PREFACE
the 1909 Edition of the London Library's Catalogue, while the corresponding list under the heading Democracy numbers in all eighty-five volumes. When it is remembered that of the nine books above referred to four are purely partisan publications, no one will, I presume, venture to suggest that the author of a new book dealing with the Aristocrat and his life-principle need make half such a profound apologetic bow as he who would add one more volume to the eighty-five dealing with the other subject.
Anthony M. Ludovici.[1]
- ↑ The above, together with all the chapters that follow, was written at least a year before even the most prophetic amongst us could have had any premonition of the Great European War. Almost since the very beginning of the war I have been on active service, and not a line of the book has been altered. With regard to the relevancy of the work at the present juncture I feel that the message my book conveys has by no means been rendered superfluous by recent events. On the contrary, the fluid state that the beliefs, the hopes and the aspirations of the nation are likely to be in at the end of this long trial, allow me to hope that a work marking out so sharp and definite a point of view may not be altogether ineffectual in helping, however slightly, to mould and direct opinion, once we shall have begun to think of other things than submarines and Zeppelins.
A. M. L.
British Expeditionary Force,
France, April 1915.
x
