Page:Jean Jaurès socialist and humanitarian 1917.djvu/42

 with a tremendous impetus towards the serene night and the illimitable horizons, and that she was carrying me with her: and I felt in my flesh as well as in my soul, and in the earth as in my flesh the shudder of this rush, and I found a strange sweetness in these spaces which opened out in front of us without a clash, without a fold, without a murmur."

Jaurès had a subtle and powerful brain. His mind seized on the fundamental meaning of things and was not disturbed by the non-essentials. He could be very passionate, even unfair in excitement, but he had a fundamental sanity and an almost unique wide-mindedness and the humility of the truly great. He had besides, and that was his charm, a warm heart. A little incident, told by M. Rappoport, belonging to the very last moments of his life, reveals his simple kindliness. Jaurès had been labouring hard that last day, urging the Minister, it would seem, to put more pressure upon Russia to act so as if possible to save Europe from the horror of war. He returned to the office of L’Humanité very late. Much had still to be done.

"They came down to the restaurant of the Croissant," says M. Rappoport, "two steps from the office of L’Humanité, where Jaurès and his friends took their places at the long table at the left of the entrance. The seriousness of the time