4What is a poet? An unhappy person who conceals profound anguish in his heart but whose lips are so formed that as sighs and cries pass over them they sound like beautiful music. It is with him as with the poor wretches in Phalaris’s bronze bull, who were slowly tortured over a slow fire; their screams could not reach the tyrant’s ears to terrify him; to him they sounded like sweet music.° And people crowd around the poet and say to him, ‘‘Sing again soon’”’—in other words, may new suffer- ings torture your soul, and may your lips continue to be formed as before, because your screams would only alarm us, but the music is charming. And the reviewers step up and say, “That is right; so it must be according to the rules of esthet- ics.” Now of course a reviewer resembles a poet to a hair, ex- cept that he does not have the anguish in his heart, or the music on his lips. Therefore, I would rather be a swineherd out on Amager® and be understood by swine than be a poet and be misunderstood by people.’
It is common knowledge that the first question in the first and most compendious instruction given to a child is this: What does baby want? The answer is: Da-da.8 And with such observations life begins, and yet we deny hereditary sin.? And yet whom does the child have to thank for his first thrashings, whom else but his parents.
I prefer to talk with children, for one may still dare to hope that they may become rational beings; but those who have be- come that—good Lord!!° How unreasonable people are! They never use the freedoms they have but demand those they do not have; they have free- dom of thought—they demand freedom of speech.
20 Either/Or, I "Tl don’t feel like doing anything. I don’t feel like riding— the motion is too powerful; I don’t feel like walking—it is too tiring; I don’t feel like lying down, for either I would have to stay down, and I don’t feel like doing that, or I would have to get up again, and I don’t feel like doing that, either. Summa Summarum: I don’t feel like doing anything.
There are, as is known, insects that die in the moment of fer- tilization. So it is with all joy: life’s highest, most splendid mo- ment of enjoyment is accompanied by death.
Tested Advice for Authors"?
One carelessly writes down one’s personal observations, has them printed, and in the various proofs one will eventually ac- quire a number of good ideas. Therefore, take courage, you who have not yet dared to have something printed. Do not de- spise typographical errors, ‘4 and to become witty by means of typographical errors may be considered a legitimate way to become witty.
'5Generally speaking, the imperfection in everything human is that its aspirations are achieved only by way of their oppo- sites. I shall not discuss the variety of formations, which can give a psychologist plenty to do (the melancholy have the best sense of the comic, the most opulent often the best sense of the rustic, the dissolute often the best sense of the moral, the doubter often the best sense of the religious), but merely call to mind that it is through sin that one gains a first glimpse of salvation.
'6In addition to my other numerous acquaintances, I have one more intimate confidant—my depression. In the midst of my joy, in the midst of my work, he!” beckons to me, calls me aside, even though physically I remain on the spot. My depression is the most faithful mistress I have known—no wonder, then, that I return the love.
Diapsalmata 21 Diapsalmata 21 There is a rambling of loquacity'® that in its interminability has the same relation to the result as the incalculable lists of Egyptian kings have to the historical outcome.
Old age fulfills the dreams of youth. One sees this in Swift: in his youth he built an insane asylum; in his old age he himself entered it.!?
20It is cause for alarm to note with what hypochondriac pro- fundity Englishmen of an earlier generation have spotted the ambiguity basic to laughter. Thus Dr. Hartley?! has observed: dass wenn sich das Lachen zuerst bei Kindern zeiget, so ist es ein entstehendes Weinen, welches durch Schmerz erregt wird, oder ein plétzlich gehemtes und in sehr kurzen Zwi- schenraiimen wiederholtes Gefiihl des Schmerzens [that when laughter first makes its appearance in the child, it is a nascent cry that is excited by pain or a suddenly arrested feeling of pain repeated at very short intervals] (see Flégel, Geschichte der comi- schen Litteratur,” I, p. 50). What if everything in the world were a misunderstanding; what if laughter really were weep- ing!
There are particular occasions when one may be most painfully moved to see a person standing utterly alone in the world. The other day I saw a poor girl walking utterly alone to church to be confirmed.
