Note 4 — Chapter I · INTRODUCTION

Strictly speaking, in the technical sense of that much-abused word, this is “decadence.” (I refer to the sense in which I defined “decadence” many years ago in Affirmations, pp. 175-87.) So that while the minor arts have sometimes been classic and sometimes decadent, the major art of living during the last two thousand years, although one can think of great men who have maintained the larger classic ideal, has mainly been decadent.