Letter from Kierkegaard to Regine Olsen

This letter to Regine Olsen, with Kierkegaard’s drawing of Knippelsbro – close to where Regine lived – opens with a lesson as a prelude to his observations on the self-reflecting function of spyglasses: “This is the Knippelsbro. I am that person with the spyglass. As you know, figures appearing in a landscape are apt to look somewhat curious. You may take comfort, therefore, in the fact that I do not look quite that ugly and that every artis¬tic conception always retains something of the ideal, even in caricature.”