does not bother me. I am only the freer to judge all things, and freedom of soul is dearer to me than happiness itself.
"It is true that today I care much more than I did ten years ago for Voltaire (the Voltaire of the Contes philosophiques), and for Erasmus and Montaigne. But not because of their scepticism (you speak of 'a touch of scepticism'); their free and open irony furnishes me with a weapon against prejudice, convention, and the idols of society. I feel that that combat must be fought again today.
"I authorize you to make use of the explanations in this letter, if you deem them interesting or useful.
"Yours, etc.,
A note appended to the page of my preface enclosed in the above letter is well worth quoting, as it throws some light on M. Rolland's present attitude toward war :
"The only play I have written since The Fourteenth of July (with the exception of the Aristophanic comedy elsewhere referred to) is Le Temps viendra. It is to be reprinted … after the war. The problems with which it is concerned [it was laid in South Africa during the Boer war] have once again assumed an air of actuality; and if I have not reprinted it during the past few years … it is because I wished to prevent the various 'parties' using as a polemic weapon a work written
