well
modify the very essence of the nations. Whatever may be the immediate
upshot of happenings in Russia, the example of the New Russia will not
fail to have its influence upon the other peoples. An intimate unity is
becoming established in the soul of the peoples. It is as if they were
connected by gigantic roots, spreading underground regardless of
frontiers.--As for the intellectuals who, sitting apart from the common
people, are not directly swept along by this social current, they none
the less feel its influence by intuition and sympathy. Notwithstanding
the efforts which, during these four years, have been made to break off
all contact between the writers in the two camps, I know that in both,
on the morrow of the peace, international magazines and other
publications will be founded. I have first-hand information concerning
such schemes, initiated by young writers, soldiers at the front, men
permeated with the European spirit. Among those of my own generation,
there are a few who will give wholehearted assistance to their younger
brethren. In our view, we shall in this way serve, not merely the cause
of mankind, but the cause of our own land, far better than that cause
will be served by the evil counsellors who preach armed isolation. Every
country which shuts itself apart pronounces its own death-sentence. Gone
for ever are the days when the young and tumultuous energies of the
European nations needed, for their clarification, to be surrounded by
partition walls.--Let me quote a few words uttered by Jean Christophe in
his riper age:

"I neither admire nor dread the nationalism of the present time. It will
pass away with the present time; it is passing, it has already passed.
It is but a rung in the ladder. Climb to the top.... Every nation felt
[before the war] the imperious necessity of gathering its forces and
making up its balance-sheet. For the last hundred years all the nations
have been transformed by their mutual intercourse and the immense
contributions of all the brains of the universe, building up new
morality, new knowledge, new faith. Every man must examine his
conscience, and know exactly what he is and what he has, before he can
enter with the rest into the new age. A new age is coming. Humanity is
on the point of signing a new lease of life. Society is on the point of
springing into vigour with new laws. It is Sunday to-morrow. We are all
balancing our accounts for the week, setting our houses i