Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 1.pdf/417

Rh themselves through their troubles with political chatter. Byron, the "terrible titan," had the courage to express his contempt without circumlocution, to say without circumlocution that there was no issue. He gives us no brilliant phrases about negation; he does not sport with unbelief; he does not delude himself with sensuality; he does not attempt to job us off with simple girls, wine, and brilliants; unemotionally he depicts for us murder and crime. This disillusioned certainty can alone bring peace. Herzen refers to his own example, tells us how he has learned to endure the death of the being who meant everything to him. "The mists seemed to close in around me, I passed through a period of savage and dull despair but I did not attempt to console myself with false hopes. Not for a moment did I endeavour to stifle my sorrow with the stultifying idea of reunion beyond the grave." To Kavelin, in like manner, when Kavelin's son died, Herzen recommended work and duty as sole consolations.

The task of the few, of the righteous men in Sodom and Gomorrah, those who are strong of spirit though weak of hand, remains the preaching of the tidings of death as joyful tidings of approaching deliverance. To the objection that this gospel of the death and destruction of civilisation may deprive us of all delight in action, Herzen makes answer that to understand is itself to act, to realise.

The work on which Herzen thus buries and destroys his revolutionary illusions is dedicated to his son, then fifteen years of age. "I do not wish to delude you; I desire that you should know the truth as I know it; this truth shall be yours as a birthright, so that you need not discover it through painful errors, through murderous disillusionments Seek no unriddlings in this book; you will not find them; they are not for the men of our time. What is unriddled is done with, but the coming transformation is only in its inception. Not our task to build, but to destroy; we promise no new revelation, but we destroy the ancient lies. The man of to-day, an unhappy pontifex maximus, does no more than build the bridge, which will be crossed by an unknown in the unknown future. You, perhaps, will catch a glimpse of that unknown Do not stay on the old shore It is better to perish than to remain safe in the madhouse of reaction. The religion of the coming social reconstruction is the only