ROMAIN ROLLAND:

was an important French writer of, amongst others, books about Gandhi and the novel "Jean Christophe". (He was co-founder, with Professor Székely, of the I.B.S.)

Excerpt of "Search for the Ageless" (Professor Székely's Biography), Vol.1, P.50:

"Rolland caused a storm of protest in France as well as Germany, when he urged both countries in 1915 to respect truth and humanity throughout their fightin a series of articles collected in Au-dessus de la Mêlée. But his voice continued to be heard, and eventually, for the publication of these articles, and for his epic novel Jean Christophe won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Jean Christophe – for how many young people has this exceptional novel been an awakening to adulthood, an invitation to a life led in the heroic ideal of brotherhood and fealty to artistic truth! Translated into about thirty languages, it has induced young people everywhere to think about life and its problems, and has given them, through the very failure of its heroes, courage to live nobly. To Rolland, the development in it of the friendship between a young German and a young Frenchman symbolized that "harmony of opposites" which man should strive to establish first within himself, then beetween individuals and, finally, between nations.

No one who has read Jean Christophe can ever forget the memorable scene toward the end of the book when the composer, Christophe, after having lost everything which was dear to him, including for a long time his musical inspiration, hears the voice of God of God within him as the sudden warm wind of spring rushes through his open window. He feels the power of life flooding his empty soul - life which he had shut out through his grief. In the most beautiful sentences of the book, God speaks to him: 

"I am not all that is. I am Life fighting nothingness. I am the Fire which burns through the night - I am not the night. I am the Eternal Light; I am not an eternal destiny soaring above the fight. I am Free Will which struggles eternally. Struggle and burn with me!"

Romain Rolland was one who struggled his life long to promote brotherhood between men and peace between nations. that he did so through such exquisite works of literary art is something all of his countless friends will always be grateful for."