24Cornelius Nepos tells of a general who was kept confined with a considerable cavalry regiment in a fortress; to keep the horses from being harmed because of too much inactivity, he had them whipped daily*—in like manner, I live in this age as one besieged, but lest I be harmed by sitting still so much, I cry myself tired.
6] say of my sorrow what the Englishman says of his house: My sorrow is my castle.2?7 Many people look upon having sor- row as one of life’s conveniences.
22 Either/Or, I 28] feel as a chessman must feel when the opponent says of it: That piece cannot be moved.
29 Aladdin® is so very refreshing because this piece has the au- dacity of the child, of the genius, in the wildest wishes. Indeed, how many are there in our day who truly dare to wish, dare to desire, dare to address nature neither with a polite child’s bitte, bitte [please, please] nor with the raging frenzy of one damned? How many are there who—inspired by what is talked about so much in our age, that man is created in God’s image—have the authentic voice of command? Or do we not all stand like Noureddin, bowing and scraping, worrying about asking too much or too little? Or is not every magnificent demanding eventually diminished to morbid reflecting over the I, from in- sisting to informing, which we are indeed brought up and trained to do.
3'T am as timorous as a sheva,*? as weak and muted as a dag- hesch lene; | feel like a letter printed backward in the line, and yet as uncontrollable as a pasha with three horse tails,*4 as so- licitous for myselfand my thoughts as a bank for its banknotes, indeed, as reflected into myself as any pronomen reflexivum [re- flexive pronoun]. Yes, if it were true of miseries and sorrows as it is true of conscious good deeds—that those who do them lose their reward—then I would be the happiest person, for I take all my cares in advance, and yet they all remain behind.
The tremendous poetical power of folk literature is mani- fest, among other ways, in its power to desire. In comparison, desire in our age is simultaneously sinful and boring, because it desires what belongs to the neighbor. Desire in folk litera- ture is fully aware that the neighbor does not possess what it seeks any more than it does itself. And if it is going to desire sinfully, then it is so flagrant that people must be shocked. It is not going to let itself be beaten down by the cold probability calculations of a pedestrian understanding. Don Juan still strides across the stage with his 1,003 ladyloves. Out of rev- erence for the venerableness of tradition, no one dares to Diapsalmata 23 smile. If a poet had dared to do this in our age, he would be laughed to scorn.
What a strange, sad mood came over me on seeing a poor wretch shuffling through the streets in a somewhat worn pale green coat flecked with yellow.* I felt sorry for him, but nevertheless what affected me most was that the color of this coat so vividly reminded me of my childhood’s first produc- tions in the noble art of painting. This particular color was one of my favorite colors. Is it not sad that these color combina- tions, which I still think of with so much joy, are nowhere to be found in life; the whole world finds them crude, garish, suitable only for Nurnberg prints.*° If they are encountered occasionally, the meeting is always unfortunate, as this one is. It is always a feeble-minded person or a derelict—in short, al- ways someone who feels alienated in life and whom the world will not acknowledge. And I, who always painted my heroes with this eternally unforgettable yellow-green tinge to their coats! Does this not happen with all the color combinations of childhood? The gleam that life had at that time gradually be- comes too intense, too crude, for our dull eyes.
3’Alas, fortune’s door does not open inward so that one can push it open by rushing at it; but it opens outward, and there- fore one can do nothing about it.
8] have, I believe, the courage to doubt everything; I have, I believe, the courage to fight against everything; but I do not have the courage to acknowledge anything, the courage to possess, to own, anything. Most people complain that the world is so prosaic that things do not go in life as in the novel, where opportunity is always so favorable. I complain that in life it is not as in the novel, where one has hardhearted fathers and nisses and trolls to battle, and enchanted princesses to free. What are all such adversaries together compared with the pale, bloodless, tenacious-of-life nocturnal forms with which I bat- tle and to which I myself give life and existence.
