Rolland was now a man of thirty, with his energies at their prime. He was inspired with a restrained passion for activity. In all times and scenes, alike in the past and in the present, his inspiration discerned greatness. The impulse now grew strong within him to give his imaginings life. But this will to greatness encountered a season of petty things. At the date when Rolland began his life work, the mighty figures of French literature had already passed from the stage: Victor Hugo, with his indefatigable summons to idealism; Flaubert, the heroic worker; Renan, the sage. The stars of the neighboring heaven, Richard Wagner and Friedrich Nietzsche, had set or become obscured. Extant art, even the serious art of a Zola or a Maupassant, was devoted to the commonplace; it created only in the image of a corrupt and enfeebled generation. Political life had become paltry and supine. Philosophy was stereotyped and abstract. There was no longer any common bond to unite the elements of the nation, for its faith had been shattered for decades to come by the defeat of 1870. Rolland aspired to bold ventures, but his world would have none of them. He was a fighter, but his world desired an easy life. He wanted fellowship, but all that his world wanted was enjoyment. Suddenly a storm burst over the country. France was stirred to the depths. The entire nation became engrossed in an intellectual and moral problem. Rolland, a bold swimmer, was one of the first to leap into the turbulent flood. Betwixt night and morning, the Dreyfus affair rent France in twain. There were no abstentionists; there was no calm contemplation. The finest among Frenchmen were the hottest partisans. For two years the country was severed as by a knife blade into two camps, that of those whose verdict was "guilty," and that of those whose verdict was "not guilty." In _Jean Christophe_ and in Péguy's reminiscences, we learn how the section cut pitilessly athwart families, dividing brother from brother, father from son, friend from friend. To-day we find it difficult to understand how this accusation of espionage brought against an artillery captain could involve all France in a crisis. The passions aroused transcended the immediate cause to invade the whole sphere of mental life. Every Frenchman was faced by a problem of conscience, was compelled to make a decision between fatherland and justice. Thus with explosive energy the moral forces were, for all right-thinking minds, dragged into the vortex. Rolland was among the few who from the very outset insisted that Dreyfus was innocent The apparent hopelessness of these early endeavors to secure justice were for Rolland a spur to conscience. Whereas Péguy was enthralled by the mystical power of the problem, which would he hoped bring about a moral purification of his country, and while in conjunction with Bernard Lazare he wrote propagandist pamphlets calculated to add fuel to the flames, Rolland's energies were devoted to