e duty. Concentrating all his energies upon a single aim,
he accelerates the moment of attainment. "Just as certain of our
forefathers, in advance of their time, enthusiastically advocated a
united Germany, even so do we mean to fight for a united Europe. That is
the hope inspiring this book."[73]--Nor does he merely hope for the
victory of this cause. He already enjoys the victory, by anticipation.
Immured in Graudenz fortress, near the room where Fritz Reuter, the
German patriot, spent years in captivity because he believed in Germany,
Nicolai notes that the Reuter room has been converted into a sanctuary
by his erstwhile gaolers, "which is a living instance of the fact that
reaction cannot endure for ever." His mind reverting to his own case, he
declares: "We may be quite sure that the very same persons who to-day
still continue to decry as high treason Goethe's conception of the
citizen of Europe, will in a few years' time themselves subscribe to
it."

This confidence radiates from every page of the book. It is Nicolai's
faith in the future which influences us even more than the writer's
ideas. That faith is a stimulant and a moral tonic. It awakens us and
sets us free. Those of kindred spirit group themselves round him
because, in the dark places of the earth where they wander chilled and
with faltering steps, he is a focus of joy and fervid optimism. This
prisoner, this man under sentence, smiles as he contemplates the force
which thinks it has conquered him, the force of reaction let loose, and
of unreason, overthrowing that which he knows to be right and true.
Precisely because his faith is violated, he desires to proclaim it.
"Precisely because war is in progress, I wish to write a book of peace."
Thinking of his brothers in the faith, weaker and more broken, he
dedicates to them this book "to assure them that the war is but a
passing phase; that we must be careful not to attach too much importance
to it." He speaks, he tells us, "to inspire fair-minded and
right-thinking men with my own triumphant assurance."[74]

May he be a model to us! May the small and persecuted band of those who
refuse to share the general hatred, and whom therefore hate persecutes,
be ever warmed by this inward joy! Nothing can deprive them of it.
Nothing can harm them. For, amid the horror and the shames of the
present, they are the contemporaries of the future.

_October 15, 1917._

"demain," Geneva, November, 1917.

XXI