I speak only to solace my conscience. And I know that at the same time I shall solace the hearts of thousands of others who, in all lands, cannot and dare not speak for themselves." As ever, he is on the side of the weak, on the side of the minority. His voice grows stronger, for he knows that he is speaking for the silent multitude. [Illustration: Romain Rolland at the time of writing _Above the Battle_] CHAPTER XI THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST HATRED The essay _Au-dessus de la mêlée_ was the first stroke of the woodman's axe in the overgrown forest of hatred; thereupon, a roaring echo thundered from all sides, reverberating reluctantly in the newspapers. Undismayed, Rolland resolutely continued his work. He wished to cut a clearing into which a few sunbeams of reason might shine through the gloomy and suffocating atmosphere. His next essays aimed at illuminating an open space of such a character. Especially notable were _Inter Arma Caritas_ (October 30, 1914); _Les idoles_ (December 4, 1914); _Notre prochain l'ennemi_ (March 15, 1915); _Le meutre des élites_ (June 14, 1915). These were attempts to give a voice to the silent. "Let us help the victims! It is true that we cannot do very much. In the everlasting struggle between good and evil, the balance is unequal. We require a century for the upbuilding of that which a day destroys. Nevertheless, the frenzy lasts no more than a day, and the patient labor of reconstruction is our daily bread. This work goes on even during an hour when the world is perishing around us." The poet had at length come to understand his task. It is useless to attack the war directly. Reason can effect nothing against the elemental forces. But he regards it as his predestined duty to combat throughout the war everything that the passions of men lead them to undertake for the deliberate increase of horror, to combat the spiritual poison of the war. The most atrocious feature of the present struggle, one which distinguishes it from all previous wars, is this deliberate poisoning. That which in earlier days was accepted with simple resignation as a disastrous visitation like the plague, was now presented in a heroic light, as a sign of "the grandeur of the age." An ethic of force, an ethic of destruction, was being preached. The mass struggle of the nations was being purposely inflamed to become the mass hatred of individuals. Rolland, therefore, was not, as many have supposed, attacking the war; he was attacking the ideology of the war, the artificial idolization of brutality. As far as the individual was concerned, he attacked the readiness to accept a collective morality constructed solely for the duration of the war; he attacked the surrender of conscience in face of the prevailing universalization of falsehood; he attacked the suspension of inner freedom which was advocated until the war should be over.