Kierkegaard, with Christianity as his goal, adopted the same tactics. By an attractive æsthetic beginning people were to be "lured" into envisaging the difficulties to be unfolded presently, to think for themselves, to form their own conclusions, whether for or against. The individual was to be appealed to, first and last--the individual, no matter how humble, who would take the trouble to follow him and be his reader, "my only reader, the single individual. So the religious author must make it his first business to put himself in touch with men. That is to say, he must begin æsthetically. The more brilliant his performance, the better." And then, when he has got them to follow him "he must produce the religious categories so that these same men with all the impetus of their devotion to æsthetic things are suddenly brought up sharp against the religious aspect." The writer's own personality was to be entirely eliminated by a system of pseudonyms; for the effect of his teaching was not to be jeopardized by a distracting knowledge of his personality. Accordingly, in conscious imitation of Socrates, Kierkegaard at first kept up a semblance of his previous student life, posing as a frivolous idler on the streets of Copenhagen, a witty dog incapable of prolonged serious activity; thus anxiously guarding the secret of his feverish activity during the lonely hours of the night. His campaign of the "indirect communication" was thus fully determined upon; but there was still lacking the impetus of an elemental passion to start it and give it driving force and conquering persistence. This also was to be furnished him. Shortly before his father's death he had made the acquaintance of Regine Olson, a beautiful young girl of good family. There followed one of the saddest imaginable engagements. The melancholy, and essentially lonely, thinker may not at first have entertained the thought of a lasting attachment; for had he not, on the one hand, given up all hope of worldly happiness, and on the other, begun to think of himself as a chosen tool of heaven not to be bound by the ordinary ties of human affection? But the natural desire to be as happy as others and to live man's common lot, for a moment hushed all anxious scruples. And the love of the brilliant and promising young man with the deep, sad eyes and the flashing wit was ardently returned by her.