Romain Rolland-The Idealist

"Go, go and never rest. Go on to death, you must die. Go and suffer, you who must suffer.–Suffer, die but be what you must be–a Man." –Jean-Christophe.

"Above all be strong, be Manly! I have a respect even for one who is wicked so long as he is manly and strong; for his strength will make him some day give up his wickedness or even give up all work for selfish ends, and will bring him into the Truth." –Vivekananda.

"O Man! help thyself." –Beethoven.

That, in short, is the "cult of Man", his message to humanity through all the literary creations of Romain Rolland, the great artist, and the great literary giant of France.

"Never forget the glory of human nature." For "as soon as a man or a nation loses faith in himself, death comes; believe first in yourself and then in God. A handful of strong men will move the World"

Born in 1866 at Clemcey in France, of a Revolutionary and Republican lawyer father and an aggressively Catholic mother, Romain Rolland was confronted with the difficult task of reconciling between Reason and Revolution, on the one hand, and Faith and Religion, on the other.

Happily for Rolland, his mother was well versed in music and she introduced him to all the great musicians of the West and their important compositions. All this happened at so early an age that Rolland learnt to read the piano notes before he familiarized himself with the A.B.C. of the school primer: "He was born in music." And music turned out to be the most potent influence in his mental development.

At the Ecole Normale he voraciously devoured Victor Hugo, Corneille, Nietzsche, Michael Angelo and Shakespeare. Tolstoy was the fashion of the day. His War and Peace was for Rolland "a revelation of life and a door opening on to the immense universe". Tolstoy’s essays, novels, and his noble ideals of Love, Truth and Pacifism made an indelible impression on Rolland’s young mind. These very qualities were again to attract him to Gandhiji in 1923.

He admired Tolstoy’s ceaseless denunciation of the tyrants and his unrestricted praise for the ocean of humanity. He became Tolstoy’s disciple and wrote to him many letters. On the latter’s death in 1910, Rolland felt a deep and personal anguish and wrote his biography.

The study of History and Geography at the Ecole Normale widened his intellectual horizon and taught him that ‘history is an eternal ebb and flow of different epochs’, and also that the world is an inter-dependent and closely-knit unit.

The persecution and humiliation of Andre Saures, his Jewish friend at School, and the anti-Semitic wave that culminated in the well-known Dreyfus Affair gave Rolland an insight into the behaviour of the masses, guided only by ‘herd unity’. This he would not follow. It, however, served to sharpen his sensibility to the passion for political justice. He has nothing but unstinted admiration for Col. Picquart, who had risked a military career in the cause of Truth and Justice.

At Rome, where he went for an advanced study of History, he was greatly influenced by his ‘second mother’, Malvida Von Mysenbug, that wonderful lady of ideas and culture who was an intimate friend of Mazzini; Kossuth, Louis Blanc, Wagner, Nietzsche, Garibaldi, Ibsen and others. She found in Rolland "the same idealism, the same lofty aspiration, the same profound grasp of every great intellectual manifestation that she had already found in the greatest men of other nationalities".

An out-and-out idealist, Rolland ascribed all his country’s ills to the lack of idealism. To renew the spiritual life of France, was Rolland’s ambition. The easiest and the best, indeed the only, method, it seemed to him, was to provide examples of noble lives of Great Men of all places and all times who would inspire the unthinking masses to do the right thing.

"Man must rest, get his breath, refresh himself at the great living wells, which keep the freshness of the Eternal." These "great living wells" are Rolland’s heroes who are "living fountains shedding light in spiritual darkness". "The hero," says the intensely realistic Gottfried, "is a man who does what he can; the others do not do it."

As a matter of fact in doing all this Rolland was doing no more than obeying an inner urge to pay a tribute to Great Men who have risen at different places and in different epochs. With him it was ‘an act of faith. It was "a new call to greatness".

Rolland is a hero-worshipper. But so were Plutarch, Voltaire, Carlyle and Nietzsche. What differentiates Rolland from all this is his attempt at the "progressive spiritualisation of the conception of the hero." Unlike Plutarch’s, Rolland’s heroes are neither of noble blood nor great and valiant warriors; unlike Voltaire’s they are not scientists, working in cloistered laboratories, thus losing all contact with life and ordinary men; unlike Carlyle’s they are not men of, ‘action’ and ‘thought’ and do not kindle revolutions and wage victorious wars; unlike Nietzsche’s they are not supermen dominating and crushing their fellowmen.

