great and ever-flowing river of the mind.

In the second place, we await from you that you should bring to pass, on
behalf of the world, a harmony of diverse liberties; a symphonic
expression of associated individualities, of associated races, of
associated civilisations, of mankind at once integral and free.

You have splendid opportunities: you have an exuberant young life; you
have wide areas of virgin land. Your day has just begun. You are not
wearied by the toil of a previous day. You are unencumbered by the
heritage of the past. All that comes down to you from the past is a
voice like the sound of many waters, the voice of a great herald whose
work seems a homeric foreshadowing of the task that awaits you. I speak
of the American master, Walt Whitman.--Surge et age.

"Revue mensuelle," Geneva, February, 1917.

XII

FREE VOICES FROM AMERICA

I have often deplored that during the war the Swiss press has failed to
play the great part which was assigned to it. I have not hesitated to
express my regret to Swiss journalists of my acquaintance. I do not
reproach the Swiss periodicals for their lack of impartiality. It is
natural, it is human, to have preferences, and to show them
passionately. We have all the less reason to complain seeing that (at
least among the Latin Swiss) the preferences are in our favour.

My chief grievance is that, since the beginning of the war, our Swiss
friends have failed to keep us fully informed of what is going on around
us. We do not ask a friend to judge for us; when we are carried away by
passion, we do not ask him to be wiser than we are. But if he is in a
position to see and know things that are hidden from us, we have a right
to reproach him if he leaves us in ignorance. He does us wrong, for
through his fault we are likely to fall into errors of judgment and are
likely to act wrongly.

Neutral countries enjoy an inestimable advantage. They can look the
problems of the war in the face, in a way that is utterly impossible to
the belligerent nations. Above all, the neutrals enjoy the advantage of
being able to speak freely, a piece of good fortune which they fail to
esteem at its true value. Switzerland, in the very centre of the
battlefield, between the fighting camps, with inhabitants drawn from
three of the belligerent stocks, is peculiarly favoured. I have had
occasion to perceive and to profit by the wealth of information at the
disposal of the Swiss. Hither, fro