Endnotes

1. 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.” ↩

2. Leopardi. ↩

3. “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.” ↩

4. 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. ↩

5. “It is from the North that our light comes today.”

   —⁠Voltaire

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6. “Whose suffering will endure to the world’s end.”

   —⁠Pascal

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