Source of "two locked caskets"

A. The phrase appears three times in "A Consolatory Tale," Winter's Tales (1942).

"Life and Death are two locked caskets, each of which contains the key to the other" (p. 302).
"Man and woman are two locked caskets, of which each contains the key to the other (p. 308).
"The rich and the poor of this world are two locked caskets, of which each contains the key to the other" (p. 311).

Note: the quotation has no relationship to romance. The story was written by Isak Dinesen in Denmark during or just preceding the Second World War. The primary figure, Charles Despard, is an author who has had a successful book and doesn't know how to follow his success. The story is about creative artistry and the mask of the artist. Isak Dinesen emphasizes the necessity of opposites: "We are, the artist and the public, much against our own will, dependent upon one another for our very existence" (p. 289).

Thanks to this reference for pinpointing the quotation:

Burstein, Janet Handler, ‘‘Two Locked Caskets: Selfhood and ‘Otherness’ in the Work of Isak Dinesen,’’ in Texas Studies in Literature and Language, Vol. 20, 1978, pp. 615–632.

Copyright © 2007 by Linda Donelson. All rights reserved. During the past quarter century, Linda Donelson has been the only author writing about Karen Blixen for an international audience. Her biography, Out of Isak Dinesen (1998), was the Number One Best-Selling Scandinavian / or related title at Amazon.com for five years.

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