being crushed him.' Crushed! Not in the least, my dear sir. [The original is delightfully apt Nullement écrasé, cher monsieur!] I have never felt so alert and combative as at the present moment. I am merely gagged! It is quite impossible now for me to make public my ideas, because they are too liberal. During the past two years of the war I have written an Aristophanic, satirico-poetic comedy on the events of the day, called L’Âne de Buridan. I am writing two novels, likewise inspired by present-day events and dealing with characters of the epoch. One is a 'novel of meditation' entitled L’Un contre tous. Many Swiss papers have published extracts from it, though it is not yet complete. The other is a novel of young love.
"'Add to these a Rabelaisian novel, the hero of which, a native of Burgundy, like myself; gives his name to the book: Colas Brugnon. This is finished, and was even printed in July, 1914; it awaits publication in the office of Ollendorff, my Paris publisher, until the end of the war, for I am loath to have its gaiety made public amid the sorrows of the present time. And, finally, I am writing numerous literary and philosophical articles, as well as essays on current events. These appear in the Swiss magazines—which do not reach America. Whatever the value of these various efforts, you will agree, when you read them, that the war has not in the least depressed me. On the contrary, my ideas differ from those current nowadays, but that
