_20 Feb. 1889._
You ask me about the Preface[17]--well I think it grand work, and
on the whole I think it will attract readers because of its very
strangeness; but you will let me say that it will seem strange to
English readers, this attempt to connect the development of historical
study with the course of politics; and it leads you into what will
be thought paradoxes; e.g. it so happens that our leading "village
communists" Stubbs and Maine are men of the most conservative type
while Seebohm who is to mark conservative reaction is a thorough
liberal. I am not speaking of votes at the polling booth but of radical
and essential habits of mind. I think that you hardly allow enough for
a queer twist of the English mind which would make me guess that the
English believer in "free village communities" would very probably be a
conservative--I don't mean a Tory or an aristocrat, but a conservative.
On the other hand with us the man who has the most splendid hopes for
the masses is very likely to see in the past nothing but the domination
of the classes--of course this is no universal truth--but it comes in
as a disturbing element.