Page:Rolland - Clerambault, tr. Miller, 1921.djvu/166

 l chains.

The chief seat of the disease was the idea of Nation; this inflamed point could not be touched without howls from the beast. Clerambault attacked it at once, without gloves.

_What have I to do with your nations? Can you expect me to love or hate a nation? It is men that I love or hate, and in all nations you will find the noble, the base, and the ordinary man. Yes, and everywhere are few great or low, while the ordinary abound. Like or dislike a man for what he is, not for what others are; and if there is one man who is dear to me in a whole nation, that prevents me from condemning it. You talk of struggles and hatred between races? Races are the colours of life's prism; it binds them together, and we have light. Woe to him who shatters it! I am not of one race, I belong to life as a whole; I have brothers in every nation, enemy or ally, and those you would thrust upon me as compatriots are not always the nearest. The families of our souls are scattered through the world. Let us re-unite them! Our task is to undo these chaotic nations, and in their place to bind together more harmonious groups. Nothing can prevent it; on the anvil of a common suffering, persecution will forge the common affection of the tortured peoples_.

Clerambault did not pride himself on his logic, but only tried to get at the popular idol through the joints of his armour. Often he did not deny the nation-idea, but accepted it as natural, at the same time attacking national rivalries in the most forcible manner. This attitude was by no means the least dangerous.