Soren Kierkegaard

of the fountain down in the square. In the mornings he could see dawn
breakoverthenarrowroofsofNytorv,acrossthesquare.Perhapsthethirty-
eight-year-old curate stood watching the sunrise in the spring of 1813, in
blissful ignorance of his future entanglements with the baby boy who came
into the world on the first Wednesday in May, diagonally across the square
from Mynster’s rooms.
With Mynster installed in his light and airy garret, we have now reached
the fifth and final section of hisCommunications. His years of apprenticeship
were over, and the future waited impatiently to make use of this cultivated,
diligent, and mature man—a man, furthermore, who was not bound by any
worldly responsibilities and who had not yet lived even half his life. The
final hundred pages of Mynster’s autobiography are thus a sort of tour de
forcethroughtheregisterofroyalDanishofficialdom:appointmentstohigh
office, the granting of many honors, leadership posts on various boards and
commissions, attendance at splendid social events, officiating at princely
marriages, and other evidence of grandeur. In 1812 he was made assistant
professor of psychology at the Pastoral Seminary and appointed to its board
of directors. In 1814 he completed a commentated edition of Luther’sSmall
Catechism. In that same year he was also a cofounder of the Danish Bible
Society, of whose board of directors he became a member in 1815; one of
Mynster’s responsibilities was to revise the official translation of the New
Testament. Also in 1815, Mynster earned his doctoral degree with a disser-
tation on Saint Paul. But that was nothing compared with the true miracle:
“The year 1815 brought me something that was of much greater impor-
tance and was a source of much greater joy than the doctorate, namely my
dear wife.” She was Bishop Mu ̈nter’s eldest (but still only nineteen-year-
old) daughter, Maria Frederikke Francisca, known simply as “Fanny,” who
had accepted his offer of marriage through an open window at the old
bishop’s residence. “Here I found what I had so long sought in vain, a being
who loved me and who gave herself to me without the least shadow of
doubt.” True, she was no Sophie Gaarder who could say “God, that was
fine,” but Fanny presented him with four well-brought-up children, and
after thirty-one years of life together he would look back on a happy mar-
riage and praise Fanny for her clear thinking, her sense of tact, and her
tireless efforts as a housewife. He could still remember how at a little gather-
ing he had raised a glass and proposed the following toast: “If Shakespeare
has a man exclaim, ‘Frailty, thy name is woman!’ I say with the most com-
plete acknowledgment and thankfulness, ‘Loyalty, thy name is Fanny!’ ”
Family matters did not get in the way of Mynster’s career. In 1819 Myn-
ster was made a member of the Scientific Society. Two years prior to this
he had become a member of the governing board of the university, and in