24 Either/Or, I 24 Either/Or, I How sterile my soul and my mind are, and yet constantly tormented by empty voluptuous and excruciating labor pains! Will the tongue ligament of my spirit never be loosened; will I always jabber? “What I need is a voice as piercing as the glance of Lynceus,*! as terrifying as the groan of the giants,*? as sus- tained as a sound of nature,*® as mocking as an icy gust of wind, as malicious as echo’s heartless taunting, extending in range from the deepest bass to the most melting high notes, and modulated from a solemn-silent whisper to the energy of rage. That is what I need in order to breathe, to give voice to what is on my mind, to have the viscera of both anger and sympathy shaken. —But my voice is only hoarse like the scream of a gull or moribund like the blessing on the lips of the mute.
What is going to happen? What will the future bring? I do not know, I have no presentiment. “When a spider flings itself from a fixed point down into its consequences, it continually sees before it an empty space in which it can find no foothold, however much it stretches. So it is with me; before me is con- tinually an empty space, and I am propelled by a consequence that lies behind me. This life is turned around and dreadful, not to be endured.
“The most beautiful time is the first period of falling in love, when, from every encounter, every glance, one fetches home something new to rejoice over.
46My observation of life makes no sense at all. I suppose that an evil spirit has put a pair of glasses on my nose, one lens of which magnifies on an immense scale and the other reduces on the same scale.
The doubter is Mevaotryopévosg [one who is whipped];* like a spinning top, he remains on the point for a shorter or longer period depending on the strokes of the whip; he is not able to remain on the point any more than the top is.** Diapsalmata 25 The most ludicrous of all ludicrous things, it seems to me, is to be busy in the world, to be a man who is brisk at his meals and brisk at his work. Therefore, when I see a fly settle on the nose of one of those men of business in a decisive moment, *? or if he is splashed by a carriage that passes him in even greater haste, or Knippelsbro® tilts up, or a roof tile falls and kills him,*! I laugh from the bottom of my heart. And who could keep from laughing? What, after all, do these busy bustlers achieve? Are they not just like that woman who, in a flurry be- cause the house was on fire, rescued the fire tongs? What more, after all, do they salvage from life’s huge conflagration?
On the whole, I lack the patience to live. I cannot see the grass grow, and if I cannot do that, I do not care to look at it at all. My views are the superficial observations of a ‘‘fahrender Scholastiker [traveling scholastic]? who dashes through life in the greatest haste. It is said that our Lord satisfies the stomach before the eyes. That is not what I find: my eyes are surfeited and bored with everything, and yet I hunger.
54Ask me what you wish; just do not ask me for reasons. A young girl is excused for not being able to state reasons; she lives in feelings, it is said. It is different with me. Ordinarily I have so many and most often such mutually contradictory rea- sons that for this reason it is impossible for me to state reasons. It also seems to me that with cause and effect the relation does not hold together properly. Sometimes enormous and gewal- tige [powerful] causes produce a very klein [small] and insig- nificant little effect, sometimes none at all; sometimes a nimble little cause produces a colossal effect.
>And now the innocent pleasures of life. It must be granted to them that they have only one flaw—that they are so inno- cent. Moreover, they are to be enjoyed in moderation. When my physician prescribes a diet for me, there is some reason in that; I abstain from certain specified foods for a certain speci- fied time. But to be dietetic in keeping the diet—that is really asking too much.
10 26 Either/Or, I Life for me has become a bitter drink, and yet it must be taken in drops, slowly, counting.
No one comes back from the dead; no one has come into the world without weeping. No one asks when one wants to come in; no one asks when one wants to go out.
Time passes, life is a stream, etc., so people say. That is not what I find: time stands still, and so do I. All the plans I project fly straight back at me; when I want to spit, I spit in my own face.
56When I get up in the morning, I go right back to bed again. I feel best in the evening the moment I put out the light and pull the feather-bed over my head. I sit up once more, look around the room with indescribable satisfaction, and then good night, down under the feather-bed.
What am I good for? For nothing or for anything whatever. It is a rare ability; I wonder if it will be appreciated in life? God knows whether places are found by girls looking for a job as a general servant or, for want of that, as anything whatever.
