Page:Jean Jaurès socialist and humanitarian 1917.djvu/18

 must wait for the time when light can be thrown upon all this, and until then the final touches cannot be put to Jaurès' life.

Jaurès was a great servant of the people—great because he was single-minded. In France, where it is so common to find politicians gain a footing on the lower rungs of the ladder of success as Socialists, mounting upwards and changing their colours as they go, Jaurès was an inspiring example of rectitude and devotion. He was the greatest of them all, his mind was richest, his sagacity was clearest, his power was the most firmly founded. The places they filled could most easily have been his. But no, that was not Jaurès. He was no believer in the German doctrine of aloofness. As Mrs. Pease says so truly, he was too much interested in real life to spend his days apart and give utterance to mere dogmatic formulæ, whilst society was striving to give expression to the best that was in it, struggling to emancipate itself from the bondage of capitalism. All his instincts prompted him to aid it. Every movement towards more liberty enlisted his support, because he knew each was necessary for the attainment of the