The year 1914 marks the close of Romain Rolland's private life. Henceforth his career belongs to the world; his biography becomes part of history; his personal experiences can no longer be detached from his public activities. The solitary has been forced out of his workroom to accomplish his task in the world. The man whose existence has been so retired, must now live with doors and windows open. His every essay, his every letter, is a manifesto. His life from now onward shapes itself like a heroic drama. From the hour when his most cherished ideal, the unity of Europe, seemed bent on its own destruction, he emerged from his retirement to become a vital element of his time, an impersonal force, a chapter in the history of the European spirit. Just as little as Tolstoi's life can be detached from his propagandist activities, just so little is there justification in this case for an attempt to distinguish between the man and his influence. Since 1914, Romain Rolland has been one with his ideal and one with the struggle for its realization. No longer is he author, poet, or artist; no longer does he belong to himself. He is the voice of Europe in the season of its most poignant agony. He has become the conscience of the world. PART TWO EARLY WORK AS A DRAMATIST Son but n'était pas le succès; son but était la foi. JEAN CHRISTOPHE, "_La Révolte_." CHAPTER I THE WORK AND THE EPOCH Romain Rolland's work cannot be understood without an understanding of the epoch in which that work came into being. For here we have a passion that springs from the weariness of an entire country, a faith that springs from the disillusionment of a humiliated nation. The shadow of 1870 was cast across the youth of the French author. The significance and greatness of his work taken as a whole depend upon the way in which it constitutes a spiritual bridge between one great war and the next. It arises from a blood-stained earth and a storm-tossed horizon on one side, reaching across on the other to the new struggle and the new spirit. It originates in gloom. A land defeated in war is like a man who has lost his god. Divine ecstasy is suddenly replaced by dull exhaustion; a fire that blazed in millions is extinguished, so that nothing but ash and cinder remain. There is a sudden collapse of all values. Enthusiasm has become meaningless; death is purposeless; the deeds, which but yesterday were deemed heroic, are now looked upon as follies; faith is a fraud; belief in oneself, a pitiful illusion. The impulse to fellowship fades; every one fights for his own hand, evades responsibility that he may throw it upon his neighbor, thinks only of profit, utility, and personal advantage. Lofty aspirations are killed by an infinite weariness. Nothing is so utterly destructive to the moral energy of the masses as a defeat; nothing else degrades and weakens to the same extent the whole spiritual poise of a nation.