Immeasurable is the debt which friends and numberless unseen companions in adversity owe to Rolland for his brave and free attitude. He set an example to all those who, though they shared his sentiments, were isolated in obscurity, and who needed some such point of crystallization before their thoughts and feelings could be consolidated. It was above all for those who were not yet sure of themselves that this archetypal personality provided so splendid a stimulus. Rolland's steadfastness put younger men to shame. In his company we were stronger, freer, more genuine, more unprejudiced. Human loving kindness, transfigured by his ardor, radiated like a flame. What bound us together was not that we chanced to think alike, but a passionate exaltation, which often became a positive fanaticism for brotherhood. We foregathered in defiance of public opinion and in defiance of the laws of the belligerent states, exchanging confidences without reserve; our comradeship exposed us to all sorts of suspicions; these things served but to draw us closer together, and in many memorable hours we felt with a veritable intoxication the unprecedented quality of our friendship. We were but a couple of dozen who thus came together in Switzerland; Frenchmen, Germans, Russians, Austrians, and Italians. We few were the only ones among the hundreds of millions who could look one another in the face without hatred, exchanging our innermost thoughts. This little troop was all that then constituted Europe. Our unity, a grain of dust in the storm which was raging through the world, was perhaps the seed of the coming fraternity. How strong, how happy, how grateful did we often feel. For without Rolland, without the genius of his friendship, without the connecting link constituted by his disposition, we should never have attained to freedom and security. Each of us loved him in a different way, and all of us regarded him with equal veneration. To the French, he was the purest spiritual expression of their homeland; to us, he was the wonderful counterpart of the best in our own world. In this circle that formed round Rolland there was the sense of fellowship which has always characterized a religious community in the making. The hostility between our respective nations, and the consciousness of danger, fired our friendship to the pitch of exaggeration; while the example of the bravest and freest man we had ever known, brought out all that was best in us. When we were near him, we felt ourselves to be in the heart of true Europe. Whoever was able to know Rolland's inmost essence, acquired, as in the ancient saga, new energy for the wrestle with brute force. CHAPTER XIV THE LETTERS