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Twenty years after their first composition,republishing the forgotten dramas of his youth under the title Les tragédies de la foi (1913), Rolland alluded in the preface to the tragical melancholy of the epoch in which they were composed. "At that time," he writes, "we were much further from our goal, and far more isolated." The elder brothers of Jean Christophe and Olivier, "less robust though not less fervent in the faith," had found it harder to defend their beliefs, to maintain their idealism at its lofty level, than did the youth of the new day; living in a stronger France, a freer Europe. Twenty years earlier, the shadow of defeat still lay athwart the land.These heroes of the French spirit had been compelled,even within themselves, to fight the evil genius of the race, to combat doubts as to the high destinies of their nation, to struggle against the lassitude of the vanquished. Then was to be heard the cry of a petty era lamenting its vanished greatness; it aroused no echo from the stage or from the people; it wasted itself in the unresponsive skies—and yet it was the expression of an undying faith in life.
Closely akin to this ardor is the faith voiced by Rolland's dramatic cycle, though the plays deal with such different epochs, and are so diverse in the range of their ideas. He wishes to depict the "courants de foi," the mysterious streams of faith, at a time when a flame of spiritual enthusiasm is spreading through an entire nation, when an idea is flashing from mind to mind, involving unnumbered thousands in the storm of an illusion; when the calm of the soul is suddenly ruffled by heroic tumult; when the word, the faith,the ideal, though ever invisible and unattainable,transfuses the inert world and lifts it towards the stars. It matters nothing in ultimate analysis what idea fires the souls of men; whether the idea be that of Saint Louis for the holy sepulcher and Christ's realm, or that of Aërt for the fatherland, or that of the Girondists for freedom. The ostensible goal is a minor matter; the essence of such movements is the wonder-working faith; it is this which assembles a people for crusades into the east, which summons thousands to death for the nation, which makes leaders throw themselves willingly under the guillotine. "Toute la vie est dans l'essor," the reality of life is found in its impetus, as Verhaeren says; that alone is beautiful which is created in the enthusiasm of faith. We are not to infer that these early heroes, born out of due time,must have succumbed to discouragement since they failed to reach their goal; one and all they had to bow their souls to the influences of a petty time. That is why Saint Louis died without seeing Jerusalem; why Aërt, fleeing from bondage, found only the eternal freedom of death; why the Girondists were trampled beneath the heels of the mob. These men had the true faith, that faith which does not demand realization in this world. In widely separated centuries, and against different storms of time, they were the banner bearers of the same ideal, whether they carried the cross or held the sword, whether they wore the cap of liberty or the visored helm. They were animated with the same enthusiasm for the unseen; they had the same enemy, call it cowardice, call it poverty of spirit, call it the supineness of a weary age. When destiny refused them the externals of greatness, they created greatness in their own souls. Amid unheroic environments they displayed the perennial heroism of the undaunted will;the triumph of the spirit which, when animated with faith, can prove victorious over time.
The significance, the lofty aim, of these early plays, was their intention to recall to the minds of contemporaries the memory of forgotten brothers in the faith, to arouse for the service of the spirit and not for the ends of brute force that idealism which ever burgeons from the imperishable seed of youth.Already we discern the entire moral purport of Rolland's later work, the endeavor to change the world by the force of inspiration. "Tout est bien qui exalte la vie." Everything which exalts life is good. This is Rolland's confession of faith, as it is that of his own Olivier. Ardor alone can create vital realities. There is no defeat over which the will cannot triumph; there is no sorrow above which a free spirit cannot soar. Who wills the unattainable, is stronger than destiny; even his destruction in this mortal world is none the less a mastery of fate. The tragedy of his heroism kindles fresh enthusiasm, which seizes the standard as it slips from his grasp, to raise it anew and bear it onward through the ages.