There were few thoughtful men during that phase of
blazing waste who did not pass through such moods of despair as Barnet
describes, and declare with him: 'This is the end....'
And all the while Leblanc was going to and fro with glittering glasses
and an inexhaustible persuasiveness, urging the manifest reasonableness
of his view upon ears that ceased presently to be inattentive. Never at
any time did he betray a doubt that all this chaotic conflict would end.
No nurse during a nursery uproar was ever so certain of the inevitable
ultimate peace. From being treated as an amiable dreamer he came by
insensible degrees to be regarded as an extravagant possibility. Then he
began to seem even practicable. The people who listened to him in 1958
with a smiling impatience, were eager before 1959 was four months old
to know just exactly what he thought might be done. He answered with the
patience of a philosopher and the lucidity of a Frenchman. He began to
receive responses of a more and more hopeful type. He came across
the Atlantic to Italy, and there he gathered in the promises for this
congress. He chose those high meadows above Brissago for the reasons we
have stated. 'We must get away,' he said, 'from old associations.' He
set to work requisitioning material for his conference with an assurance
that was justified by the replies.
Pages:
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148