[200:1] A clever novel, "Three Women," by Miss Netta Syrett, gives an illuminating picture of modern womanhood.
[208:1] See I. Bloch, "Sexual History of our Times," pp. 320-322.
CONCLUSION
WITHOUT VISION
"Where there is no vision, the people perish."—Pro. xxix. 18.
I began this book on Armistice day, and am ending it on Peace day. This period of about eight months has been a time of great disillusionment. Even those little inclined to be deceived by the customary exaggerations of politicians, and little disposed to believe in sudden conversions, had hoped that the immense effort of this Great War was to awaken the deadened conscience of the world; to leave a permanent improvement in social and international relations; making class and individual and sex competition, as also national rivalry, a less pronounced feature in the new order; replacing greed by desire for service, war by a League of Nations to enforce justice. But a war of justice was followed by a peace of trickery and injustice. The victors (if not every one of them, still collectively) claimed their spoils as in earlier wars. Clemenceau's desire for vengeance triumphed over Wilson's principles in the center of the world stage.
More than ever we search the future with anxiety. Amid the confusions and compulsions, the changes unavoidable in this time of uncertainty, it is immensely more difficult to act wisely. In the old days it all seemed so much easier, as if life could be shuffled, like a pack of cards, into new arrangements. War has made a difference to the whole of life, shattered everything, as it were, in our hands, made the daily duties of most of us much harder. We have been robbed of serenity.
When you stand at the threshold of this new difficult world, knowing, as I do, that the milestones marking the backward path tell you, with certainty, that the greater part of your life and your work lies behind you, then, in these waiting days of urgency, you will want to hold a reckoning with yourself and with life, in humility to question everything, your own faith and what you have tried to teach to others with all the honesty you have.