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. TO PAUL VINOGRADOFF. THE WEST LODGE. _12 March, 1889._ Your long letter was very welcome. When I wrote I must have been in a bad temper and after I had written I wished to recall my letter. But now I no longer regret what has brought from you so pleasant an answer. Really I have no fear at all about the success of your book, if I had I would expatriate myself. But it stands thus:--Introductions are of "critical importance," by which I mean that they are of importance to critics, being often the only parts of a book which casual reviewers care to read. As a matter of prudence therefore I put into an Introduction a passage about the book which I mean critics to copy, and they catch the bait--it saves them trouble and mistakes. But your "philosophy of history," I mean philosophy of historiography, will not lend itself to such ready treatment and may give occasion to remarks as obvious and as foolish as mine were. But I hope for better things. All that you say about Stubbs and Seebohm and Maine is, I dare say, very true if you regard them as European, not merely English, phenomena and attribute to them a widespread significance--and doubtless it is very well that Englishmen should see this--still looking at England only and our insular ways of thinking I see Stubbs and Maine as two pillars of conservatism, while as to Seebohm I think that his book is as utterly devoid of political importance, as, shall I say Madox's _History of the Exchequer_? But you are cosmopolitan and I doubt not that you are right. You are putting things in a new light--that is all--if "the darkness comprehendeth it not," that is the darkness's fault. And now as to Essay I. I have nothing to withdraw or to qualify. I think it superb, by far the greatest thing done for English legal history. I am looking forward with the utmost anxiety to Essay II.