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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does the author urge the young man to do with his "droll fancies"?
(a) Rid himself of them.
(b) Pass them on to the object of his affection.
(c) Ignore them.
(d) Keep them.

2. If one can "lose the whole world" without damaging one's soul, the author of the letter asserts, then what must "one's soul" prove to be?
(a) One's soul must prove to be indifferent to all the finite things in one's immediacy.
(b) One's soul must be some supernatural forcefield.
(c) One's soul cannot possibly exist.
(d) One's soul must prove to far vaster and more powerful than every healthy marriage in Denmark.

3. What natural need does every human being have according to the author?
(a) The need to exonerate himself.
(b) The need to formulate a life view.
(c) The need to marry.
(d) The need to find God.

4. Why does the author say it seems superfluous to tell the young man what is aesthetic?
(a) Because the young man is not a real person.
(b) Because the young man is an aesthetic virtuoso.
(c) Because the young man has surely burned the letter already.
(d) Because the young man surely will not listen.

5. What does the author say the young man's attitude toward ethics is?
(a) The author says the young man finds ethics amusing.
(b) The author says the young man is not ordinarily disdainful of ethics.
(c) The author says the young man despises ethics.
(d) The author says the young man finds ethics fascinating.

6. What is the risk in despairing over something particular according to the author?
(a) That one's despair will not be authentic and deep.
(b) That one will forget one's obligation to one's wife.
(c) That one's despair will be totally overwhelming.
(d) That one will be distracted from the joy of sunsets.

7. What does the author say cannot survive in the young man's thought?
(a) Morals.
(b) Ethics.
(c) The infinite.
(d) The finite.

8. What does the author say are the spheres proper to thought?
(a) Logic.
(b) All of these.
(c) History.
(d) Nature.

9. What does the author say concerns the young man?
(a) His parents.
(b) Serious questions of philosophy.
(c) Nothing.
(d) Either/Or.

10. What kind of person does the author say the young man is like?
(a) A dying person.
(b) A deaf person.
(c) A flying person.
(d) A mute person.

11. What "humble view" does the author say he presents to the young man?
(a) What it is to choose and repent.
(b) What it is to study and perform.
(c) What it is to prepare and debate.
(d) What it is to hate and destroy.

12. What is the married man's most dangerous enemy according to the author?
(a) His wife's suitors.
(b) His wife.
(c) Time.
(d) His conscience.

13. What phrase does the young man fling about according to the author?
(a) "It takes one to know one."
(b) "It is not the given that is great, but the acquired."
(c) "Too many cooks spoil the broth."
(d) "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush."

14. How does the concept the author mentions act on him?
(a) It fills his soul with peace.
(b) It makes him quite angry.
(c) It makes him exceedingly earnest.
(d) It spurs his will to action.

15. What is everyone born with a penchant for according to the author?
(a) Singing songs.
(b) Climbing hills.
(c) Painting pictures.
(d) Descending hills.

Short Answer Questions

1. According to the author, reflection never reaches beyond what?

2. Why do the author's two Englishmen travel to Arabia?

3. What kind of woman does the author compare the young man to?

4. What does the author call a poet-existence?

5. What does the author claim the aesthetic is?

(see the answer keys)

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