I found this some years ago. Each year in June I answer the same questions and compare them to previous years' answers. They don't change much, but they do change and I bet the longer the gaps in years, the more changes to the answers there will be. Then I think about why there are different answers, what changed in my life, and so on.
Strindberg asked himself:
1. What is the main trait in your character?
This strange blending of the deepest melancholy and the most astonishing light heartedness.
2 Which characteristic do you prize most highly in a man?
Absence of narrow mindedness.
3. Which characteristic do you prize most highly in a woman?
Motherliness.
4. Which talent would you most like to possess?
To find the key to the world's mystery and the meaning of life.
5. Which fault would you least like to possess?
Narrow mindedness.
6. What is your favourite occupation?
To write dramas.
7. What would be the greatest happiness you could imagine?
To be nobody's enemy and to have no enemies.
8. What position would you most have liked to have?
To be a dramatist whose dramas were always being played.
9. What would you regard as the greatest misfortune?
To be without peace of mind and conscience.
10. Where would you most like to live?
In the
11.Your favourite colour?
Zinc yellow and amethyst violet.
12.Your favourite flower?
Cyclamen.
13.Your favourite creature?
The butterfly.
14.Which books do you like most?
The Bible; Chateaubriand's Genie du Christianisme; Swedenborg's Arcana Coelestia; Victor Hugo's Les Miserables; Dickens's Little Dorrit; Andersen's Fairy Tales; Bernardin de SaintPierre's Harmoni de la Nature. Kipling: various.
15.Which paintings do you like most?
Theodore Rousseau's "Paysages Intimes." Böcklin: various.
16.Which musical compositions do you like most?
Beethoven's Sonatas.
17. Which English writer do you admire most?
Charles Dickens.
18. Which English painter do you admire most?
Turner.
19. Which male historical personages do you admire most?
Henri IV of France and Bernard of Clairvaux.
20. Which female historical personages do you admire most?
P;Elizabeth of I hŸringen and Marguerite de Provence (consort of Louis i.e. Holy).
21. Which historical personage do you most despise?
One has no right to despise anybody.
22. Which fictitious male characters most attract you?
Balzacs Louis Lambert: and the Bishop in Les Miserables by Victor Hugo.
23. Which fictitious female characters most attract you?
Margaretha in Faust and
24. Which name do you like best?
Margaretha.
25. Which fault in others do you find it easiest to forgive?
Extravagance.
26. Which social reform would you most like to see accomplished?
Disarmament.
27. Your favourite drink and your favourite food?
Beer and fish dishes.
28. Which season and which weather do you like best?
The height of summer after warm rain.
29. Your motto?
Speravit infestis. (He was hopeful in adversity)
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