The woman of the future exists already in man's dreams of women, and woman fashions herself according to the dreams of man. The modern man's ideal of woman is not the masculine woman, but the revelation of the "eternal feminine" developed in all directions. This new type of woman has already gleamed forth here and there, not only in our time but in centuries passed. In the Middle Ages she wrote the letters of Heloise; in the Renaissance, Leonardo painted her as Mona Lisa; and in the eighteenth century she held the salon of Mlle. Lespinasse. In our century she wrote the love sonnets of Elizabeth Barrett Browning; she appeared upon the stage as Eleonora Duse—and as in a precious stone her being is crystallized by the poet's words with which Rahel's personality was epitomized: "calm yet emotionally vivid."[B]
[B] Footnote from French translation:—The reference here is to Rahel de Varnhagen. The citation is taken from the "Hyperion" of Holderlin, a German poet of whom mention is made apropos of Nietzsche, upon whom he had great influence.
THE CONVENTIONAL WOMAN
THE CONVENTIONAL WOMAN
Conventionality is the tacit agreement to set appearance before reality, form before content, subordination before principal. Its field in certain measure is "vogue" changing according to the idea of beauty of each new season. In deeper sense, however, a part of the sphere of conventionality coincides always with that of law and custom, and with the conception of the amount of self-control and self-sacrifice which every individual must impose upon himself for the common life with others. The further the evolution of humanity advances, the fewer are the fields to which the power of society over the thought, belief, mode of life and manner of work of the individual is restricted. More and more prevalent becomes the conviction that all those forms of expression of the individual which do not interfere with the rights of others must be free. A great part of the work of culture of each new generation has consisted and still consists in clearing away great masses of conceptions of right dried up into conventionalism, dead rubbish which prevents the new germs from sprouting. In every period strong voices are heard which desire freedom from the prevailing customs, and right of choice for the individual conscience and temperament. In this ever-continuous struggle it is important to distinguish what are really still living conceptions of right from factitious conceptions, which form only a conventional obstacle to a more beautiful freedom, a deeper truth, a greater originality, a richer life content.
Yet it is not only old conventionalism which needs to be rooted out. In every faction, in every social circle are soon formed lifeless collections of prejudices, paltry motives, dependent customs. It is always the women among whom conventionalism reaches its acme. For conservatism, that deep significant instinct of woman, becomes also often a prop of conventionality. Women are as yet seldom sufficiently developed personally to distinguish, in that which they wish to cherish, the appearance from the reality, the form from the content; or if they do distinguish, they have as yet rarely the courage to choose the content and reality if the majority have declared for form and appearance!
In the literature of the last ten years and in part also among women there prevails, however, a strong opposition to conventionality. This opposition has been directed especially against the archaic ideal of woman, according to which renunciation is still considered the highest attribute of woman; and against the antiquated conception of morality which regarded love without marriage as immoral, but any marriage, even without love, as moral.