Part 18

NOBLENESS AND GRATITUDE.--A noble soul will be pleased to owe gratitude, and will not anxiously avoid opportunities of coming under obligation; it will also be moderate afterwards in the expression of its gratitude: baser souls, on the other hand, are unwilling to be under any obligation, or are afterwards immoderate in their expressions of thanks and altogether too devoted. The latter is, moreover, also the case with persons of mean origin or depressed circumstances; to show _them_ a favour seems to them a miracle of grace.

367.

OCCASIONS OF ELOQUENCE.--In order to talk well one man needs a person who is decidedly and avowedly his superior to talk to, while another can only find absolute freedom of speech and happy turns of eloquence before one who is his inferior. In both cases the cause is the same; each of them talks well only when he talks _sans gêne_--the one because in the presence of something higher he does not feel the impulse of rivalry and competition, the other because he also lacks the same impulse in the presence of something lower. Now there is quite another type of men, who talk well only when debating, with the intention of conquering. Which of the two types is the more aspiring: the one that talks well from excited ambition, or the one that talks badly or not at all from precisely the same motive?

368.

THE TALENT FOR FRIENDSHIP.--Two types are distinguished amongst people who have a special faculty for friendship. The one is ever on the ascent, and for every phase of his development he finds a friend exactly suited to him. The series of friends which he thus acquires is seldom a consistent one, and is sometimes at variance and in contradiction, entirely in accordance with the fact that the later phases of his development neutralise or prejudice the earlier phases. Such a man may jestingly be called a _ladder._ The other type is represented by him who exercises an attractive influence on very different characters and endowments, so that he wins a whole circle of friends; these, however, are thereby brought voluntarily into friendly relations with one another in spite of all differences. Such a man may be called a _circle,_ for this homogeneousness of such different temperaments and natures must somehow be typified in him. Furthermore, the faculty for having good friends is greater in many people than the faculty for being a good friend.

369.

TACTICS IN CONVERSATION.--After a conversation with a person one is best pleased with him I when one has had an opportunity of exhibiting one's intelligence and amiability in all its glory. Shrewd people who wish to impress a person favourably make use of this circumstance, they provide him with the best opportunities for making a good I joke, and so on in conversation. An amusing conversation might be imagined between two very shrewd persons, each wishing to impress the other favourably, and therefore each throwing to the other the finest chances in conversation, which neither of them accepted, so that the conversation on the whole might turn out spiritless and unattractive because each assigned to the other the opportunity of being witty and charming.

370.

DISCHARGE OF INDIGNATION.--The man who meets with a failure attributes this failure rather to the ill-will of another than to fate. His irritated feelings are alleviated by thinking that a person and not a thing is the cause of his failure; for he can revenge himself on persons, but is obliged to swallow down the injuries of fate. Therefore when anything has miscarried with a prince, those about him are accustomed to point out some individual as the ostensible cause, who is sacrificed in the interests of all the courtiers; for otherwise the prince's indignation would vent itself on them all, as he can take no revenge on the Goddess of Destiny herself.

371.

ASSUMING THE COLOURS OF THE ENVIRONMENT.--Why are likes and dislikes so contagious that we can hardly live near a very sensitive person without being filled, like a hogshead, with his _fors_ and _againsts_? In the first place, complete forbearance of judgment is very difficult, and sometimes absolutely intolerable to our vanity; it has the same appearance as poverty of thought and sentiment, or as timidity and unmanliness; and so we are, at least, driven on to take a side, perhaps contrary to our environment, if this attitude gives greater pleasure to our pride. As a rule, however,--and this is the second point,--we are not conscious of the transition from indifference to liking or disliking, but we gradually accustom ourselves to the sentiments of our environment, and because sympathetic agreement and acquiescence are so agreeable, we soon wear all the signs and party-colours of our surroundings.

372.

IRONY.--Irony is only permissible as a pedagogic expedient, on the part of a teacher when dealing with his pupils; its purpose is to humble and to shame, but in the wholesome way that causes good resolutions to spring up and teaches people to show honour and gratitude, as they would to a doctor, to him who has so treated them. The ironical man pretends to be ignorant, and does it so well that the pupils conversing with him are deceived, and in their firm belief in their own superior knowledge they grow bold and expose all their weak points; they lose their cautiousness and reveal themselves as they are,--until all of a sudden the light which they have held up to the teacher's face casts its rays back very humiliatingly upon themselves. Where such a relation, as that between teacher and pupil, does not exist, irony is a rudeness and a vulgar conceit. All ironical writers count on the silly species of human beings, who like to feel Ithemselves superior to all others in common with the author himself, whom they look upon as the ?mouthpiece of their arrogance. Moreover, the habit of irony, like that of sarcasm, spoils the character; lit gradually fosters the quality of a malicious superiority; one finally grows like a snappy dog, that has learnt to laugh as well as to bite.

