i INTRO D UCTOR Y 5

Spirit of the PitiesWhy prompts the Will so senseless-shaped a doing ?

Spirit of the Years

I have told thee that It works unwittingly,As one possessed not judging.

In Paris , where those connected with the SupremeEconomic Council received almost hourly the reportsof the misery, disorder, and decaying organisation ofall Central and Eastern Europe , allied and enemyalike, and learnt from the lips of the financialrepresentatives of Germany and Austria unanswer-able evidence of the terrible exhaustion of theircountries, an occasional visit to the hot, dry roomin the President's house, where the Four fulfilledtheir destinies in empty and arid intrigue, onlyadded to the sense of nightmare. Yet there inParis the problems of Europe were terrible andclamant, and an occasional return to the vast un-concern of London a little disconcerting. For inLondon these questions were very far away, andour own lesser problems alone troubling. London believed that Paris was making a great confusionof its business, but remained uninterested. In thisspirit the British people received the Treaty withoutreading it. But it is under the influence of Paris ,not London , that this book has been written by onewho, though an Englishman, feels himself a European