The Joyful Wisdom 14

The Joyful Wisdom 14

Women and their Effect in the Distance._—Have I still ears? Am I only

ear, and nothing else besides? Here I stand in the midst of the surging

of the breakers, whose white flames fork up to my feet;—from all sides

there is howling, threatening, crying, and screaming at me, while in the

lowest depths the old earth-shaker sings his aria, hollow like a roaring

bull; he beats such an earth-shaker's measure thereto, that even the

hearts of these weathered rock-monsters tremble at the sound. Then,

suddenly, as if born out of nothingness, there appears before the portal

of this hellish labyrinth, only a few fathoms distant,—a great

sailing-ship gliding silently along like a ghost. Oh, this ghostly

beauty! With what enchantment it seizes me! What? Has all the repose and

silence in the world embarked here? Does my happiness itself sit in this

quiet place, my happier ego, my second immortalised self? Still not

dead, yet also no longer living? As a ghost-like, calm, gazing, gliding,

sweeping, neutral being? Similar to the ship, which, with its white

sails, like an immense butterfly, passes over the dark sea! Yes! Passing

_over_ existence! That is it! That would be it!——It seems that the noise

here has made me a visionary? All great noise causes one to place

happiness in the calm and the distance. When a man is in the midst of

_his_ hubbub, in the midst of the breakers of his plots and plans, he

there sees perhaps calm, enchanting beings glide past him, for whose

happiness and retirement he longs—_they are women_. He almost thinks

that there with the women dwells his better self; that in these calm

places even the loudest breakers become still as death, and life itself

a dream of life. But still! But still! My noble enthusiast, there is

also in the most beautiful sailing-ship so much noise and bustling, and

alas, so much petty, pitiable bustling! The enchantment and the most

powerful effect of women is, to use the language of philosophers, an

effect at a distance, an _actio in distans_; there belongs thereto,

however, primarily and above all,—_distance_!

 

 

61.

 

_In Honour of Friendship._—That the sentiment of friendship was regarded

by antiquity as the highest sentiment, higher even than the most vaunted

pride of the self-sufficient and wise, yea as it were its sole and still

holier brotherhood, is very well expressed by the story of the

Macedonian king who made the present of a talent to a cynical Athenian

philosopher from whom he received it back again. "What?" said the king,

"has he then no friend?" He therewith meant to say, "I honour this pride

of the wise and independent man, but I should have honoured his humanity

still higher if the friend in him had gained the victory over his pride.

The philosopher has lowered himself in my estimation, for he showed that

he did not know one of the two highest sentiments—and in fact the higher

of them!"

 

 

62.

 

_Love._—Love pardons even the passion of the beloved.

 

 

63.

 

_Woman in Music._—How does it happen that warm and rainy winds bring the

musical mood and the inventive delight in melody with them? Are they not

the same winds that fill the churches and give women amorous thoughts?

 

 

64.

 

_Sceptics._—I fear women who have become old are more sceptical in the

secret recesses of their hearts than any of the men are; they believe in

the superficiality of existence as in its essence, and all virtue and

profundity is to them only the disguising of this "truth," the very

desirable disguising of a _pudendum_,—an affair, therefore, of decency

and of modesty, and nothing more!

 

 

65.

 

_Devotedness._—There are noble women with a certain poverty of spirit,

who, in order to _express_ their profoundest devotedness, have no other

alternative but to offer their virtue and modesty: it is the highest

thing they have. And this present is often accepted without putting the

recipient under such deep obligation as the giver supposed,—a very

melancholy story!

 

 

66.

 

_The Strength of the Weak._—Women are all skilful in exaggerating their

weaknesses, indeed they are inventive in weaknesses, so as to seem quite

fragile ornaments to which even a grain of dust does harm; their

existence is meant to bring home to man's mind his coarseness, and to

appeal to his conscience. They thus defend themselves against the strong

and all "rights of might."

 

 

67.

 

_Self-dissembling._—She loves him now and has since been looking forth

with as quiet confidence as a cow; but alas! It was precisely his

delight that she seemed so fitful and absolutely incomprehensible! He

had rather too much steady weather in himself already! Would she not do

well to feign her old character? to feign indifference? Does not—love

itself advise her _to do so_? _Vivat comœdia!_

 

 

68.

 

_Will and Willingness._—Some one brought a youth to a wise man and said,

"See, this is one who is being corrupted by women!" The wise man shook

his head and smiled. "It is men," he called out, "who corrupt women; and

everything that women lack should be atoned for and improved in men,—for

man creates for himself the ideal of woman, and woman moulds herself

according to this ideal."—"You are too tender-hearted towards women,"

said one of the bystanders, "you do not know them!" The wise man

answered: "Man's attribute is will, woman's attribute is

willingness,—such is the law of the sexes, verily! a hard law for woman!

All human beings are innocent of their existence, women, however, are

doubly innocent; who could have enough of salve and gentleness for

them!"—"What about salve! What about gentleness!" called out another

person in the crowd, "we must educate women better!"—"We must educate

men better," said the wise man, and made a sign to the youth to follow

him.—The youth, however, did not follow him.

 

 

69.

 

_Capacity for Revenge._—That a person cannot and consequently will not

defend himself, does not yet cast disgrace upon him in our eyes; but we

despise the person who has neither the ability nor the good-will for

revenge—whether it be a man or a woman. Would a woman be able to

captivate us (or, as people say, to "fetter" us) whom we did not credit

with knowing how to employ the dagger (any kind of dagger) skilfully

_against us_ under certain circumstances? Or against herself; which in a

certain case might be the severest revenge (the Chinese revenge).

 

 

70.

 

_The Mistresses of the Masters._—A powerful contralto voice, as we

occasionally hear it in the theatre, raises suddenly for us the curtain

on possibilities in which we usually do not believe; all at once we are

convinced that somewhere in the world there may be women with high,

heroic, royal souls, capable and prepared for magnificent remonstrances,

resolutions, and self-sacrifices, capable and prepared for domination

over men, because in them the best in man, superior to sex, has become a

corporeal ideal. To be sure, it is not the intention of the theatre that

such voices should give such a conception of women; they are usually

intended to represent the ideal male lover, for example, a Romeo; but,

to judge by my experience, the theatre regularly miscalculates here, and

the musician also, who expects such effects from such a voice. People do

not believe in _these_ lovers; these voices still contain a tinge of the

motherly and housewifely character, and most of all when love is in

their tone.

 

 

71.

 

_On Female Chastity._—There is something quite astonishing and

extraordinary in the education of women of the higher class; indeed,

there is perhaps nothing more paradoxical. All the world is agreed to

educate them with as much ignorance as possible _in eroticis_, and to

inspire their soul with a profound shame of such things, and the

extremest impatience and horror at the suggestion of them. It is really

here only that all the "honour" of woman is at stake; what would one not

forgive them in other respects! But here they are intended to remain

ignorant to the very backbone:—they are intended to have neither eyes,

ears, words, nor thoughts for this, their "wickedness"; indeed knowledge

here is already evil. And then! To be hurled as with an awful

thunderbolt into reality and knowledge with marriage—and indeed by him

whom they most love and esteem: to have to encounter love and shame in

contradiction, yea, to have to feel rapture, abandonment, duty,