Soren Kierkegaard

andthustheheartofherreportcard,Copenhagen:“TheDaneofCopenha-
gen, or the Copenhagener, is not entirely as good-natured as Danes in gen-
eral, and sometimes he values the head at the expense of the heart. He
is critical. He is quick to see the failures and errors of his neighbor....
Nonetheless, the good-natured smile is still near at hand, and the hand is
ready to make peace. The Dane is unacquainted with vice and wickedness;
he abominates rancor.” And thus, despite everything, the people of Copen-
hagen can be seen “by the traveler from abroad as a lively, cheerful, zestful
people, extremely pleasant and lovable, open-hearted, helpful, and
communicative.”
It is in this high-spirited style that Bremer arrives at the Copenhagen
intelligentsia, whom she presents in a series of miniportraits, arranged in
rather arbitrary order and decked out in a dazzling display of superlatives:
“At the dawn of the century,MynsterandGrundtvigappeared in the church
with the fire of the Spirit, with the power of the Word, proclaiming anew
the ancient, eternally youthful teachings of religion; Mynster, scholarly,
clear,harmonious; Grundtvig(avolcanicsoul) withthepower andthespirit
of the prophets of old.” Next, Henrik Hertz is praised for the “magical
power of poetry” he is able to capture in verse “that is also saturated with
a lofty and moral earnestness.” Something similar is the case with Carsten
Hauch, “a warm, enthusiastic soul,” whose work unites “scholarship and
poetry.” Paludan-Mu ̈ller, the author ofAdam Homo, also receives top marks
becauseheisa“deepthinkerinverseofadmirablelightnessandperfection.”
Christian Winther sings of “the idyllic natural world of his fatherland in
poems that are so lively and fresh that Danes seem to be able to recognize
the scent of fresh hay in them.” Only at this point do we arrive at J. L.
Heiberg, who receives a slightly cool mention inasmuch as he is a critic,
something Bremer did not really like very much, because she had certain
difficulties in accepting any “supreme judge in literature excepting that
which sooner or later takes shape in the people’s own living heart.”
After this little plunge into pathos Bremer’s style once again becomes
warm and soft and supple, and she now recounts, almost as though it were
a fairy tale, the story of a “simple, unpretentious flower” that sprang forth
on the spring-green islands one day. “Some people protected it. And the
sun loved the flower and shone upon it. And its leaves unfolded and took
on wonderfully beautiful shapes and colors; they took on wings, slipped
free of Mother Earth, and flew over—the entire world! And everywhere
people gathered and listened, great and small, old and young, learned and
unlearned,atcourtandincottages.Andwhenonelistened,onewasamused
at one moment, moved at the next....Whointhecultivated world has
not heard tell ofHans Christian Andersen’s ‘fairy tales for children’? ” The