TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES In the plain text version words in Italics are denoted by _underscores_. The book cover was modified by the Transcriber and has been added to the public domain. A number of words in this book have both hyphenated and non-hyphenated variants. For the words with both variants present the one more used has been kept. Obvious punctuation and other printing errors have been corrected. * * * * * THE HEART’S DOMAIN BY GEORGES DUHAMEL Author of “CIVILIZATION, 1914-1917,” etc. TRANSLATED BY ELEANOR STIMSON BROOKS [Illustration] NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO. 1919 Copyright, 1919, by THE CENTURY CO. _Published, September, 1919_ TO MY SON BERNARD PREFACE I am beginning a book with what sounds like a very ambitious title. I wish to say at once that I have no qualifications to discuss political, historical or economic matters. I leave to the scholars who are versed in these redoubtable questions the task of explaining, skilfully and definitely, the great misery that has befallen our time. I thus at the same time renounce most of the opportunities and obligations of my title. But I wish, with all my heart, to pursue with a few people of good will a friendly discussion the object of which remains, in spite of all, the heart’s domain, or the possession of the world. The possession of the world is not decided by guns. It is the noble work of peace. It is not involved in the struggle which is now rending society. Even so, men will find themselves engaged in an undertaking that will threaten to overwhelm them with suffering and despair. Fate has assigned to me during the war a place and a task of such a character that misery has been the only thing I have seen; it has been my study and my enemy every moment. I must be forgiven for thinking of it with a persistence that is like an obsession. The whole intelligence of the world is absorbed by the enterprise and the necessities of the war; there is little chance of rousing it now from this in favor of the happiness of the race, in favor of that happiness which is compromised for the future and destroyed for the present. It is to the heart one must address oneself. It is to all the generous hearts that one must make one’s appeal.