham girls and their brother!” said Roxy eagerly,
“Don’t you think their names are lovely?”
“Yes,” responded Polly, wondering a little how it was that Roxy
knew the names of the little Hinham girls. “Have they been over to
see you?” she asked.
Roxy shook her head. She wanted to tell Polly all about her visit,
but felt a little ashamed because she had started off so angry at
Polly. Dulcie’s voice calling them to dinner sent them hurrying
downstairs, and Polly asked no more questions.
After dinner the rain gradually ceased, and the two girls, sitting by
Roxy’s table near the front window, were so busy with scissors and
water-color paints, and with their plan for a birthday surprise party
for Grandma Miller that they did not think about the weather until
Polly suddenly jumped up and said:
“Roxy—Roxy! Here’s the sun shining, and the day nearly over. I
must be off!” and with Roxy running beside her Polly started for the
yard to ask one of the negro boys to saddle “Brownie.”
“I’m glad it rained!” said Roxy, as Polly swung herself to the
saddle. “And our signals are splendid, aren’t they, Polly?”
“Splendid!” replied Polly, and with a smiling good-bye she sent
“Brownie” off at a swift trot, and Roxy stood looking after her.
“Nobody, no other girl, is like Polly,” she thought, remembering
Polly’s unfailing good nature. “Maybe it’s because she is almost
grown up.” And then Roxy’s smile vanished. A whole day had passed
and she had not yet found courage to tell her mother that she had
forgotten about her promise not to go beyond the bridge, and had
visited three little girls without being invited!
“I guess I had better tell her now!” Roxy decided. “It isn’t going to
be any easier to wait,” and she went slowly toward the front porch
where her mother and grandmother were sitting.
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