Rolland’s heroes–all of them–are human beings prone to human frailties. "They and we are made of the same flesh." The hero is one of us, not one above us. He is "not the shepherd driving his flock before him; he is the bull marching at the head of his herd."

But a marked and distinct characteristic of Rolland’s heroes is their lofty urge and a blameless character. Rolland at the dawn of the century had planned a cycle of biographies, which included, among others, those of Garibaldi, Mazzini and Paine. Rolland gave up this projected cycle because he found that Mazzini was a hopeless Sadist; Garibaldi had a weakness for women and Paine was a drunkard and had an inexcusable moral laxity. Already in Michael Angelo’s life Rolland had discovered a few unpleasant moral weaknesses with which he found it difficult to reconcile himself. Licentiousness and debauchery repel him most. In the preface to Vol. VII of Jean-Christophe he says that he wanted a "hero with a pure heart and unclouded vision, whose soul would be stainless enough for him to have the right to speak, one whose voice would be loud enough for him to gain a hearing." And "a great voice is made to fill the sky; the whole earth is its sounding-box."

The hero is one of the crowd. But he is endowed with a better and a more penetrating insight into the affairs of men. He has a perfect knowledge of human psychology. He does not swim on the surface of things. He goes deep. "The very greatest of men is only a clearer reflection of the Sun which gleams in each drop of dew." Such ‘clearer reflections of the Sun’ are Beethoven, Michael Angelo, Tolstoy, Rousseau, Danton, Hoche, St. Louis; Handel, Goethe, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Vivekananda and Mahatma Gandhi. Indeed, "it is always the same Man–the Son of Man, the Eternal, Our Son, Our God re-born."

In his "studies" of these heroes Romain Rolland is preoccupied with the Man rather than the musician, the artist, the preacher and the man of action, etc. The disciples of Ramakrishna deify him and believe him to be the incarnation of God. But Rolland would not subscribe to this view. He sees the Man in him.

"Truth is life." Rolland is a believer in absolute, Universal Truth.

"The world is fed with a little truth and many lies. The human mind is feeble: pure truth agrees with it but ill: its religion, its morality, its states, its poets, its artists, must all be presented to it, swathed in lies...."

He sings the hymn of Truth:

"Be true. There is no conscience, there is no noble life, there is no capacity for sacrifice where there is not a religious, a rigid and a rigorous respect for Truth....What does it matter that you gain an immediate success? The roots of your soul will remain withered in the air above the soil that is crumbled away with untruth....There is one thing greater than a man’s country and that is the human conscience.….The essence of Man lies in his marvelous faculty for seeking truth, seeing it, loving it and sacrificing himself to it……."

About Gandhiji Rolland says: "Every departure from truth, no matter how trifling, is intolerable to him. "And this is the characteristic of every hero of Rolland’s.

"He conciliates no one; that is a natural impossibility with him; he would rather die than mince the truth. He should fearlessly turn towards the search of truth, at all costs, with single-minded sincerity and be prepared for any sacrifice."

The next important characteristic, indeed the most important, is the capacity for suffering. It is a great law in itself. As Gandhiji says:

"Suffering is the mark of the human tribe. It is an eternal law. The mother suffers so that her child may live. Life comes out of death....It is impossible to do away with the law of suffering."

As a matter of fact Rolland’s heroes are tragic heroes with bitter and a painful existence. The hero, from the beginning of his life to the end, is confronted with a philistine society, which treats him with great disdain. His greatness is neither admitted nor appraised. He is eternally misunderstood. He bears the brunt of frustration and undergoes a life of solitude and suffering, mental anguish, penury and privation. He is called upon to make great personal sacrifices. His real greatness lies in his acceptance of it. He should triumph over his sorrows, brave all tempests. It is only through his daily victories over himself and nature, over sufferings and sorrows, that he demonstrates his greatness. Indeed, he should be glad that they fell to his lot who had the strength to hear them: "Only the cloud-piercing summits attract the thunderbolt."

