She is the boundary of his being Kierkegaard met Regine Olsen in Copenhagen in 1837, and, by all appearances, there was a deep attraction between the two. They were engaged in 1840, but Kierkegaard immediately broke off the engagement the following year. Regina married her old tutor in 1847, and the couple left Copenhagen for the Danish West Indies in March 1855. Kierkegaard died in November that same year, having […]
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On the World as a Stage: III. Participating in Justice
Plato writes that the beautiful things in this world are images of the absolute and everlasting Beauty that can be seen only with the eye of the mind. Things in this world change constantly and have no substance, but they are beautiful because they participate in Beauty. In the same vein, justice is made manifest in this world by people participating in or enacting Justice. Sometimes it’s almost as if a […]
Read moreBoundaries and Divine Law
A Baseball Metaphor For those who don’t know much about baseball, here are three things that might help you understand the metaphor I’m about to relate. First, it’s “a game of inches”, because the difference between success and failure, safe and out, home-run and foul ball is literally inches apart. Second, there is no time constraint in baseball, unlike some other major team sports. In theory, a baseball game could […]
Read more“Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans II” by Plutarch
After giving a fascinating and instructive account of the noble lives of the founders, lawgivers, statesmen, orators, famous generals and virtuous women of ancient Greece and Rome, Plutarch concludes his work with a story of such a wretched end of life, that all lives seem noble in comparison. The Wretch in a Boat A Persian king thus put to death one of his subjects: Taking two boats framed exactly to […]
Read moreTolstoy on Shakespeare
[Posted to commemorate the 185th anniversary of Leo Tolstoy’s birthday] Tolstoy was a bona fide iconoclast, who was not afraid to think and speak for himself, and did so with the force of reason and conviction, as is evident in his critical essay on Shakespeare. Comparing Shakespeare with Homer However distant Homer is from us, we can, without the slightest effort, transport ourselves into the life he describes,…because he believes […]
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“Pensées” by Blaise Pascal
What is Man in Nature? Let man then contemplate the whole of nature in her full and grand majesty, and turn his vision from the low objects which surround him. Let him gaze on that brilliant light, set like an eternal lamp to illumine the universe; let the earth appear to him a point in comparison with the vast circle described by the sun; and let him wonder at the […]
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Plutarch: Life of Pericles
Pericles was a pupil of Zeno the Eleatic, and perfected a species of refutative catch which was sure to bring an opponent to grief. But the man who most consorted with Pericles and did most to exalt the dignity of his character, was Anaxagoras the Clazomenian, whom men of that day used to call ‘Nous,’ either because they admired that comprehension of his; or because he was the first to […]
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