Endnotes
This Introduction was published in the Swiss newspapers in December, 1917, with an episode of the novel and a note explaining the original title, L’Un contre Tous. “This somewhat ironical name was suggested—with a difference—by La Boëtie’s Le Contr’ Un; but it must not be supposed that the author entertained the extravagant idea of setting one man in opposition to all others; he only wishes to summon the personal conscience to the most urgent conflict of our time, the struggle against the herd-spirit.” ↩
Leopardi. ↩
“Simon and I then understood our hatred of strangers and barbarians, and our egotism, in which we included ourselves and our entire small moral family.—The first care of him who would wish to live must be to surround himself with high walls; but even in his closed garden he must introduce only those who are guided by the same feelings, and interests analogous to his own.”
—A Free Man
In three lines, three times, this “free man” expresses the idea of “shutting-up,” “closing,” and “surrounding with walls.” ↩
Reference to ʻAbduʻl-Bahá, at present the head of the Babists or Bahaists. He was at that time a prisoner at St. Jean d’Acre. See Lessons of St. Jean d’Acre, by ʻAbduʻl-Bahá, collected by Laura Clifford Barney. ↩
“It is from the North that our light comes today.”
—Voltaire
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“Whose suffering will endure to the world’s end.”
—Pascal
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