"... I have a secret to confide to you, my confidante.
Who should I confide it to? To Echo? She would betray it. To the stars?
They are cold. People? They do not understand. Only to you can I confide
it, for you know how to safeguard it.
There is a girl, more beautiful
than my soul’s dream, purer than the light of the sun, deeper than the
source of the ocean, more proud than the flight of the eagle - there is a
girl - oh! bend your head to my ear and my words, that my secret may
steal into it - this girl I love more dearly than my life, for she is my
life; more dearly than all my desires, for she is the only one; more
dearly than all my thoughts, for she is the only one; more warmly than
the sun loves the flower, more intensely than sorrow the privacy of a
troubled mind; more longingly than the desert’s sand loves the rain - I
cling to her more tenderly than the mother’s eye to the child, more
confidingly than the pleading soul to God, more inseparably than the
plant to its root.
Your head grows heavy and thoughtful, it sinks down
on your breast, your bosom rises to its aid ... You have
understood me, you have understood me exactly, to the letter, not one
jot have you ignored! Shall I stretch the membrane of my ear and let
your voice assure me of this? Should I doubt? Will you safeguard this
secret? Can I depend on you? One hears of people who, in terrible
crimes, dedicate themselves to mutual silence.
I have confided to you a
secret which is my life and my life’s content. Have you nothing to
confide to me, nothing so beautiful, so significant, so chaste, that
supernatural forces would be set in motion if it were betrayed?"
- Søren Kierkegaard - The Seducer's Diary