57One ought to be a riddle not only to others but also to one- self. | examine myself; when I am tired of that, I smoke a cigar for diversion and think: God knows what our Lord actually in- tended with me or what he wants to make of me.
33No woman in maternity confinement can have stranger and more impatient wishes than I have. Sometimes these wishes involve the most insignificant things, sometimes the most sublime, but they all have to an equally high degree the momentary passion of the soul. At this moment I wish for a bowl of buckwheat cereal. I recall from my school days that we always had buckwheat cereal on Wednesdays. I recall how smooth and white the cereal was served, how the butter smiled at me, how warm the cereal looked, how hungry I was, how impatient to get permission to begin. Such a bowl of Diapsalmata 27 buckwheat cereal! I would give more than my birthright*? for it.
Virgilius[sic] the sorcerer®' had himself hacked to pieces and put in a caldron to be cooked for eight days in order by this process to be rejuvenated. He arranged for someone to watch so that no interloper would peer into the caldron. But the watchman could not resist the temptation; it was too soon, and Virgilius, as an infant, disappeared with a scream. I dare say that I also peered too soon into the caldron, into the cald- ron of life and the historical process, and most likely will never manage to become more than a child.
“Never lose courage! When troubles pile up most appal- lingly about you, you will see a helping hand in the clouds” — so said His Reverence Jesper Morten® at vespers recently. Well, I am accustomed to walking a great deal under the open sky, but I have never noticed such a thing. A few days ago while on a walking tour, I became aware of such a phenome- non. It was really not a hand, but more like an arm, that reached out of the cloud. I fell into contemplation, and the thought came to me: If only Jesper Morten were here so he could decide whether this was the phenomenon he referred to. As I stood there lost in these thoughts, a passerby addressed me and said as he pointed up to the clouds, ‘Do you see that funnel-shaped cloud? One seldom sees such a thing in these parts. Sometimes it carries whole houses along with it.”” Good heavens, I thought, is that a funnel-shaped cloud—and took to my heels as fast as I could. What would His Reverence Jesper Morten have done, I wonder, in my place?
Let others complain that the times are evil. I complain that they are wretched, for they are without passion. People’s thoughts are as thin and fragile as lace, and they themselves as pitiable as lace-making girls. The thoughts of their hearts are too wretched to be sinful. It is perhaps possible to regard it as sin for a worm to nourish such thoughts, but not for a human being, who is created in the image of God. Their desires are 28 Either/Or, I 28 Either/Or, I staid and dull, their passions drowsy. They perform their du- ties, these mercenary souls, but just like the Jews, they indulge in trimming the coins a little; they think that, “even though our Lord keeps ever so orderly an account book, they can still manage to trick him a little. Fie on them! That is why my soul always turns back to the Old Testament and to Shakespeare. There one still feels that those who speak are human beings; there they hate, there they love, there they murder the enemy, curse his descendants through all generations—there they sin.
My time I divide as follows: the one half sleep; the other half I dream. I never dream when I sleep; that would be a shame, because to sleep is the height of genius.
To be a perfect human being is indeed the highest. Now I have corns—that is always of some help.
My life achievement amounts to nothing at all, a mood, a single color. My achievement resembles the painting by that artist who was supposed to paint the Israelites’ crossing of the Red Sea and to that end painted the entire wall red and ex- plained that the Israelites had walked across and that the Egyp- tians were drowned.
Human dignity is still acknowledged even in nature, for when we want to keep birds away from the trees we set up something that is supposed to resemble a human being, and even the remote resemblance a scarecrow has to a human being is sufficient to inspire respect.
If erotic love [Elskov] is to have any meaning, in its hour of birth it must be shone upon by the moon, just as Apis, in order to be the true Apis, must have been shone upon by the moon. The cow that gave birth to Apis is said to have been shone upon by the moon in the moment of conception.© The best demonstration of the wretchedness of life [ Tilverelse] is that which is obtained through a consideration of its glory.
