the reasonable thing was to do practically nothing at all. So in September,
when Nielsen complained that illness compelled him to remain out in the
country, and that as a convalescent he was doing very little work beyond
“looking at nature and at the baker’s chickens,” Kierkegaard replied that he
was entirely in agreement with respect to “the baker’s chickens”: “When
the opportunity presents itself, one ought not neglect making this sort of
thing the object of one’s observations. A ‘quiet hour’ of this sort is certainly
much more profitable than many of those so celebrated ‘quiet hours’ that
are employed in fooling people about Christianity.”
“Take the paradox away from a thinker—and you have a professor,”
Kierkegaard wrote in the late summer of 1849. Nielsen did not give him
any reason to soften his language.
A while later, on September 20, Nielsen was back in town, informing
Kierkegaard of his return with a laconic note: “Have arrived here. Yours,
R. N.” The absence of correspondence in the ensuing period makes it
reasonable to assume that they had resumed their Thursday walks—and also
the conversations that led to their final break.
Fredrika Bremer’s Report Card
If the thinker Kierkegaard and the philosopher Nielsen did not have any-
thing else to talk about on their Thursday strolls, the publication of Fredrika
Bremer’sLife in Scandinavia, which appeared in Danish translation on Sep-
tember 12, 1849, would in any case have been a obvious subject. At only
forty-four small pages, the book is almost over before it starts, nor is it
unforgettable. And it would probably have passed unnoticed had it not
provided portraits and assessments of a number of prominent personalities
whose lives and activities took place within the ramparts of Copenhagen.
Bremer’s book is thus a report card for a very miscellaneous class that has
subsequently been bundled together and given the name “the Danish
Golden Age.”
The book begins with an exuberant description of the country as the
Danes like to see it: “It is a friendly, splendid country of islands, a land of
green, rolling fields, which, without mountains and crags, simply rises up
out the sea with its fertile plains and beautiful forests.” Bremer’s report is
also a national report card on the character of the Danish people themselves:
“The people are poetic, romantic, humorous. They love legends, epic po-
etry, romantic ballads, songs, and jokes. The people are also deeply reli-
gious.” That is as it should be, and Bremer knew what she was writing
about. After these polite remarks Bremer approached the heart of the nation