Selections from the Writings of Kierkegaard
Let others complain that the times are wicked. I complain that they
are paltry; for they are without passion. The thoughts of men are thin
and frail like lace, and they themselves are feeble like girl
lace-makers. The thoughts of their hearts are too puny to be sinful.
For a worm it might conceivably be regarded a sin to harbor thoughts
such as theirs, not for a man who is formed in the image of God. Their
lusts are staid and sluggish, their passions sleepy; they do their duty,
these sordid minds, but permit themselves, as did the Jews, to trim the
coins just the least little bit, thinking that if our Lord keep tab of
them ever so carefully one might yet safely venture to fool him a bit.
Fye upon them! It is therefore my soul ever returns to the Old Testament
and to Shakespeare. There at least one feels that one is dealing with
men and women; there one hates and loves, there one murders one's
enemy and curses his issue through all generations--there one sins.
Just as, according to the legend,[3] Parmeniscus in the Trophonian
cave lost his ability to laugh, but recovered it again on the island
of Delos at the sight of a shapeless block which was exhibited as the
image of the goddess Leto: likewise did it happen to me. When I was
very young I forgot in the Trophonian cave how to laugh; but when I
grew older and opened my eyes and contemplated the real world, I had
to laugh, and have not ceased laughing, ever since. I beheld that the
meaning of life was to make a living; its goal, to become Chief Justice;
that the delights of love consisted in marrying a woman with ample
means; that it was the blessedness of friendship to help one another
in financial difficulties; that wisdom was what most people supposed
it to be; that it showed enthusiasm to make a speech, and courage, to
risk being fined 10 dollars; that it was cordiality to say "may it agree
with you" after a repast; that it showed piety to partake of the
communion once a year. I saw that and laughed.
A strange thing happened to me in my dream. I was rapt into the
Seventh Heaven. There sat all the gods assembled. As a special
dispensation I was granted the favor to have one wish. "Do you wish
for youth," said Mercury, "or for beauty, or power, or a long life; or
do you wish for the most beautiful woman, or any other of the many fine
things we have in our treasure trove? Choose, but only one thing!" For
a moment I was at a loss. Then I addressed the gods in this wise: "Most
honorable contemporaries, I choose one thing--that I may always
have the laughs on my side." Not one god made answer, but all began
to laugh. From this I concluded that my wish had been granted and
thought that the gods knew how to express themselves with good taste;
for it would surely have been inappropriate to answer gravely: your
wish has been granted.
[Footnote 1: Interlude (of aphorisms). Selection.]
[Footnote 2: A flat island south of the capital, called the "Kitchen
Garden of Copenhagen."]
[Footnote 3: Told by Athenaios.]
IN VINO VERITAS (THE BANQUET)
It was on one of the last days in July, at ten o'clock in the
evening, when the participants in that banquet assembled together.
Date and year I have forgotten; indeed, this would be interesting only
to one's memory of details, and not to one's recollection of the
contents of what experience. The "spirit of the occasion" and whatever
impressions are recorded in one's mind under that heading, concerns
only one's recollections; and just as generous wine gains in flavor by
passing the Equator, because of the evaporation of its watery particles,
likewise does recollection gain by getting rid of the watery particles
of memory; and yet recollection becomes as little a mere figment of the
imagination by this process as does the generous wine.
The participants were five in number: John, with the epithet of the
Seducer, Victor Eremita, Constantin Constantius, and yet two others
whose names I have not exactly forgotten--which would be a matter
of small importance--but whose names I did not learn. It was as
if these two had no proper names, for they were constantly addressed
by some epithet. The one was called the Young Person. Nor was he more
than twenty and some years, of slender and delicate build, and of a very
dark complexion. His face was thoughtful; but more pleasing even was
its lovable and engaging expression which betokened a purity of soul
harmonizing perfectly with the soft charm, almost feminine, and the
transparency of his whole presence. This external beauty of appearance
was lost sight of, however, in one's next impression of him; or, one
kept it only in mind whilst regarding a youth nurtured or--to use
a still tenderer expression--petted into being, by thought, and
nourished by the contents of his own soul--a youth who as yet
had had nothing to do with the world, had been neither aroused and
fired, nor disquieted and disturbed. Like a sleep-walker he bore the
law of his actions within himself, and the amiable, kindly expression
of his countenance concerned no one, but only mirrored the disposition
of his soul.
The other person they called the Dressmaker, and that was his
occupation. Of him it was impossible to get a consistent impression.