Diapsalmata 29 Most people rush after pleasure so fast that they rush right past it. They are like that dwarf who guarded a kidnapped princess in his castle. One day he took a noon nap. When he woke up an hour later, she was gone. Hastily he pulls on his seven-league boots; with one step he is far past her.
SMy soul is so heavy that no thought can carry it any longer, no wing beat can lift it up into the ether any more. If it is moved, it merely skims along the ground, just as birds fly low when a thunderstorm is blowing up. Over my inner being broods an oppressiveness, an anxiety, that forebodes an earth- quake.
How empty and meaningless life is. —We bury a man; we accompany him to the grave, throw three spadefuls of earth on him; we ride out in a carriage, ride home in a carriage; we find consolation in the thought that we have a long life ahead of us. But how long is seven times ten years? Why not settle it all at once, why not stay out there and go along down into the grave and draw lots to see to whom will befall the misfortune of being the last of the living who throws the last three spadefuls of earth on the last of the dead?
67Girls do not appeal to me. Their beauty passes away like a dream and like yesterday when it is past. Their faithfulness— yes, their faithfulness! Either they are faithless—this does not concern me any more—or they are faithful. If I found such a one, she would appeal to me from the standpoint of her being a rarity; but from the standpoint of a long period of time she would not appeal to me, for either she would continually re- main faithful, and then I would become a sacrifice to my ea- gerness for experience, since I would have to bear with her, or the time would come when she would lapse, and then I would have the same old story.
©°Wretched fate! In vain do you prink up your wrinkled face like an old prostitute, in vain do you jingle your fool’s bells. You bore me; it is still the same, an idem per idem [the same by 30 Either/Or, I the same]. No variation, always a rehash. Come, sleep and death; you promise nothing, you hold everything.
Those two familiar violin strains! Those two familiar vio- lin strains here this very moment out in the street. Have I lost my mind; out of love for Mozart’s music, have my ears ceased to hear? Is this a reward of the gods, to give unhappy me, who sits like a beggar at the door of the temple,”! ears that them- selves perform what they hear? Only those two violin strains, for now I hear nothing more. Just as in that immortal overture” they burst forth out of the deep chorale tones, so here they disentangle themselves from the noise and tumult of the street with the total surprise of a revelation. —It must be close by, for now I hear the light dance tunes. —So it is to you that I owe this joy, you two unfortunate artists. —One of them was probably seventeen years old, wearing a green Kal- muk coat with large bone buttons. The coat was much too large for him. He held the violin tightly under his chin; his cap was pulled down over his eyes. His hand was concealed in a fingerless glove; his fingers were red and blue with cold. The other one was older and wore a chenille coat. Both were blind. A little girl, who presumably guided them, stood in front of them, thrust her hands under her scarf. We gathered one by one, a few admirers of those melodies—a postman with his mailbag, a little boy, a maidservant, a couple of dock workers. The elegant carriages rolled noisily by; the carts and wagons drowned out the melodies, which emerged fragmentarily for a moment. You two unfortunate artists, do you know that those strains hide in themselves the glories of the whole world? —Was it not like a rendezvous?-— In a theater, it happened that a fire started offstage. The clown came out to tell the audience. They thought it was a joke and applauded. He told them again, and they became still more hilarious. This is the way, I suppose, that the world will be destroyed—amid the universal hilarity of wits and wags who think it is all a joke.
Diapsalmata 31 What, if anything, is the meaning of this life? If people are divided into two great classes, it may be said that one class works for a living and the other does not have that need. But to work for a living certainly cannot be the meaning of life, since it is indeed a contradiction that the continual production of the conditions is supposed to be the answer to the question of the meaning of that which is conditional upon their produc- tion. The lives of the rest of them generally have no meaning except to consume the conditions. To say that the meaning of life is to die seems to be a contradiction also.
Real enjoyment consists not in what one enjoys but in the idea. If I had in my service a submissive jinni who, when I] asked for a glass of water, would bring me the world’s most expensive wines, deliciously blended, in a goblet, I would dis- miss him until he learned that the enjoyment consists not in what I enjoy but in getting my own way.
