Selections from the Writings of Kierkegaard
The resulting confusion is capital, if one but is attentive and
does not forget. A dead man is one of the most amusing characters
to be met with in life. Strange that more use is not made of
him on the stage, for in life he is seen, now and then. When you come
to think of it, even one who has only been seemingly dead is a comical
figure; but one who was really dead certainly contributes to our
entertainment all one can reasonably expect of a man. All depends
on whether one is attentive. I myself had my attention called to it,
one day, as I was walking with one of my acquaintances. A couple
passed us. I judged from the expression on his face that he knew them
and asked whether that was the case. "Why, yes," he answered, "I know
them very well, and especially the lady, for she is my departed
one."--"What departed one?" I asked.--"Why, my departed first
love," he answered. "Indeed, this is a strange affair. She said:
I shall die. And that very same moment she departed, naturally enough,
by death--else one might have insured her beforehand in the
widow's insurance. Too late! Dead she was and dead she remained;
and now I wander about, as says the poet, vainly seeking the grave of
my lady-love that I may shed my tears thereon." Thus this broken-hearted
man who remained alone in the world, though it consoled him to find
her pretty far along with some other man.
It is a good thing for the girls, thought I, that they don't have to
be buried, every time they die; for if parents have hitherto considered
a boy-child to be the more expensive, the girls might become even
more so!
A simple case of infidelity is not as amusing, by far. I mean, if a
girl should fall in love with some one else and should say to her lover:
"I cannot help it, save me from myself!" But to die from sorrow because
she cannot endure being separated from her lover by his journey to the
West Indies, to have put up with his departure, however,--and
then, at his return, be not only not dead, but attached to some one
else for all time--that certainly is a strange fate for a lover to
undergo. No wonder, then, that the heart-broken man at times consoled
himself with the burthen of an old song which runs: "Hurrah for you and
me, I say, we never shall forget that day!"
Now forgive me, dear fellow-banqueters, if I have spoken at too
great length; and empty a glass to love and to woman. Beautiful she
is and lovely, if she be considered æsthetically. That is undeniable.
But, as has often been said, and as I shall say also: one ought not to
remain standing here, but should go on.[36] Consider her, then,
ethically and you will hardly have begun to do so before the humor
of it will become apparent. Even Plato and Aristotle assume that
woman is an imperfect form, an irrational quantity, that is, one
which might some time, in a better world, be transformed into a
man. In this life one must take her as she is. And what this is becomes
apparent very soon; for she will not be content with the æsthetic
sphere, but goes on, she wants to become emancipated, and she has the
courage to say so. Let her wish be fulfilled and the amusement will be
simply incomparable.
When Constantin had finished speaking he forthwith ruled Victor
Eremita to begin. He spoke as follows:
(Victor Eremita's Speech)
As will be remembered, Plato offers thanks to the gods for four
things. In the fourth place he is grateful for having been permitted
to be a contemporary of Socrates. For the three other boons mentioned
by him,[37] an earlier Greek philosopher[38] had already thanked
the gods, and so I conclude that they are worthy our gratitude. But
alas!--even if I wanted to express my gratitude like these Greeks I
would not be able to do so for what was denied me. Let me then
collect my soul in gratitude for the one good which was conferred
on me also--that I was made a man and not a woman.
To be a woman is something so curious, so heterogeneous and
composite that no predicate will fully express these qualities;
and if I should use many predicates they would contradict one
another in such fashion that only a woman would be able to tolerate
the result and, what is worse, feel happy about it. The fact that
she really signifies less than man--that is not her misfortune,
and still less so if she got to know it, for it might be borne
with fortitude. No, her misfortune consists in her life's having
become devoid of fixed meaning through a romantic conception of
things, by virtue of which, now she signifies all, and now, nothing at
all; without ever finding out what she really does signify--and
even that is not her misfortune but, rather, the fact that, being
a woman, she never will be able to find out. As for myself, if I
were a woman, I should prefer to be one in the Orient and as a
slave; for to be a slave, neither more nor less, is at any rate
something, in comparison with being, now heyday, now nothing.
Even if a woman's life did not contain such contrasts, the distinction
she enjoys, and which is rightly assumed to be hers as a woman--a
distinction she does not share with man--would by itself point to
the meaninglessness of her life. The distinction I refer to is
that of gallantry. To be gallant to woman is becoming in men. Now
gallantry consists very simply in conceiving in fantastic categories
that person to whom one is gallant. To be gallant to a man is,
therefore, an insult, for he begs to be excused from the application
of fantastic categories to him. For the fair sex, however, gallantry
signifies a tribute, a distinction, which is essentially its
privilege. Ah me, if only a single cavalier were gallant to them
the case would not be so serious. But far from it! At bottom every
man is gallant, he is unconsciously so. This signifies, therefore,
that it is life itself which has bestowed this perquisite on the
fair sex. Woman on her part unconsciously accepts it. Here we have
the same trouble again; for if only a single woman did so, another
explanation would be necessary. This is life's characteristic irony.