373.

ARROGANCE.--There is nothing one should so guard against as the growth of the weed called arrogance, which spoils all one's good harvest; for there is arrogance in cordiality, in showing honour, in kindly familiarity, in caressing, in friendly counsel, in acknowledgment of faults, in sympathy for others,--and all these fine things arouse aversion when the weed in question grows up among them. The arrogant man--that is to say, he who desires to appear more than he is _or passes for_--always miscalculates. It is true that he obtains a momentary success, inasmuch as those with whom he is' arrogant generally give him the amount of honour that he demands, owing to fear or for the sake of convenience; but they take a bad revenge for it, inasmuch as they subtract from the value which they hitherto attached to him just as much as he demands above that amount. There is nothing for which men ask to be paid dearer than for humiliation. The arrogant man can make his really great merit so suspicious and small in the eyes of others that they tread on it with dusty feet. If at all, we should only allow ourselves a _proud_ manner where we are quite sure of not being misunderstood and considered as arrogant; as, for instance, with friends and wives. For in social intercourse there is no greater folly than to acquire a reputation for arrogance; it is still worse than not having learnt to deceive politely.

374.

_TÊTE-À-TÊTE_--Private conversation is the perfect conversation, because everything the one' person says receives its particular colouring, its tone, and its accompanying gestures _out of strict consideration for the other person_ engaged in the conversation, it therefore corresponds to what takes place in intercourse by letter, viz., that one and the same person exhibits ten kinds of psychical expression, according as he writes now to this individual and now to that one. In duologue there is only a single refraction of thought; the person conversed with produces it, as the mirror in whom we want to behold our thoughts anew in their finest form. But how is it when there are two or three, or even more persons conversing with one? Conversation then necessarily loses something of its individualising subtlety, different considerations thwart and neutralise each other; the style which pleases one does not suit the taste of another. In intercourse with several individuals a person is therefore to withdraw within himself and represent facts as they are; but he has also to remove from the subjects the pulsating ether of humanity which makes conversation one of the pleasantest things in the world. Listen only to the tone in which those who mingle with whole groups of men are in the habit of speaking; it is as if the fundamental base of all speech were, "It is _myself_; I say this, so make what you will of it!" That is the reason why clever ladies usually leave a singular, painful, and forbidding impression on those who have met them in society; it is the talking to many people, before many people, that robs them of all intellectual amiability and shows only their conscious dependence on themselves, their tactics, and their intention of gaining a public victory in full light; whilst in a private conversation the same ladies become womanly again, and recover their intellectual grace and charm.

375.

POSTHUMOUS FAME.--There is sense in hoping for recognition in a distant future only when we take it for granted that mankind will remain essentially unchanged, and that whatever is great is not for one age only but will be looked upon as great for all time. But this is an error. In all their sentiments and judgments concerning what is good and beautiful mankind have greatly changed; it is mere fantasy to imagine one's self to be a mile ahead, and that the whole of mankind is coming _our_ way. Besides, a scholar who is misjudged may at present reckon with certainty that his discovery will be made by others, and that, at best, it will be allowed to him later on by some historian that he also already knew this or that but was not in a position to secure the recognition of his knowledge. Not to be recognised, is always interpreted by posterity as lack of power. In short, one should not so readily speak in favour of haughty solitude. There are, however, exceptional cases; but it is chiefly our faults, weakness, and follies that hinder the recognition of our great qualities.

376.

OF FRIENDS.--Just consider with thyself how different are the feelings, how divided are the opinions of even the nearest acquaintances; how even the same opinions in thy friend's mind have quite a different aspect and strength from what they have in thine own; and how manifold are the occasions which arise for misunderstanding and hostile severance. After all this thou wilt say to thyself, "How insecure is the ground upon which all our alliances and friendships rest, how liable to cold downpours and bad weather, how lonely is every creature!" When a person recognises this fact, and, in addition, that all opinions and the nature and strength of them in his fellow-men are just as necessary and irresponsible as their actions; when his eye learns to see this internal necessity of opinions, owing to the indissoluble interweaving of character, occupation, talent, and environment,--he will perhaps get rid of the bitterness and sharpness of the feeling with which the sage exclaimed, "Friends, there are no friends!" Much rather will he make the confession to himself:--Yes, there are friends, but they were drawn towards thee by error and deception concerning thy character; and they must have learnt to be silent in order to remain thy friends; for such human relationships almost always rest on the fact that some few things are never said, are never, indeed, alluded to; but if these pebbles are set rolling friendship follows afterwards and is broken. Are there any who would not be mortally injured if they were to learn what their most intimate friends really knew about them? By getting a knowledge of ourselves, and by looking upon our nature as a changing sphere of opinions and moods, and thereby learning to despise ourselves a little, we recover once more our equilibrium with the rest of mankind. It is true that we have good reason to despise each of our acquaintances, even the greatest of them; but just as good reason to turn this feeling against ourselves. And so we will bear with each other, since we bear with ourselves; and perhaps there will come to each a happier hour, when he will exclaim:

"Friends, there are really no friends!" thus cried th' expiring old sophist; "Foes, there is really no foe!"--thus shout I, the incarnate fool.

