PREFACE

Here are collected the croakings of twelve years—the croakings of a Cassandra who could neverinfluence the course of events in time. Thevolume might have been entitled “Essays inProphecy and Persuasion,” for the Prophecy, un-fortunately, has been more successful than thePersuasion. But it was in a spirit of persuasionthat most of these essays were written, in anattempt to influence opinion. They were re-garded at the time, many of them, as extremeand reckless utterances. But I think that thereader, looking through them to-day, will admitthat this was because they often ran directlycounter to the overwhelming weight of con-temporary sentiment and opinion, and not be-cause of their character in themselves. On thecontrary, I feel—reading them again, though Iam a prejudiced witness—that they containmore understatement than overstatement, asjudged by after-events. That this should betheir tendency, is a natural consequence of thecircumstances in which they were written. For