A CORR.ESPONDENCE BETWEEN
TWO
COR,NERS
course does not diminish our love for him, our tender pity for
him
and
his work as a tragic and living gravedigger. We shall believe in the life
of the spirit, in sainthood and initiations, in the invisible saints around
us, in the countless united throng of wrestling souls, and we shall cour–
ageously walk farther, without looking about us or glancing backward,
without measuring the way, without heeding to the voices of weariness
and inertia that mutter about "poison in the blood," about "exhaustion
in the bones."
One can be a gay wanderer on earth without leaving one's native
town, and b(jcome poor in spirit without wholly forgetting all learning.
We have long ago recognized that the understanding is a subordinate
tool and servant of the will, useful to life like any of the body's lower
organs; and the theories that saturate it, to use your words, can be
given away to others as we give away useless books. But in the name of
Goethe's "old truth" we shall deeply inhale the life-giving essence of these
theories, these religions, their spirit and logos, their initiatory energy–
and thus, carefree and curious, like strangers, we shall pass by the in–
numerable altars and idols of monumental culture, partly lying desolate,
and partly restored and redecorated, stopping at will and sacrificing at
the forgotten places wherever we discover unfading flowers invisible to
others, flowers that have sprung up from an ancient grave.
V.I.
VIII.
To V.
I.
Ivanov:
You are a siren, my friend- your letter of yesterday is charming.
It
gave me the feeling that culture herself, personified, was cunningly
tempting me with her riches and lovingly warning me against breaking
with her. Yes, I cannot resist her voice-am I not her son? Not a
prodigal son, as you think, but, what is even harder to endure, the son
of a prodigal mother. Your diagnosis, my dear doctor, is decidedly in–
correct; it is time that I should express myself more clearly. I do not
want at all to turn mankind back to the philosophy and existence of
the Fiji islanders, nor do I by any means want to unlearn writing and
to expel the Muses; I dream not of little flowers in a clear glade. It
seems to me that Rousseau too, who disturbed Europe with his dream,
did not dream of a
tabula rasa;
this would have been a stupid, empty
dream that could not have caught anyone's imagination.
This time you have formulated the basic issue of our dispute. Until
now you have thought that, bored by the external achievement of
culture, I was spitefully preparing to throw out the baby with the bath.
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