Human, All Too Human Volume Ii Part 24

A CRUEL FANCY OF LOVE.-Every great love involves the cruel thought of killing the object of love, so that it may be removed once for all from the mischievous play of change. For love is more afraid of change than of destruction.

281.

DOORS.-In everything that is learnt or experienced, the child, just like the man, sees doors; but for the former they are places to go _to_, for the latter to go _through_.

282.

SYMPATHETIC WOMEN.-The sympathy of women, which is talkative, takes the sick-bed to market.

283.

EARLY MERIT.-He who acquires merit early in life tends to forget all reverence for age and old people, and accordingly, greatly to his disadvantage, excludes himself from the society of the mature, those who confer maturity. Thus in spite of his early merit he remains green, importunate, and boyish longer than others.

284.

SOULS ALL OF A PIECE.-Women and artists think that where we do not contradict them we cannot. Reverence on ten counts and silent disapproval on ten others appears to them an impossible combination, because their souls are all of a piece.

285.

YOUNG TALENTS.-With respect to young talents we must strictly follow Goethe's maxim, that we should often avoid harming error in order to avoid harming truth. Their condition is like the diseases of pregnancy, and involves strange appet.i.tes. These appet.i.tes should be satisfied and humoured as far as possible, for the sake of the fruit they may be expected to produce. It is true that, as nurse of these remarkable invalids, one must learn the difficult art of voluntary self-abas.e.m.e.nt.

286.

DISGUST WITH TRUTH.-Women are so const.i.tuted that all truth (in relation to men, love, children, society, aim of life) disgusts them-and that they try to be revenged on every one who opens their eyes.

287.

THE SOURCE OF GREAT LOVE.-Whence arises the sudden pa.s.sion of a man for a woman, a pa.s.sion so deep, so vital? Least of all from sensuality only: but when a man finds weakness, need of help, and high spirits united in the same creature, he suffers a sort of overflowing of soul, and is touched and offended at the same moment. At this point arises the source of great love.

288.

CLEANLINESS.-In the child, the sense for cleanliness should be fanned into a pa.s.sion, and then later on he will raise himself, in ever new phases, to almost every virtue, and will finally appear, in compensation for all talent, as a shining cloud of purity, temperance, gentleness, and character, happy in himself and spreading happiness around.

289.

OF VAIN OLD MEN.-Profundity of thought belongs to youth, clarity of thought to old age. When, in spite of this, old men sometimes speak and write in the manner of the profound, they do so from vanity, imagining that they thereby a.s.sume the charm of juvenility, enthusiasm, growth, apprehensiveness, hopefulness.

290.

ENJOYMENT OF NOVELTY.-Men use a new lesson or experience later on as a ploughshare or perhaps also as a weapon, women at once make it into an ornament.

291.

HOW BOTH s.e.xES BEHAVE WHEN IN THE RIGHT.-If it is conceded to a woman that she is right, she cannot deny herself the triumph of setting her heel on the neck of the vanquished; she must taste her victory to the full. On the other hand, man towards man in such a case is ashamed of being right. But then man is accustomed to victory; with woman it is an exception.

292.

ABNEGATION IN THE WILL TO BEAUTY.-In order to become beautiful, a woman must not desire to be considered pretty. That is to say, in ninety-nine out of a hundred cases where she could please she must scorn and put aside all thoughts of pleasing. Only then can she ever reap the delight of him whose soul's portal is wide enough to admit the great.