SEVENTH DIVISION.

WIFE AND CHILD.

377.

THE PERFECT WOMAN.--The perfect woman is a higher type of humanity than the perfect man, and also something much rarer. The natural history of animals furnishes grounds in support of this theory.

378.

FRIENDSHIP AND MARRIAGE.--The best friend will probably get the best wife, because a good marriage is based on talent for friendship.

379.

THE SURVIVAL OF THE PARENTS.--The undissolved dissonances in the relation of the character and sentiments of the parents survive in the nature of the child and make up the history of its inner sufferings.

380.

INHERITED FROM THE MOTHER.--Every one bears within him an image of woman, inherited from his mother: it determines his attitude towards women as a whole, whether to honour, despise, or remain generally indifferent to them.

381.

CORRECTING NATURE.--Whoever has not got a good father should procure one.

382.

FATHERS AND SONS.--Fathers have much to do to make amends for having sons.

383.

THE ERROR OF GENTLEWOMEN.--Gentle-women think that a thing does not really exist when it is not possible to talk of it in society.

384.

A MALE DISEASE.--The surest remedy for the male disease of self-contempt is to be loved by a sensible woman.

385.

A SPECIES OF JEALOUSY.--Mothers are readily jealous of the friends of sons who are particularly successful. As a rule a mother loves _herself_ in her son more than the son.

386.

RATIONAL IRRATIONALITY.--In the maturity of life and intelligence the feeling comes over a man that his father did wrong in begetting him.

387.

MATERNAL EXCELLENCE.--Some mothers need happy and honoured children, some need unhappy ones,--otherwise they cannot exhibit their maternal excellence.

388.

DIFFERENT SIGHS.--Some husbands have sighed over the elopement of their wives, the greater number, however, have sighed because nobody would elope with theirs.

389.

LOVE MATCHES.--Marriages which are contracted for love (so-called love-matches) have error for their father and need (necessity) for their mother.

390.

WOMEN'S FRIENDSHIPS.--Women can enter into friendship with a man perfectly well; but in order to maintain it the aid of a little physical antipathy is perhaps required.

391.

ENNUI.--Many people, especially women, never feel ennui because they have never learnt to work properly.

392.

AN ELEMENT OF LOVE.--In all feminine love something of maternal love also comes to light.

393.

UNITY OF PLACE AND DRAMA.--If married couples did not live together, happy marriages would be more frequent.

394.

THE USUAL CONSEQUENCES OF MARRIAGE.--All intercourse which does not elevate a person, debases him, and _vice versa;_ hence men usually sink a little when they marry, while women are somewhat elevated. Over-intellectual men require marriage in proportion as they are opposed to it as to a repugnant medicine.

395.

LEARNING TO COMMAND.--Children of unpretentious families must be taught to command, just as much as other children must be taught to obey.

396.

WANTING TO BE IN LOVE.--Betrothed couples who have been matched by convenience often exert themselves _to fall in love,_ to avoid the reproach of cold, calculating expediency. In the same manner those who become converts to Christianity for their advantage exert themselves to become genuinely pious; because the religious cast of countenance then becomes easier to them.

397.

No STANDING STILL IN LOVE.--A musician who _loves_ the slow _tempo_ will play the same pieces ever more slowly. There is thus no standing still in any love.

398.

MODESTY.--Women's modesty usually increases with their beauty.[1]

399.

MARRIAGE ON A GOOD BASIS.--A marriage in which each wishes to realise an individual aim by means of the other will stand well; for instance, when the woman wishes to become famous through the man and the man beloved through the woman.

400.

PROTEUS-NATURE.--Through love women actually become what they appear to be in the imagination of their lovers.

401.

To LOVE AND TO POSSESS.--As a rule women love a distinguished man to the extent that they wish to possess him exclusively. They would gladly keep him under lock and key, if their vanity did not forbid, but vanity demands that he should also appear distinguished before others.

402.

THE TEST OF A GOOD MARRIAGE.--The goodness of a marriage is proved by the fact that it can stand an "exception."

403.

BRINGING ANYONE ROUND TO ANYTHING.--One may make any person so weak and weary by disquietude, anxiety, and excess of work or thought that he no longer resists anything that appears complicated, but gives way to it,--diplomatists and women know this.

404.

