Page:Selections from the writings of Kierkegaard.djvu/89

Rh, 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 stepmotherly 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 stepmotherly 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 phantastic 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 Romantic dramas there occurs a person who, having once been king of Mesopotamia, now is a greengrocer 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 titulary 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