; Francis of Assisi; representative figures of
Asia.

...Will you permit me to make a friendly remark? I am a trifle uneasy as
to some of the names mentioned in your letter, uneasy as to the effect
upon children's minds. You propose to put before them such formidable
examples as that of Moses. Your aim, obviously, is to impress on them
the importance of moral energy, which is the source of all light. But it
is not a matter of indifference whether this light be turned towards the
past or towards the future. There is no lack of moral energy to-day. The
quality abounds, but it is devoted to the service of an obsolete ideal,
an ideal which oppresses and kills. I must admit that I am somewhat
estranged from the great men of the past, considered as examples for the
conduct of life. For the most part I am disappointed in them. I admire
them on aesthetic grounds, but I cannot endure the intolerance and the
fanaticism they so often display. Many of the gods whom they worshipped
have to-day become dangerous idols. Mankind, I fear, will fail to fulfil
its lofty destiny unless it can transcend these earlier ideals, unless
it prove able to offer wider horizons to the coming generations. In a
word, I love and admire the past; but I wish the future to excel the
past. It can; it must....

* * * * *

Maxim Gorki answered as follows:--

PETROGRAD, _March 18 to 21, 1917._

I hasten to reply, dear Romain Rolland. The book on Beethoven should be
written for young people from thirteen to eighteen years of age. It
should be an objective and interesting account of the life of a man of
genius, of the development of his mind, of the chief incidents in his
career, of the difficulties he overcame and of the triumphs he achieved.
It should contain as much as can be learned concerning Beethoven's
childhood. In young folk we wish to inspire love for life and trust in
life; to adults we wish to teach heroism. Man has to learn that he is
the creator and the master of the world; that his is the responsibility
for all its misfortunes; that his, too, is the credit for all that is
good in life. We must help man to break the chains of individualism and
nationalism. Propaganda on behalf of universal union is absolutely
essential.

I am delighted with your idea of writing the life of Socrates, and I
hope you will carry it out. I suppose your description of Socrates will
be placed on a background of classical life, on