After the publication of _Au-dessus de la mêlée_, Rolland withdrew from public participation in the controversies with which the essays had been concerned. He had spoken his word; he had sown the wind and had reaped the whirlwind. He was neither weary in well-doing nor was he weak in faith, but he realized that it was useless to speak to a world which would not listen. In truth he had lost the sublime illusion with which he had been animated at the outset, the belief that men desire reason and truth. To his intelligence now grown clearer it was plain that men dread truth more than anything else in the world. He began, therefore, to settle accounts with his own mind by writing a satirical romance, and by other imaginative creations, while continuing his vast private correspondence. Thus for a time he was out of the hurly-burly. But after a year of silence, when the crimson flood continued to swell, and when falsehood was raging more furiously than ever, he felt it his duty to reopen the campaign. "We must repeat the truth again and again," said Goethe to Schermann, "for the error with which truth has to contend is continually being repreached, not by individuals, but by the mass." There was so much loneliness in the world that it had become necessary to form new ties. Signs of discontent and revolt in the various lands were more plentiful. More numerous, too, were the brave men in active revolt against the fate which was being forced on them. Rolland felt that it was incumbent upon him to give what support he could to these dispersed fighters, and to inspirit them for the struggle.