So I am not the one who is the lord of my life; Iam one of the threads to be spun into the calico of life! Well, then, even though I cannot spin, I can still cut the thread.
All will be acquired in stillness and made divine in silence. It is true not only of Psyche’s expected child that its future de- pends on her silence.
Mit einem Kind, das géttlich, wenn Du schweigst— Doch menschlich, wenn Du das Geheimniss zeigst [With child, divine, if you are silent— But human, if you disclose the secret].
741 seem destined to have to suffer through” all possible moods, to be required to have experiences of all kinds. At every moment I lie out in the middle of the ocean like a child who is supposed to learn to swim. I scream (this I have learned from the Greeks, from whom one can learn the purely hu- man). Admittedly, I have a swimming belt around my waist, 32 Either/Or, I but I do not see the support that is supposed to hold me up. It is an appalling way to gain experience.
It is quite striking that the two most appalling contrasts pro- vide a conception of eternity. If I picture that unfortunate bookkeeper who went mad in his despair over having ruined a business firm by stating in the account book that seven and six are fourteen—if I picture him, indifferent to everything else, repeating to himself day in and day out, “Seven and six are fourteen,” I have a symbol of eternity. If I imagine a lush harem beauty, reclining on a couch in all her charm and un- concerned about anything in the world, then I have again a symbol for eternity.
7*>What philosophers say about actuality [Virkelighed] is often just as disappointing” as it is when one reads on a sign in a secondhand shop: Pressing Done Here. If a person were to bring his clothes to be pressed, he would be duped, for the sign is merely for sale.
For me nothing is more dangerous than to recollect [erin- dre].”” As soon as I have recollected a life relationship, that relationship has ceased to exist. It is said that absence makes the heart grow fonder. That is very true, but it becomes fonder in a purely poetic way. To live in recollection is the most per- fect life imaginable; recollection is more richly satisfying than all actuality, and it has a security that no actuality possesses. A recollected life relationship has already passed into eternity and has no temporal interest anymore.
S°If anyone should keep a diary, I am the one, in order to re- fresh my memory [Hukommelse]*! a bit. It frequently happens that with the passage of time I have completely forgotten the reasons that moved me to this or that, with regard not only to trivialities but also to the most crucial steps. If the reason oc- curs to me, it can sometimes be so strange that I cannot even believe that it was the reason. This doubt would be removed if I had something written to refer to. On the whole, a reason is a curious thing. If] regard it with all my passion, it develops Diapsalmata 33 Diapsalmata 33 into an enormous necessity that can set heaven and earth in motion; if] am devoid of passion, I look down on it derisively. —For some time now, I have been speculating about what really was the reason that moved me to resign as a school- teacher. When I think about it now, it seems to me that such an appointment was just the thing for me. Today it dawned on me that the reason was precisely this—that I had to consider myself completely qualified for this post. If I had continued in my job, I would have had everything to lose, nothing to gain. For that reason, I considered it proper to resign my post and seck employment with a traveling theater company, because | had no talent and consequently had everything to gain.
It takes a lot of naiveté to believe that it helps to shout and scream in the world, as if one’s fate would thereby be altered. Take what comes and avoid all complications. In my early years, when I went to a restaurant, I would say to the waiter: A good cut, a very good cut, from the loin, and not too fat. Perhaps the waiter would scarcely hear what I said. Perhaps it was even less likely that he would heed it, and still less that my voice would penetrate into the kitchen, influence the chef— and even if all this happened, there perhaps was not a good cut in the whole roast. Now I never shout anymore.
Social endeavors and the associated beautiful sympathy be- come more and more widespread. In Leipzig, a committee formed out of sympathy for the sad fate of old horses has de- cided to eat them.
82] have only one friend, and that is echo. Why is it my friend? Because I love my sorrow, and echo does not take it away from me. I have only one confidant, and that is the si- lence of night. Why is it my confidant? Because it remains si- lent.
