I would add (for it is their punishment) that they are victims of the contagion for a longer period: for whilst simple folk constantly submit to the test of every-day action and of experience, and modify their ideas without conscious regret, the intellectual finds himself bound in the net of his own creation and every word that he writes draws the bonds tighter. Hence while we see that in the soldiers of all armies the fire of hate is rapidly dying down and that they already fraternize from trench to trench, the writers redouble their furious arguments. We can easily prophesy that when the remembrance of this senseless war has passed away among the people its bitterness will still be smouldering in the hearts of the intellectuals.... Who shall break the idols? Who shall open the eyes of their fanatical followers? Who shall make them understand that no god of their minds, religious or secular, has the right to force himself on other human beings--even he who seems the most worthy--or to despise them? Admitting that your _Kultur_ on German soil produces the sturdiest and most abundant human crop, who has entrusted to you the mission of cultivating other lands? Cultivate your own garden. We will cultivate ours. There is a sacred flower for which I would give all the products of your artificial culture. It is the wild violet of Liberty. You do not care about it. You tread it under foot. But it will not die. It will live longer than your masterpieces of barrack and hot-house. It is not afraid of the wind. It has braved other tempests than that of today. It grows under brambles and under dead leaves. Intellectuals of Germany, intellectuals of France, labor and sow on the fields of your own minds: respect those of others. Before _organizing_ the world you have enough to do to _organize_ your own private world. Try for a moment to forget your ideas and behold yourselves. And above all, look at us. Champions of _Kultur_ and of Civilization, of the Germanic races and of Latinity, enemies, friends, let us look one another in the eyes. My brother, do you not see there a heart similar to your own, with the same hopes, the same egoism, and the same heroism and power of dream which forever refashions its gossamer web? _Vois-tu pas que tu es moi_? said the old Hugo to one of his enemies....