Soren Kierkegaard

well understand; I did not at all think that you harbored kindly thoughts
about me—but now I see you do! God bless you for it! Thank you, thank
you! Yours in heartfelt devotion, H. C. Andersen.”
The republication ofEither/Orsubjected Kierkegaard to the obligatory
tortuous reflections that not only were ironically related to the title of the
work, but also stood in curious contrast to the firmness Kierkegaard had
displayed in his negotiations with Philipsen and Reitzel. It had long been
clear to him that the reissuing of the work would have to be accompanied
by a religious piece just as had been the case in 1843, when the first edition
ofEither/Orhad receivedTwo Edifying Discoursesas its companion on May
16.Now,however,boththesituationandKierkegaardhadchanged:“Since
then, I have taken on the character of a religious author; how can I now
darelet itbepublished withouta carefulexplanation?”He thereforeconsid-
ered letting it be accompanied byA Cycle of Ethical-Religious Essays, though
on February 19, 1849, he had become more inclined to let the “Three
Notes” (which were connected toThe Point of View) serve in that role—
“this very much appeals to me”—and then in April he changed his mind
again and assigned the task of escorting the new edition ofEither/Orto his
three godly discourses,The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air, which he
had been working on since March.
In the middle of May, more or less simultaneously with his receipt of the
various letters thanking him forEither/Or, a messenger delivered a note
from the Swedish authoress Fredrika Bremer. She had been in Copenhagen
since the autumn of 1848, gathering material for a book on life in Scandina-
via. Apart from Hans Christian Andersen, whom she had encountered by
chance twelve years earlier on the way to Stockholm, the forty-eight-year-
old writer had not known a soul when she arrived in Copenhagen. But in
record time she had succeeded in coming into contact with Hans Christian
Ørsted; Carsten Hauch; Grundtvig; the choreographer August Bournon-
ville; the composer J.P.E. Hartmann; the poet B. S. Ingemann, whom she
visited in Sorø; Caroline Amalie (the queen who had done some reading
in “Either and Or”); and last, but not least, Court Chaplain Martensen, who
received her warmly. During her stay she was a frequent caller at Mar-
tensen’s home, where she was the first person to read the proofs of his
Dogmatics, which had just been completed. Martensen later recalled “with
joy the many evening hours when she came to my room and spoke of what
had moved and edified her in the work—she thought that in the spiritual
sense I had constructed a cathedral.” Bremer had also had “doubts and mis-
givings,” however, particularly about the consciousness of sin; she could
not come to terms with it, but Martensen was patient: “Therefore we had
to have a number of conversations about sin and grace.”