83The same thing happened to me that, according to legend, happened to Parmeniscus, who in the Trophonean cave lost the ability to laugh but acquired it again on the island of Delos 34 Either/Or, I upon seeing a shapeless block that was said to be the image of the goddess Leto.** When I was very young, I forgot in the Trophonean cave how to laugh; when I became an adult, when I opened my eyes and saw actuality, then I started to laugh and have never stopped laughing since that time. I saw that the meaning of life was to make a living, its goal to be- come a councilor, that the rich delight of love was to acquire a well-to-do girl, that the blessedness of friendship was to help each other in financial difficulties, that wisdom was whatever the majority assumed it to be, that enthusiasm was to give a speech, that courage was to risk being fined ten dollars, that cordiality was to say “May it do you good””® after a meal, that piety was to go to communion once a year.*° This I saw, and I laughed.
87What is it that binds me? From what was the chain formed that bound the Fenris wolf2** It was made of the noise of cats’ paws walking on the ground, of the beards of women, of the roots of cliffs, of the grass of bears, of the breath of fish, and of the spittle of birds. I, too, am bound in the same way by a chain formed of gloomy fancies, of alarming dreams, of trou- bled thoughts, of fearful presentiments, of inexplicable anxie- ties. This chain is ‘“‘very flexible, soft as silk, yields to the most powerful strain, and cannot be torn apart.’
Strangely enough, it is always the same thing that preoccu- pies a person throughout all the ages of life, and one always goes just so far, or, rather, one goes backwards. In grammar school, when I was fifteen years old, I wrote very suavely on demonstrations for the existence of God and the immortality of the soul, on the concept of faith, and on the meaning of mir- acles. For my examen artium [student examination], I wrote a composition on the immortality of the soul, for which I was awarded pre ceteris [distinction or first honors];*! later I won the prize for a composition on this subject. Who would believe that in my twenty-fifth year, after such a solid and very prom- ising beginning, I would have come to the point of not being able to present a single demonstration for the immortality of Diapsalmata 35 Diapsalmata 35 the soul. From my school days, I especially recall that a com- position of mine on the immortality of the soul was extrava- gantly praised and read aloud by the teacher because of the ex- cellence of language as well as of content. Alas, alas, alas! I threw away this composition long ago. How unfortunate! My doubting soul perhaps would have been captivated by it, by the language as well as by the content. So this is my advice to parents, superiors, and teachers—that they urge the children in their charge to keep the Danish compositions written in the fifteenth year. To give this advice is the only thing I can do for the benefit of the human race.
To a knowledge of the truth, I perhaps have come; to sal- vation, surely not.?> What shall I do? Be active in the world, people say. Should I then communicate my sorrow to the world, make one more contribution to prove how pitiable and wretched everything is, perhaps discover a new, hitherto un- detected stain [Plet] in human life? I could then reap the rare reward of becoming famous, just like the man who discovered the spots [Pletter] on Jupiter. | still prefer to remain silent.
*>How much the same human nature is! With what innate genius a little child can often show us a vivid picture of the larger scale. I was really amused today by little Ludvig. He sat in his tiny chair and looked around with visible delight. Then the nursemaid, Maren, walked through the room. “Maren!” he shouted. ‘Yes, little Ludvig,” she answered with her cus- tomary friendliness and came over to him. He tilted his big head to one side a bit, fastened his enormous eyes on her with a certain roguishness and then said quite phlegmatically, “Not this Maren; it was another Maren.”’ What do we adults do? We shout to the whole world, and when it approaches us in a friendly manner we say, “It was not this Maren.”
My life is like an eternal night; when I die, I shall be able to say with Achilles: 36 Either/Or, I Dau bist vollbracht, Nachtwache meines Daseyns [You are fulfilled, nightwatch of my life].% My life is utterly meaningless. When I consider its various epochs, my life is like the word Schnur in the dictionary, which first of all means a string, and second a daughter-in-law. All that is lacking is that in the third place the word Schnur means a camel, in the fourth a whisk broom.
*7T am just like the Lineburger swine. My thinking is a pas- sion. I am expert at rooting up truffles for others; I find no pleasure in them myself. I take the problems on my nose, but Ican do no more with them than to throw them back over my head.