A CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN TWO CORNERS
tiation of mankind into the higher mysteries revealed to it still another
divine and human face of the same aspiration for death in the name of
life: truth, love, beauty, strive to be eucharistic: "eat my flesh and
drink my blood; for my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink in–
deed." Not Bonaparte's mother before her son's throne, but Mary be–
fore the Cross is the symbol of the heart before the great truth of the
universal value. The value must be crucified, and put into the coffin,
and have a stone rolled over it, and be sealed· with seals: the heart
will see it resurrected on the third day.
But here unexpectedly your voice joins mine, and both of us, in
love and common hope, together prophesy not with my, but with your
words about this, that the longing of the heart and the will of the mind
will be fulfilled, "that the individual should once again become truly
individual and yet be experienced as universal, that man, like Mary,
should recognize in each of his manifestations both his child and God."
v.
I.
X.
To· v.
I.
Ivanov:
I find the spectacle amusing: you treat me as a doctor treats a
patient; my illness distresses you as a friend, scares you as a member of
society, and even irritates you. From the beginning your diagnosis has
been wrong, and you are surprised at the ineffectiveness of your rem–
edies. You try to conjure away my feeling by arguments based on history
and reason, and blame my stubbornness for your failure. It would be
just as effective for a father to warn his son that the girl he loves will
not bring him happiness; just as effective to assure a thirsty man that
he shpuld not drink water, that it would be better for him to suffer,
because his thirst is illusory and will soon pass. And I do not at all refuse
to discuss your numerous arguments, and oppose at least one argument
that methodologically encompasses them all. Heraclitus said: "It is dif–
ficult to fight against the heart; for each of its desires must be bought
at the price of a soul"; following his example I say: historical reason,
in its judgments about culture, is naturally disposed to glorify it.
If
you
think it necessary to analyze the nature of my thirst, I am no less en–
titled to define the cause of your satiety.
And now I come to your remarks on Nietzsche. Once again you
are mistaken, my good doctor. I read little of Nietzsche-he was not to
my taste; and now I realize that
my
"pathos," as you call it, is not
identical with but contrary to his pathos. He, being ill himself, found
it possible to formulate a prognosis of the illness of culture, and on
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