The Heart's Domain

By Georges Duhamel

This book is very much written from the heart of the author and describes his inner turmoil and feelings of hopelessness as the First World War raged. He describes the heart’s domain as the world and pleads that we should not let war so engulf us that we can think of nothing else.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sharp Ink
• Release date: Jun 16, 2022
• ISBN: 9788028203993

Book preview

Georges Duhamel

The Heart's Domain

Sharp Ink Publishing

2022

Contact: [e-mail]

ISBN 978-80-282-0399-3

Table of Contents

PREFACE

I THE HOPE OF HAPPINESS

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

II POVERTY AND RICHES

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

III THE POSSESSION OF OTHERS

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

IV ON DISCOVERING THE WORLD

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

V THE LYRICS OF LIFE

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

VI SORROW AND RENUNCIATION

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

VII THE SHELTER OF LIFE

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

IX

X

XI

VIII THE CHOICE OF THE GRACES

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

IX APOSTLESHIP

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

X ON THE REIGN OF THE HEART

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

IX

X

PREFACE

Table of Contents

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.

So, if I am spurred by an ambition, it is to beg the world to seek once more whatever can lighten the present and the future distress of mankind, to seek the springs of interest that exist for the soul in a life harassed with difficulties, perils and disillusionments, to honor more than ever the faithful and incorruptible resources of the inner life.

---

The inner life!

It has never ceased to shine, a precious, quivering flame, devoting all its ardor in a struggle against the breath of these great events, resisting this tempest which has had no parallel.

It has never ceased to shine, but its shy and faithful light trembles in a sort of crypt into which we fear to venture.

What has happened has seized upon us as upon its prey. During the first months of the war, during the first years perhaps, all our physical and moral energies were overwhelmed in this maelstrom. How, indeed, could one refuse oneself to the appetite of the monster? We did not even try to snatch from him our hours of leisure, our dreams. We simply abandoned such things, as we abandoned our plans, our welfare, and the whole of our existence.

You remember! It was a time when solitude found us more shaken, more disarmed, than peril. We reproached ourselves for distracting a single one of our thoughts from the universal distress. We gave ourselves day and night to this agonizing world; and when our work was suspended, when the wild beast unloosed its clutch, as if in play, and we returned for a few minutes to ourselves, we did not always dare to look the quivering inner flame in the face. What it lighted up in us seemed at times too foreign to our anxiety, or too filled with limpid serenity. And so we returned to our wretchedness, experiencing it to the point of intoxication, to the point of despair.

When I think of the year 1915, it seems to me that I still hear all those noble comrades saying to me with a sort of dejection: I can’t think of anything else! I can neither read, nor work, nor seek to distract myself to any purpose. When I’m off duty I think about these days, I think about them unceasingly, till I feel seasick, till I feel dizzy. I’ve just had two hours of liberty. Once upon a time I should have given them to Pascal or to Tolstoy. Today I have employed them in reading some documentary works on the manufacture of torpedoes and on European colonial methods. They are subjects that will always be outside my line, subjects I shall never be interested in. But how can I think of anything else?

Perhaps it is not a question of thinking of anything else. It is not a question of turning one’s back on the time, but rather of looking it in the face, calmly and collectedly.

When the first great excitement had passed away, those who had the wisdom and the courage to return assiduously to themselves found their inner life ennobled, augmented, enriched. For it does not cease to labor on in the depths of us. It is at once ourselves and something other than ourselves, better than ourselves. Like certain of our organs which are endowed with a marvelous independence and pursue a vigilant activity in the midst of our agitations and our sleep, the inner life comes to its fruitage even though we are full of ingratitude and indifference towards it. It is the faithful spouse who keeps the home radiant, arranges every comfort and spins at the wheel, behind the door, awaiting our return.

And behold we are returning!

To be sure, the storm still roars on. It grows greater, more furious, more unending. Never has it seemed more complex, more grave, more difficult. Peril has taken up its abode with us. Every sort of opinion holds up its head and vehemently solicits our belief.

But we have found once more the key and the path to the secret refuge. Nothing could turn us aside now. Nothing could prevent us at certain hours from plunging into solitude, there to find again the equilibrium, the harmony and those moral riches which we know, after the ruin of so many things, are alone efficacious, alone durable.

For long months now I have realized, watching the men with whom I live, that they are waiting for words of quietude, words of rest and love. They are like parched soil at the end of a blazing summer: they long to slake their thirst and grow green again.