PROPRIETY AND HONESTY.--Those girls who mean to trust exclusively to their youthful charms for their provision in life, and whose cunning is further prompted by worldly mothers, have just the same aims as courtesans, only they are wiser and less honest.

405.

MASKS.--There are women who, wherever one examines them, have no inside, but are mere masks. A man is to be pitied who has connection with such almost spectre-like and necessarily unsatisfactory creatures, but it is precisely such women who know how to excite a man's desire most strongly; he seeks for their soul, and seeks evermore.

406.

MARRIAGE AS A LONG TALK.--In entering on a marriage one should ask one's self the question, "Do you think you will pass your time well with this woman till your old age?" All else in marriage is transitory; talk, however, occupies most of the time of the association.

407.

GIRLISH DREAMS.--Inexperienced girls flatter themselves with the notion that it is in their power to make a man happy; later on they learn that it is equivalent to underrating a man to suppose that he needs only a girl to make him happy. Women's vanity requires a man to be something more than merely a happy husband.

408.

THE DYING-OUT OF FAUST AND MARGUERITE.--According to the very intelligent remark of a scholar, the educated men of modern Germany resemble somewhat a mixture of Mephistopheles and Wagner, but are not at all like Faust, whom our grandfathers (in their youth at least) felt agitating within them. To them, therefore,--to continue the remark,--Marguerites are not suited, for two reasons. And because the latter are no longer desired they seem to be dying out.

409.

CLASSICAL EDUCATION FOR GIRLS.--For goodness' sake let us not give our classical education to girls! An education which, out of ingenious, inquisitive, ardent youths, so frequently makes--copies of their teacher!

410.

WITHOUT RIVALS.--Women readily perceive in a man whether his soul has already been taken possession of; they wish to be loved without rivals, and find fault with the objects of his ambition, his political tasks, his sciences and arts, if he have a passion for such things. Unless he be distinguished thereby,--then, in the case of a love-relationship between them, women look at the same time for an increase of _their own_ distinction; under such circumstances, they favour the lover.

411.

THE FEMININE INTELLECT.--The intellect of women manifests itself as perfect mastery, presence of mind, and utilisation of all advantages. They transmit it as a fundamental quality to their children, and the father adds thereto the darker background of the will. His influence determines as it were the rhythm and harmony with which the new life is to be performed; but its melody is derived from the mother. For those who know how to put a thing properly: women have intelligence, men have character and passion. This does not contradict the fact that men actually achieve so much more with their intelligence: they have deeper and more powerful impulses; and it is these which carry their understanding (in itself something passive) to such an extent. Women are often silently surprised at the great respect men pay to their character. When, therefore, in the choice of a partner men seek specially for a being of deep and strong character, and women for a being of intelligence, brilliancy, and presence of mind, it is plain that at bottom men seek for the ideal man, and women for the ideal woman,--consequently not for the complement but for the completion of their own excellence.

412.

HESIOD'S OPINION CONFIRMED.--It is a sign of women's wisdom that they have almost always known how to get themselves supported, like drones in a bee-hive. Let us just consider what this meant originally, and why men do not depend upon women for their support. Of a truth it is because masculine vanity and reverence are greater than feminine wisdom; for women have known how to secure for themselves by their subordination the greatest advantage, in fact, the upper hand. Even the care of children may originally have been used by the wisdom of women as an excuse for withdrawing themselves as much as possible from work. And at present they still understand when they are really active (as house-keepers, for instance) how to make a bewildering fuss about it, so that the merit of their activity is usually ten times over-estimated by men.

413.

LOVERS AS SHORT-SIGHTED PEOPLE.--A pair of powerful spectacles has sometimes sufficed to cure a person in love; and whoever has had sufficient imagination to represent a face or form twenty years older, has probably gone through life not much disturbed.

414.

WOMEN IN HATRED.--In a state of hatred women are more dangerous than men; for one thing, because they are hampered by no regard for fairness when their hostile feelings have been aroused; but let their hatred develop unchecked to its utmost consequences; then also, because they are expert in finding sore spots (which every man and every party possess), and pouncing upon them: for which purpose their dagger-pointed intelligence is of good service (whilst men, hesitating at the sight of wounds, are often generously and conciliatorily inclined).

415.

LOVE.--The love idolatry which women practise is fundamentally and originally an intelligent device, inasmuch as they increase their power by all the idealisings of love and exhibit themselves as so much the more desirable in the eyes of men. But by being accustomed for centuries to this exaggerated appreciation of love, it has come to pass that they have been caught in their own net and have forgotten the origin of the device. They themselves are now still more deceived than the men, and on that account also suffer more from the disillusionment which, almost necessarily, enters into the life of every woman--so far, at any rate, as she has sufficient imagination and intelligence to be able to be deceived and undeceived.

416.