Re: [dippy] What is actually being done?

[Steve Baker]

poetry attributes to her; but note well: that which she did in a
positive fashion for him in no wise roused his ideality. In fact, her
significance in this regard becomes the more doubtful the longer she
lives, because she will at length really begin to wish to signify
something positive. However, the more positive the proof the less it
proves; for then Mr. Petersen's longing will be for some past common
experiences whose content was, to all intents and purposes, exhausted
when they were had. Most positive of all the proof becomes if the object
of his longing concerns their marital spooning - that time when they
visited the Deer Park together! In the same way one might suddenly feel
a longing for the old pair of slippers one used to be so comfortable in;
but that proof is not exactly a proof for the immortality of the soul.
On the other hand, the more negative the proof, the better it is; for
the negative is higher than the positive, inasmuch as it concerns our
immortality and is thus the only positive value.

Woman's main significance lies in her negative contribution, whereas her
positive contributions are as nothing in comparison but, on the
contrary, pernicious. It is this truth which life keeps from her,
consoling her with an illusion which surpasses all that might arise in
any man's brain, and with parental care ordering life in such fashion
that both language and everything else confirm her in her illusion. For
even if she be conceived as the very opposite of inspiring, and rather
as the wellspring of all corruption; whether now we imagine that with
her, sin came into the world, or that it is her infidelity which ruined
all - our conception of her is always gallant. That is, when hearing
such opinions one might readily assume that woman were really able to
become infinitely more culpable than man, which would, indeed, amount to
an immense