"Arise! Let us free the mind from these compromises, from these unworthy
alliances, from these veiled slaveries! Mind is no one's servitor. It is
we who are the servitors of mind. We have no other master. We exist to
bear its light, to defend its light, to rally round it all the strayed
sheep of mankind. Our role, our duty, is to be a center of stability, to
point out the pole star, amid the whirlwind of passions in the night.
Among these passions of pride and mutual destruction, we make no choice;
we reject them all. Truth only do we honor; truth that is free,
frontierless, limitless; truth that knows naught of the prejudices of
race or caste. Not that we lack interest in humanity. For humanity we
work; but for humanity as a whole. We know nothing of peoples. We know
the People, unique and universal; the People which suffers, which
struggles, which falls and rises to its feet once more, and which
continues to advance along the rough road drenched with its sweat and
its blood; the People, all men, all alike our brothers. In order that
they may, like ourselves, realize this brotherhood, we raise above their
blind struggles the Ark of the Covenant--Mind, which is free, one and
manifold, eternal."
Many hundreds of persons have signed this manifesto, for leading spirits
in every land accept the message and make it their own. The invisible
republic of the spirit, the universal fatherland, has been established
among the races and among the nations. Its frontiers are open to all who
wish to dwell therein; its only law is that of brotherhood; its only
enemies are hatred and arrogance between nations. Whoever makes his
home within this invisible realm becomes a citizen of the world. He is
the heir, not of one people but of all peoples. Henceforward he is an
indweller in all tongues and in all countries, in the universal past and
the universal future.
CHAPTER XXIII
ENVOY
Strange has been the rhythm of this man's life, surging again and again
in passionate waves against the time, sinking once more into the abyss
of disappointment, but never failing to rise on the crest of faith
renewed. Once again we see Romain Rolland as prototype of those who are
magnificent in defeat. Not one of his ideals, not one of his wishes, not
one of his dreams, has been realized. Might has triumphed over right,
force over spirit, men over humanity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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