WHEN I WAS attending a bad Latin school, what was known as "history" seemed to me as infinitely venerable, remote, noble, and great as Jehovah or Moses. History was once upon a time, it had once been present and real, it had hurled its thunders and lightnings and long since passed away; now it was remote and venerable, framed in books, and studied in school. The most recent episode in history brought to the cognizance of us schoolboys was the War of 1870. This was more surprising and more exciting than the rest, for our fathers and uncles had taken part in it and we ourselves had only missed it by a few years. How glorious it must have been: heroism, waving flags, generals on horseback, a newly elected emperor. As we were solemnly - and credibly - assured, miracles and deeds of heroism had been performed in that war, the whole thing had been magnificent and genuinely "historical" - quite different from yesterday and today. Men and women had performed amazing deeds, suffered amazing hardships; the people all together had wept and laughed, swept off their feet by the heady events; strangers had embraced one another on the street; bravery and self-sacrifice had been self-evident. Heavens above! To have witnessed such times! None of the people we knew were heroes, neither the teachers who at certain times of year told us those inspiring stories nor our fathers and uncles, so many of whom had fought in that great, heroic war. But there must have been something in it, there were thick illustrated books, Bismarck´s picture hung in every living room, and each autumn Sedan Day was celebrated, the greatest holiday in the year.

Not until I was fifteen did this glow begin to pale for me. Then I began to doubt the venerable character of history, I refused to believe any longer that the men and nations of earlier times were different from those of today, that their lives had consisted not of everyday events but of scenes from grand opera. I knew it was our teachers´ duty to crush us as much as possible; they demanded virtues of us which they themselves did not possess, the history they set before us was a hoax devised by grownups in order to belittle us and keep us in our places. If I conceived such a frivolous, disrespectful view of history, there were reasons. Young people do not live by criticism or negations but by feelings and ideals. And something was stirring inside me that has persisted ever since: I was becoming distrustful of voices from outside, and the more official they were, the more I distrusted them. All in all, I was beginning to feel that what is really interesting and worthwhile, what can truly concern us, excite us, and give us fulfillment, is not outside us but within us. Of course I didn´t know this was true-but I felt it, and I began to read philosophy, to become a freethinker, to burrow my way into the poets - always with the obscure presentiment that this was my way, the way to myself, and that no other way was right for me or what I needed. I embarked on what Christians call "meditation" and psychoanalysts "introversion." I cannot say whether this way, this way of being and living, is better than any other; all I know is that for a religious man or a poet it is necessary, and that even if they want to and try very hard they will never become adept at what the official purveyors of wisdom of our day call "thinking historically."

For many years I was able to let the world run its course and conversely. For me what was taken seriously in the world and featured in speeches and editorials was mere sound and fury - while to the world what I did, what I took seriously and held sacred, was play and fancy. And this might have gone on. But then suddenly history turned up again! Suddenly editorialists, university professors, and high-school teachers proclaimed that once again history had crowded out everyday life, that a "great day" had dawned. We unworldly souls, writers and others, who shrugged our shoulders at history, and we men of religious mind, who warned our fellow citizens of the insane arrogance and terrifying insouciance of our leaders, were no longer harmless poets, objects of ridicule - we had become antipatriots, defeatists, and bellyachers, to cite only a few of the lovely new terms. We were denounced, we were blacklisted, we were deluged with venomous articles in the "right-thinking" press. We fared no better in our private lives. When in the spring of 1915 I asked a German friend what would be so dreadful about returning Alsaee to France under certain circumstances, he observed that he persona1ly forgave me my foibles but that I had better not say such things to anyone else if I wanted to keep my skull intact.

Everyone was still talking about the "greatness of the times," and I still failed to see it. Of course I understand why these times seemed great to a good many people. Thousands made their first contact with the soul, with some kind of inner life. Old maids who had been feeding poodles were caring for the wounded; in risking their lives, young men gained their flrst overpowering feeling of what life is. This is not to be sneezed at, there was a greatness in it - but only for those who thought historically and could speak of great times and paltry times. For the rest of us, the poets and religious-minded, who believed in God even on weekdays and were already familiar with the life of the soul, to us these times seemed no greater or less great than any others. Because, in our innermost heart and being, we lived outside the times.

And we feel the same way now that history is back on the playbill and grand opera is again being performed on the world stage. Much has been done that we ourselves desired - powers we regarded as diabolical have fallen, men whom we detested as evil and dangerous have left the scene.

And yet we are still unable to throw ourselves wholly into great events, to share in the intoxication of these new "great times." We feel the trembling of the earth, we share in the suffering of the victims, the poverty and the hunger, but neither in these sufferings nor in the red flags, new republics, and popular enthusiasms do we see true "greatness." Even today the one reality that we recognize and take a wholehearted interest in is the vital force in history, the flaring up of the divine. The Kaiser was our enemy, and yet we should have felt profound sympathy for him if he had managed to abdicate in a great and worthy manner. We feel inflnitely more love for the young soldier who went to his death with the wildest, blindest delusions about Fatherland and Emperor and regard him as infinitely more important than the intelligent democratic orator who calls him a fool. Democracy or monarchy, federal republic or federation of republics are all the same to us; what interests us is not the what but the how. We prefer a madman, who does a mad thing with his whole heart, to the professors who can be expected to kowtow to the new regime as spinelessly as yesterday they bowed down to princes and altars. We are all for a "transvaluation of all values" - but such a transvaluation can only be effected in our own hearts.

I hear the voices of those who attribute our ahistorical, nonpolitical attitude to the blass indifference of "intellectuals." They take us for penpushers, for whom war and revolution, death and life are mere words. Undoubtedly there are such men. But they have nothing in common with us. We are not unprincipled. True, we do not recognize "good" and "bad," right or left principles - but we distinguish two varieties of human being: those who try to live by their principles and those who carry them in their vest pockets. We do not regard as a shining example the German who, because he is faithful to the Kaiser and unable to live in a revolutionized world, takes his life in a spirit of romantic chivalry at the foot of a statue of William II; but we love him and understand him, whereas we despise the clever man who has already learned to speak the revolutionary smallprint as fluently as he formerly spoke the old patriotic smallprint.

What mighty things are happening today, how many hearts are beating once again with passionate devotion and hope! How immense are the possibilities! We eccentrics and preachers in the desert do not stand aloof, we are not indifferent, we do not look down from above - but to us, only what happens in human souls seems great. To us the conversion from faith in the Kaiser to democratic faith is in itself a mere change of flags. We wish that for many thousands of men it might be more!

Nowhere has the end of a four years´ war, marked only recently by the armistice on the western front, been celebrated. The celebrations have been on this side for the end of despotism, on the other side for victory. No one seems greatly excited over the fact that after four years of horror the senseless shooting has stopped. Strange world! Over what trifles, by comparison, people have started in once again to smash windowpanes and each other´s skulls!