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Rh 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