There were others who never took the opportunity to contact Kierke-
gaard and had to make do with noting their gratitude in their diaries for the
benefit of posterity. Thus, for example, the painter Johan Thomas Lundbye
wrote the following in his journal, dated October 31, 1847: “When my
spirits are depressed and I almost tremble for what the immediate future
may hold—ah, then I take consolation in Søren Kierkegaard’s newest
book,Works of Love.” The following year Lundbye was killed during the
war over Slesvig; a stray bullet entered his mouth and exited through the
back of his head.
The Dedication to Regine
“Now they are being printed. Oh, I feel so inexplicably, unspeakably happy
and relieved and confident and overwhelmed. Infinite love! I have suffered
much during these days, terribly much. Ah, but still it comes back—an
understanding of my task once again confronts me, but in an intensified
form. And even if I have got it wrong seventeen times, in its grace, an
infinite love has nonetheless made everything turn out for the best.” This
was Kierkegaard’s reaction to the final publication of the manuscripts ofOn
My Wor kas an AuthorandTwo Discourses for the Communion on Fridays.
The preface of theTwo Discoursescontained a passage that has subse-
quently been quoted very often: “Progressing step-by-step, an authorial
activity that began withEither/Orhere seeks its decisive resting point at the
foot of the altar, where the author—who is himself personally most aware
of his own imperfection and guilt—by no means calls himself a witness to
the truth, but only an unusual sort of poet and thinker who is ‘without
authority’ and has had nothing new to say.” The little expression “witness
to the truth” pointed toward events that would take place four years later.
With this, the canon seemed to be officially concluded. Kierkegaard had
decided to dedicate the whole of his published work to Regine, but wheth-
er the dedication ought to appear inOn My Wor kas an Authoror in the
Two Discourseslong remained a painfully undecided question. He finally
chose the latter work and then set sail on a small ocean of possible dedica-
tions—seventy thousand desperate fathoms of them:
Dedicated to an unnamed person, / whose name must not yet be
mentioned / but which history will someday name, / and, for however
long or short a period it may be, / it will be just as long as my own /
et cetera.Or perhaps: