Our revolution was the work of the great bourgeois, of the men whose race is now extinct. They had their rude vices and their rude virtues. Contemporary civilisation has inherited their vices alone, their fanaticism and their greed. It is our hope that your revolution will be the uprising of a great people, hale, brotherly, humane, avoiding the excesses into which we fell.
Above all, remain united! Learn from our example. Remember how the French Convention, like Saturn, devoured its own children. Be more tolerant than we proved. Your whole strength will barely suffice for the defence of the sacred cause you represent; for its defence against the fierce and crafty enemies who at this hour perchance are arching their backs and purring like cats, but who are lurking in the jungle, awaiting the moment when you will stumble if you should be alone.
Last of all remember, Russian brothers, that you are fighting our battles as well as your own. Our fathers of 1792 wished to bring freedom to the whole world. They failed; and it may be that they did not choose the best way. But they had lofty ambitions. May these ambitions be yours likewise. Bring to Europe the gifts of peace and liberty!
"demain," Geneva, May 1, 1917.
VIII
TOLSTOY: THE FREE SPIRIT
IN his diary, of which the first French translation has just been issued by Paul Biriukov,[15] Tolstoy gives utterance to the fantasy that in an earlier life his personality had been a complex of loved beings. Each successive existence, he suggested, enlarged the circle of friends and the range and power of the soul.[16]
Speaking generally, we may say that a great personality comprehends within itself more souls than one. All these souls are grouped around one among them, much as, in a company of friends, the one with the strongest character will establish an ascendancy.
In Tolstoy there are more men than one: there is the great artist; there is the great Christian; there is the being of uncontrolled instincts and passions. But in Tolstoy, as his days lengthened and his kingdom extended, it became plain and yet more plain that there was one ruler. This ruler was the free reason. It is to the free reason that I wish to pay homage here, for it is this above everything that we all need to-day.
Our epoch is not poor in the other energies, those energies which Tolstoy possessed in so full a measure. Our age is surfeited with passions and with heroism; in artistic capacity it is not lacking; the fire of religion, even, has not been withheld. God—all the gods there be—have cast burning brands into the vast conflagration that rages among the nations. Christ not excepted. There is not one among the countries, belligerent or neutral, including the two Switzerlands, the German and the Romance, which has failed to discover in the gospels justification for cursing or for slaughter.