A CORRESPONDENCE
BETWEEN TWO CORNERS
(continued from
p.
965)
away. In this sense, culture is not only monumental, but also initiatory
in spirit. For memory, its supreme ruler, makes its true servants partake
in the "initiations" of the forefathers, and renewing these in them, com–
municates to them the energy of new beginnings, new exploits. Memory
is dynamic beginning; oblivion is weariness and cessation of motion,
decline and return to a condition of relative inertia. Like Nietzsche, let
us alertly observe ourselves to discover whether the poisons of decline,
the infection of "decadence," are not in us too.
What is decadence? The feeling of subtlest organic union with the
monumental tradition of a high culture accompanied with the arrogant
and burdensome awareness that we are the last of the line. In other
words, it is a benumbed memory, which has lost its power of initiative,
no longer enabling us to partake in the initiations of the forefathers
and no longer releasing impulses of essential initiative-it is the know–
ledge that prophecies are no more, as is indicated in the title that the
decadent Plutarch gave to one of his works, namely, "On the Decline
of Oracles." All that our poor friend Lev Shestov is doing is to write
a long and complex treatise on the same subject. The spirit no longer
speaks to decadent men with its former voice, only the soul of bygone
epochs speaks to him; in his spiritual impoverishment he turns ex–
clusively to the psyche, he becomes wholly a psychologist and sees
everything in psychological terms. Will he understand Goethe's creed that
"Truth has been acquired long ago and has united the high com–
munity of spiritual minds. Endeavor to learn it, this old truth"?
For the psychologist, it is only more psychology. At least he suspects
everything spiritual and objective of being psychological and subjective.
And I recall another saying of Goethe's -Faust's words about Wagner:
"He digs in the earth seeking the golden fruit, and rejoices when he finds
a dew worm." Is not this like our friend who longs for the water of life,
and who carries out his psychological searches and discovers the futility
of theories? He should be left to his demon: let the dead bury the dead.
To believe him means to allow dry rot to enter into one's spirit. This of
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