Romain Rolland
Jean Christophe. Translated by Gilbert Cannan.
Rolland's "Christophe" is without doubt the most remarkable book that has appeared in Europe since Nietzsche's "Ecce Homo."
It is a profoundly suggestive treatise upon the relations between art and life. It contains a deep and heroic philosophy - the philosophy of the worship of the mysterious life-force as God; and of the reaching out beyond the turmoil of good and evil towards some vast and dimly articulated reconciliation. Since "Wilhelm Meister" no book has been written more valuable as an intellectual ladder to the higher levels of æsthetic thought and feeling.
Massive and dramatic, powerful and suggestive, it magnetizes us into an acceptance of its daring and optimistic hopes for the world; of its noble suggestions of a spiritual synthesis of the opposing racetraditions of Europe. Of all the books mentioned in this list it is the one which the compiler would most strongly recommend to the notice of those anxious to win a firmer intellectual standing-ground.