This book is to be published while the great issues that now divide the world remain undecided. As yet, and for some time to come, the world must be one of doubt. It must as yet be suspended equally between hope and fear.
It is likely that I shall die before the issue is decided – I do not know whether my last words should be:
The bright day is done
And we are for the dark,
or, as I sometimes allow myself to hope,
The world’s great age begins anew,
The golden years return. . . .
Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam,
Like wrecks of a dissolving dream.
I have done what I could to add my small weight in an attempt to tip the balance on the side of hope, but it has been a puny effort against vast forces.
May others succeed where my generation failed.引自 序
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