He was dressed according to the very latest fashion, with his hair
curled and perfumed, fragrant with eau-de-cologne. One moment his
carriage did not lack self-possession, whereas in the next it assumed a
certain dancing, festive air, a certain hovering motion, which, however,
was kept in rather definite bounds by the robustness of his figure. Even
when he was most malicious in his speech his voice ever had a touch of
the smoothtonguedness of the shop, the suaveness of the dealer in
fancy-goods, which evidently was utterly disgusting to himself and only
satisfied his spirit of defiance. As I think of him now I understand him
better, to be sure, than when I first saw him step out of his carriage
and I involuntarily laughed. At the same time there is some
contradiction left still. He had transformed or bewitched himself, had
by the magic of his own will assumed the appearance of one almost
half-witted, but had not thereby entirely satisfied himself; and this is
why his reflectiveness now and then peered forth from beneath his
disguise.
As I think of it now it seems rather absurd that five such persons
should get a banquet arranged. Nor would anything have come of it,
I suppose, if Constantin had not been one of us. In a retired room of
a confectioner's shop where they met at times, the matter had been
broached once before, but had been dropped immediately when the
question arose as to who was to head the undertaking. The Young
Person was declared unfit for that task, the Dressmaker affirmed
himself to be too busy. Victor Eremita did not beg to be excused
because "he had married a wife or bought a yoke of oxen which he
needed to prove";[1] but, he said, even if he should make an
exception, for once, and come to the banquet, yet he would decline
the courtesy offered him to preside at it, and he therewith "entered
protest at the proper time.[2]" This, John considered a work spoken
in due season; because, as he saw it, there was but one person able
to prepare a banquet, and that was the possessor of the wishing-table
which set itself with delectable things whenever he said to it
"Cover thyself!" He averred that to enjoy the charms of a young girl
in haste was not always the wisest course; but as to a banquet, he
would not wait for it, and generally was tired of it a long while
before it came off. However, if the plan was to be carried into effect
he would make one condition, which was, that the banquet should be so
arranged as to be served in one course. And that all were agreed on.
Also, that the settings for it were to be made altogether new, and
that afterwards they were to be destroyed entirely; ay, before rising
from table one was to hear the preparation for their destruction.
Nothing was to remain; "not even so much," said the Dressmaker, "as
there is left of a dress after it has been made over into a hat."
"Nothing," said John, "because nothing is more unpleasant than a
sentimental scene, and nothing more disgusting than the knowledge
that somewhere or other there is an external setting which in a
direct and impertinent fashion pretends to be a reality."
When the conversation had thus became animated, Victor Eremita
suddenly arose, struck an attitude on the floor, beckoned with his hand
in the fashion of one commanding and, holding his arm extended as one
lifting a goblet, he said, with the gesture of one waving a welcome:
"With this cup whose fragrance already intoxicates my senses, whose cool
fire already inflames my blood, I greet you, beloved fellow-banqueters,
and bid you welcome; being entirely assured that each one of you is
sufficiently satisfied by our merely speaking about the banquet; for our
Lord satisfied the stomach before satisfying the eye, but the imagination
acts in the reverse fashion." Thereupon he inserted his hand in his
pocket, took from it a cigar-case, struck a match, and began to smoke.
When Constantin Constantius protested against this sovereign free way
of transforming the banquet planned into an illusory fragment of life,
Victor declared that he did not believe for one moment that such
a banquet could be got up and that, in any case, it had been
a mistake to let it become the subject of discussion in advance.
"Whatever is to be good must come at once; for 'at once' is the
divinest of all categories and deserves to be honored as in the language
of the Romans: _ex templo_,[3] because it is the starting point for
all that is divine in life, and so much so that what is not done at
once is of evil." However, he remarked, he did not care to argue
this point. In case the others wished to speak and act differently
he would not say a word, but if they wished him to explain the sense
of his remarks more fully he must have leave to make a speech,
because he did not consider it all desirable to provoke a discussion
on the subject.
Permission was given him; and as the others called on him to do so
at once, he spoke as follows: "A banquet is in itself a difficult
matter, because even if it be arranged with ever so much taste and
talent there is something else essential to its success, to wit, good
luck. And by this I mean not such matters as most likely would give
concern to an anxious hostess, but something different, a something
which no one can make absolutely sure of: a fortunate harmonizing
of the spirit and the minutiæ of the banquet, that fine ethereal
vibration of chords, that soul-stirring music which cannot be ordered
in advance from the town-musicians. Look you, therefore is it a
hazardous thing to undertake, because if things do go wrong, perhaps
from the very start, one may suffer such a depression and loss of
spirits that recovery from it might involve a very long time.
"Sheer habit and thoughtlessness are father and godfather to most
banquets, and it is only due to the lack of critical sense among people
that one fails to notice the utter absence of any idea in them. In the
first place, women ought never to be present at a banquet. Women
may be used to advantage only in the Greek style, as a chorus of
dancers. As it is the main thing at a banquet that there be eating and
drinking, woman ought not to be present; for she cannot do justice to
what is offered; or, if she can, it is most unbeautiful. Whenever a
woman is present the matter of eating and drinking ought to be reduced
to the very slightest proportions. At most, it ought to be no more
than some trifling feminine occupation, to have something to busy
one's hands with. Especially in the country a little repast of this