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| A kiss is a symbolic action which is unimportant when the feeling it should indicate is not present, and this feeling can only be present under certain conditions. A man who talks like a book is exceedingly tiresome to listen to; sometimes, however, it is quite appropriate to speak in that way. For a book has the remarkable quality that you may interpret it as you wish. A mirror hangs on the opposite wall; she does not reflect on it, but the mirror reflects her. How faithfully it has caught her picture, like a humble slave who shows his devotion by his faithfulness, a slave for whom she indeed has significance, but who means nothing to her--who indeed dares to catch her, but not to embrace her. Unhappy mirror, that can indeed seize her image but not herself! Unhappy mirror, which cannot hide her image in its secret depths, hide it from the whole world, but on the contrary must betray it to others, as now to me. A kiss is a symbolic action which is unimportant when the feeling it should indicate is not present, and this feeling can only be present under certain conditions. A man who talks like a book is exceedingly tiresome to listen to; sometimes, however, it is quite appropriate to speak in that way. For a book has the remarkable quality that you may interpret it as you wish. Alas, there are many who are not engaged and yet have a lover; many who are engaged, and who still do not have one.... Could this lack in literature be due to the fact that philosophers do not consider such matters, or that they do not understand them? I do not see that which has been, but that which will be, in the bosom of the sea, in the kiss of the dew, in the mist that spreads over the earth and hides its fertile embrace... Everything finite and temporal is forgotten, only the eternal remains, the power of love, its longing, its happiness. I know too that the highest conceivable enjoyment lies in being loved; to be loved is higher than anything else in the world. She was preoccupied not with herself, but in herself, and this preoccupation afforded infinite rest and peace to her soul. |
| SOREN KIERKEGAARD |
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| Either/Or Vol. I: DIARY OF THE SEDUCER |