Maxim Gorki answered as follows:—
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 the background of the life of Athens?
Most penetrating are your observations on the question of a life of Moses. I am entirely with you as far as concerns the disorganising influence which religious fanaticism exercises upon life. But I choose Moses simply as a social reformer. This will be the theme of his biography. I had thought of Joan of Arc. But I am afraid that the treatment of this topic would lead the writer to talk of "the mystical soul of the people," and of similar matters, which pass my understanding, and which are particularly unwholesome for Russians.
The life of Francis of Assisi is another story. It would be excellent, it would be extremely useful, if the writer of this biography were to aim at displaying the profound difference between Francis of Assisi and the holy men of the east, the saints of Russia. The east is pessimist; it is passive. The Russian saints do not love life; they repudiate it and execrate it. Francis is an epicure of