To sum up Rolland’s conception of the eternal law of suffering:

"Out of suffering cometh joy, our companion with the bleeding feet, Joy: not the gross joy of the soul that gorges itself in its stable, but the joy of the ordeal, of pain, of battle, of suffering overcome, of victory over one’s self, the joy of Destiny subdued, espoused, fecundated...."

Rolland’s is a lofty conception of Love. "The law of complete Love," says Gandhiji, "is the law of my being". And "the hardest fibre must melt in the fire of Love. If it does not melt, it is because the fire is not strong enough."

Rolland is a confirmed pacifist. All his life he has preached that Reason and not Force should be our supreme argument. He is opposed to the use of violence. During the last Great War he underwent a voluntary exile to Switzerland. There he wrote that famous series of essays, Above the Battle. And it was this doctrine of non-violence that drew him to Gandhiji whose views on the subject is only too well known: "Non-violence is the first article of my faith. It is also the last article of my creed." His non-violence, however, is no cloak for cowardice. "Where there is a choice between cowardice and violence, I advise violence." But certainly "non-violence is infinitely superior to violence."

All heroes of Rolland are sworn enemies of tyrannies, ardent defenders of Republican and Democratic ideas, upholders of political justice and the rights of the weak. They rebel against the age-worn conventions and struggle to bring about the amelioration and emancipation of the unthinking crowd. They have real virtue and talent. They are honest and sincere; their integrity is beyond doubt.

M. Rolland is no chauvinist: he is a universalist, "a citizen of the world". As early as 1904 he declared that the day of national literatures was over: to be true literature it must be of an international character. "The differences between ‘nations’ and ‘nationalities’ ", he has said, "are based upon non-essentials". He is a true missionary: his mission is to bring about peace and harmony between the warring individuals and nations of the world. His is the religion of man-kind. He believes in one ‘nation’ the nation of humanity.

In his attempt to bring closer together the East and the West he stands next only to Tagore, ‘the Plato of the East’. He has interpreted the "prophets of new India." to the West and brought Gandhiji’s philosophy within their comprehension.

The goal of Rolland is to help men "to find themselves–to find their true selves, naked and without the mask of falsehood." And for the naked soul "there is neither East nor West–such things are merely its trappings. The whole world is its home."

Rolland’s activity in the literary field may be divided into three distinct phases.

On his return from Rome, Rolland associated himself with a movement, which aimed at the revival of the theatre as a social machine. In this connection he wrote several plays, most of which were inspired by the French Revolutionary ideals. His problem plays were merely an expression of his ideas on contemporary questions. All these plays were idealistic, intellectual and aroused aspiration towards Great Men. But the people did not respond. They wanted something more attractive; something that would appeal to their hearts and not to their minds. Rolland’s call was lost in the wilderness. He was swimming against the current: his ideas conflicted with those of his age. He was disillusioned. But he did not give up hope. He would pursue on and on and further on, on the road to the spiritual elevation of his people.

And thus really began the second cycle, that of his biographies. These may be divided into two classes: historical and fictitious. Among the early historical biographies are those of Beethoven, Michael Angelo, Tolstoy, Handel, Goethe and Rousseau. All these heroes are typical of Rolland’s conception. They all underwent suffering. Rolland had projected other biographies also, but he gave up this project, as has been referred to above, because of the presence of certain unpalatable moral weaknesses in Mazzini, Garibaldi and others. He gave up this phase, only to take it up again after a number of years, when he wrote the biography of Gandhiji in 1924.

In writing these biographies Rolland had felt that history restricted the exercise of his creative and imaginative faculties. He decided to write fictitious and imaginative biographies, where he could put his heroes in any setting and in any period that suited him most. Such a one is Jean-Christophe.

In writing this great serial novel which is the fictitious, imaginative biography of a German musician of genius, Rolland is at his best. It brought him the Nobel Prize. It has been called a ‘prose epic,’ a ‘poem’, ‘the work of life, not a work of art.’ Its merits are indeed great, "It bridges the transition between the 19th and 20^th century and shows us where we stand. It reveals the past and the present and leaves the future open to us."

A careful study of the biography shows us that the three distinct parts of this book are inseparably bound with the lives of Beethoven, Michael Angelo and Tolstoy. In other words, its inspiration was drawn from these three great lives.

