What, he goes on to ask, have French dramatists hitherto brought the people out of the past? The burlesque figure of Cyrano; the gracefully sentimental personality of the duke of Reichstadt; the artificial conception of Madame Sans-Gène! "Tout est à faire! Tout est à dire!" The land of dramatic art still lies fallow. "For France, national epopee is quite a new thing. Our playwrights have neglected the drama of the French people, although that people has been perhaps, since the days of Rome, the most heroic in the world. Europe's heart was beating in the kings, the thinkers, the revolutionists of France. And great as this nation has been in all domains of the spirit, its greatness has been shown above all in the field of action. Herein lay its most sublime creation; here was its poem, its drama, its epos. France did what others dreamed of doing. France wrote no Iliads, but lived a dozen. The heroes of France wrought more splendidly than the poets. No Shakespeare sang their deeds; but Danton on the scaffold was the spirit of Shakespeare personified. The life of France has touched the loftiest summits of joy; it has plumbed the deepest abysses of sorrow. It has been a wonderful 'comédie humaine,' a series of dramas; each of its epochs a new poem." This past must be recalled to life; French historical drama must restore it to the French people. "The spirit which soars above the centuries, will thus soar for centuries to come. If we would engender strong souls, we must nourish them with the energies of the world." Rolland now expands the French ode into a European ode. "The world must be our theme, for a nation is too small." One hundred and twenty years earlier, Schiller had said: "I write as a citizen of the world. Early did I exchange my fatherland for mankind." Rolland is fired by Goethe's words: "National literature now means very little; the epoch of world literature is at hand." He utters the following appeal: "Let us make Goethe's prophesy a living reality! It is our task to teach the French to look upon their national history as a wellspring of popular art; but on no account should we exclude the sagas of other nations. Though it is doubtless our first duty to make the most of the treasures we have ourselves inherited, we must none the less find room on our stage for the great deeds of all races. Just as Anacharsis Cloots and Thomas Paine were chosen members of the Convention; just as Schiller, Klopstock, Washington, Priestley, Bentham, Pestalozzi, and Kosciuszko, are the heroes of our world; so should we inaugurate in Paris the epopee of the European people!" Thus did Rolland's manifesto, passing far beyond the limits of the stage, become at its close his first appeal to Europe. Uttered by a solitary voice, it remained for the time unheeded and void of effect. Nevertheless the confession of faith had been spoken; it was indestructible; it could never pass away. Jean Christophe had proclaimed his message to the world. CHAPTER XI