To Paul Vinogradoff.
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.