In 1914 came the Great War. Rolland who had done his utmost to bring France and Germany, the two sister nations, neighbours and yet sworn foes, closer, was once again disillusioned.

After the War he lent his support to the movement for the emancipation of women. He wrote other novels such as the Soul Enchanted, Pierre and Lucie, Cleranbault, Coles Bregnaun and plays like the 14th of July and I will not rest.

Rolland was disappointed by the West. They, these Westerners, would never learn to settle their disputes except through the arbitrament of sword. He saw through the "rude and artificial order imposed amid desolation by Western reason and its Faith or Faiths, all equally tyrannical and mutually contradictory." He cried with Michelet:

"The West is too narrow. Greece is small: I stifle there. Judaea is dry: I pant there. Let me look towards Asia and the profound East....A serene peace reigns there and in the midst of conflict an infinite sweetness, a boundless fraternity which spreads over all living things and an ocean of love, of pity (and) of clemency."

He turned to India. There was Gandhi beckoning to him. He saw the Light.

"For more than 30 centuries the tree of vision, with all its thousand branches and their millions of twigs has sprung from that torrid land (India), the burning womb of the Gods; it renews itself tirelessly showing no decay."

Rolland decided to interpret that ‘lofty stream of thought, at once religious and philosophic, moral and social with its message for modern humanity from the depth of India’s past’; and ‘to bring the sound of the beating of that artery (of Immortality) to the ears of fever-stricken Europe which has murdered sleep.’

In Gandhi, ‘the humble servant of humanity’ and the apostle of Non-Violence and absolute Truth, he saw the goodness and intelligence of Tolstoy. He admired Gandhi’s precepts of peace, truth, Ahimsa, celibacy and the control over the senses, fearlessness, idealism and the capacity for suffering. So much was he enamoured of Gandhiji and his philosophy that he declared:

"Either Gandhi’s spirit will triumph or it will manifest itself again, as were manifested centuries before, the Messiah and Buddha till there finally is manifested, in a mortal half-God, the perfect incarnation of the principle of life which leads a new humanity on to a new path."

Once his interest in India was aroused, he followed it up. He could not overlook that ‘genius in thought’, Tagore. From the soil of Bengal have arisen other titanic personalities, the Prophets of New India’, Ramakrishna and Vivekananda. "Allowing for the differences of country and of time, Ramakrishna is the younger brother of Christ."

In Vivekanand, too, he found the same fire, the same energy, the same ‘splendid harmony of the present wherein the past dreams and the future aspirations of all races and all ages are blended.’ These two sages ‘with incomparable charm and power have realized the splendid symphony of the soul-they are its Mozart and Beethoven.’

These three biographies of Gandhi, Ramakrishna and Vivekananda finished, Rolland again took up the biography of Beethoven. Some four of eight parts of this great work are complete. On the rest he is still busy In Occupied France.

It has been the misfortune of Rolland to have witnessed three major Wars in his lifetime. His childhood was overshadowed by the Franco-prussian War of 1870-71. He was again the involuntary spectator to the hideous carnage of 1914-18; and now again in the sunset of his life he has seen the two neighbours at deadly war. All that he strove for and all that he lived for has perished under his own eyes.

His is a great life; it opened with great dreams, high and distant ideals. As he is nearing the ‘Journey’s End’, he sees around him disillusionment, frustration, abysmal gloom. Indeed his has been a tragedy, a tragedy of idealism. He has done his utmost and that in itself is a source of great satisfaction. Let Gottfried speak for him:

"We do not do what we will to do. We will and we live: two things....The great thing is never to give up willing and living. The rest does not depend on us."…."Why be angry because of what we cannot do? We all have to do what we can....the best we can."

His life has been a grand struggle and he is magnificent even in his defeat (if at all it is one). Has he not said tittles without number: "I do not seek peace; I seek life?" And life for him is another synonym for struggle.

I am no dilettante and I do not bring to jaded readers the opportunity to lose themselves, but rather to find themselves–to find their true selves, naked and without the mask of falsehood. My companions have ever been men with just that object in view, whether living or dead, and the limits of centuries or of races mean little to me ……….

–ROLLAND.