In vain have destruction, disorder and death tried to break up the sublime and familiar colloquy that every being pursues with the better part of himself. That colloquy revives, it begins again, in the very midst of the battle, among the odors and the groans of the hospital.

Nevertheless, the daily work is done, well done; duty is properly weighed and accomplished; the soul simply is unwilling any longer to renounce its meditation upon all that is profound, imperishable, and immaterial in the present.

Tell me that we are going to labor in concert once more at the exploitation of our inner fortune. Tell me that we are going to labor to save from shipwreck that part of us which, in spite of all our errors, uncertainties, crimes and disillusionments, remains truly noble and worthy of eternity.

---

I am able to undertake this essay thanks to the leisure moments the war has been willing to grant me. It is not purely the fruit of solitary meditations. I do not live alone: my chosen comrades surround me; they share with me the confused space of our dwelling; we share together all the thoughts that fill this space.

Friendship has accomplished the miracle of transforming into a communion what, without it, would have remained a promiscuity.

I have a feeling that I am expressing the desires and the thoughts of many men. Very soon, those who are here will be going to sleep; I shall continue my writing, but with the secret certitude of not being alone in the task, of carrying with me their tacit assent. I feel that I have been entrusted with a sort of mandate.

I have no library, no documents. But do we need books in order to converse together of the things that form the very substance of our existence? Does it not suffice to consult our souls? Do we need any other guarantee than our devout desire in order to lift an open hand and make, for all those who await it in their solitude, the sign of concord and of hope?

THE HEART’S DOMAIN

THE HEART’S DOMAIN

I

THE HOPE OF HAPPINESS

Table of Contents

I

Table of Contents

It was necessary for me to pass middle age in order to become convinced that happiness was the object of my life, as it is the object of all humanity, as it is the object of the whole world of living things.

At first sight, that statement seems self-evident. And yet many a time have I questioned my friends, my relatives, my chance companions on this subject and I have received the most contradictory replies.

Many seemed taken unawares and, overwhelmed with their various burdens, would not trouble to seek an object: they were in pursuit of happiness without naming it. Others, excited by the play of argument, acknowledged as the object of life all sorts of states or manners of being which are nothing but steps toward happiness, means good or bad of seeking it, such as movement, stoical indifference, or prayer. Others confused the end with the object and named death. Still others, maddened by their misery, gave it as their bitter conclusion that unhappiness is the actual destiny of man, and these confused the obstacle with the aim. Finally, there were some who gave to happiness names dictated by their aspirations, their culture, their accustomed manner of using words, and called it God, or eternal life, or the salvation of the soul.

As for me, in spite of all, I am sure that happiness is the object of life. This certitude has come to me altogether from within, not from outside events, and not from the spectacle of other men. Like all the certitudes of the inner life, it is obstinate and even aggressive. All objections seem simply made to fortify it. It dominates them all. I have not been able even to imagine a new certitude that could invalidate or replace this one.

Upon reflection, the path and the end are identical. Happiness is not only the aim, the reason of life, it is its means, its expression, its essence. It is life itself.

II

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One might well doubt this. The whole of humanity at this moment utters one despairing, heart-rending cry. It bellows like a wounded beast of burden, it simply does not understand its wound.

All convictions and all certitudes are at one another’s throats. How can we recognize them, with that lost look they have, that blood that soils and disfigures them? In the hurricane, opinions, uprooted, have lost their soil and their sap. They drift like autumn thistles, dry thistles that yet have power to tear the skin. Men no longer know anything but their insurmountable suffering, a suffering that has no limit and seems to be without reason. They groan and desire nothing but to be alleviated. Will a century of pious tenderness suffice to bathe, drain, close the vast wound?

Without delay, O streaming wound, your living flesh must be stanched and bathed. From now on, no matter how long you bleed, you must be anointed and protected, and if you are opened up again ten times, ten times must you be anointed anew and covered once more.

Yet, do not doubt it, humanity even in this terrible hour seeks for nothing but its own happiness. It rushes forward, by instinct, like a herd that smells the salt-lick and the spring. But it will suffocate rather than not enjoy everything together and at once.

Happiness?

God! who has given it this painful and ridiculous idea? What were they about, the priests, the scientists, and the people who write the books? What has been taught the children of men that they could have been made to believe that war brings happiness to anyone? Let them declare themselves, those who have assured the poor in spirit that their happiness depends upon the possession of a province, an iron-mine, or a foaming arm of the sea between two distant continents!

It is thus that they have all set out for