Now if gallantry contained the truth it ought to be reciprocal,
i.e., gallantry would be the accepted quotation for the stated
difference between beauty on the one hand, and power, astuteness,
and strength, on the other. But this is not the case, gallantry
is essentially woman's due; and the fact that she unconsciously
accepts it may be explained through the solicitude of nature
for the weak and those treated in a step-motherly fashion by her,
who feel more than recompensed by an illusion. But precisely this
illusion is her misfortune. It is not seldom the case that nature
comes to the assistance of an afflicted creature by consoling him
with the notion that he is the most beautiful. If that is so, why,
then we may say that nature made good the deficiency since now
the creature is endowed with even more than could be reasonably
demanded. But to be beautiful only in one's imagination, and not
to be overcome, indeed, by sadness, but to be fooled into an
illusion--why, that is still worse mockery. Now, as to being
afflicted, woman certainly is far from having been treated in a
step-motherly fashion by nature; still she is so in another sense
inasmuch as she never can free herself from the illusion with which
life has consoled her.
Gathering together one's impressions of a woman's existence,
in order to point out its essential features, one is struck by
the fact that every woman's life gives one an entirely fantastic
impression. In a far more decisive sense than man she may be said
to have turning points in her career; for her turning points
turn everything upside down. In one of Tieck's[39] Romantic dramas
there occurs a person who, having once been king of Mesopotamia,
now is a green-grocer in Copenhagen. Exactly as fantastic is
every feminine existence. If the girl's name is Juliana, her life
is as follows: erstwhile empress in the wide domains of love,
and titular queen of all the exaggerations of tomfoolery; now,
Mrs. Peterson, corner Bath Street.
When a child, a girl is less highly esteemed than a boy. When a
little older, one does not know exactly what to make of her. At
last she enters that decisive period in which she holds absolute
sway. Worshipfully man approaches her as a suitor. Worshipfully,
for so does every suitor, it is not the scheme of a crafty deceiver.
Even the executioner, when laying down his _fasces_ to go a-wooing,
even he bends his knee, although he is willing to offer himself up,
within a short time, to domestic executions which he finds so natural
that he is far from seeking any excuse for them in the fact that
public executions have grown so few. The cultured person behaves in
the very same manner. He kneels, he worships, he conceives his
lady-love in the most fantastic categories; and then he very quickly
forgets his kneeling position--in fact, he knew, full well the while
he knelt that it was fantastic to do so.
If I were a woman I would prefer to be sold by my father to the
highest bidder, as is the custom in the Orient; for there is at
least some sense in such a deal. What misfortune to have been born
a woman! Yet her misfortune really consists in her not being able
to comprehend it, being a woman. If she does complain, she complains
rather about her Oriental, than her Occidental, status. But if I
were a woman I would first of all refuse to be wooed, and resign
myself to belong to the weaker sex, if such is the case, and
be careful--which is most important if one is proud--of not going
beyond the truth. However, that is of but little concern to her.
Juliana is in the seventh heaven, and Mrs. Peterson submits to
her fate.
Let me, then, thank the gods that I was born a man and not a woman.
And still, how much do I forego! For is not all poetry, from the
drinking song to the tragedy, a deification of woman? All the worse
for her and for him who admires her; for if he does not look out
he will, all of a sudden, have to pull a long face. The beautiful,
the excellent, all of man's achievement, owes its origin to woman,
for she inspires him. Woman is, indeed, the inspiring element in life.
How many a love-lorn shepherd has played on this theme, and how many
a shepherdess has listened to it! Verily, my soul is without envy
and feels only gratitude to the gods; for I would rather be a man,
though in humble station, but really so, than be a woman and an
indeterminate quantity, rendered happy by a delusion--I would rather
be a concrete thing, with a small but definite meaning, than an
abstraction which is to mean all.
As I have said, it is through woman that ideality is born into
the world and--what were man without her! There is many a man who
has become a genius through a woman, many a one a hero, many a one
a poet, many a one even a saint; but he did not become a genius
through the woman he married, for through her he only became a
privy councillor; he did not become a hero through the woman he
married, for through her he only became a general; he did not
become a poet through the woman he married, for through her he
only became a father; he did not become a saint through the woman
he married, for he did not marry, and would have married but
one--the one whom he did not marry; just as the others became
a genius, became a hero, became a poet through the help of the
woman they did not marry. If woman's ideality were in itself
inspiring, why, then the inspiring woman would be the one to
whom a man is united for life. But life tells a different story.
It is only by a negative relation to her that man is rendered
productive in his ideal endeavors. In this sense she is inspiring;
but to say that she is inspiring, without qualifying one's statement,
is to be guilty of a paralogism[40] which one must be a woman to