Lesbia Newman (1889)/preface
PREFACE.
Should coming events not tally in every minute particular with the forecast incidental to the following pages, the reader will perhaps make allowance. Historians are not always quite agreed even as to the past; in writing the history of the future, the difficulties are obvious. It is curious, nevertheless, that although the rough copy of this work was written about five years ago, political affairs seem to be tending in the direction of its partial realisation.
But the characters are all fictitious, and therefore reflect upon no one. They are but ‘shadows passing through the gloom’ toward that light and hope of the world which cannot be reached by secular reforms alone, however thorough. For to raise woman and, at the same time, to depress the religious sentiment in mankind, is contradictory. Her elevation is the essence of religion itself, and will presumably be the better accomplished, the greater the prestige of the community which shall be called to the work. The fact that there exists one of ancient renown, already in some measure committed to, and pre-eminently fitted for, it, is patent indeed, but is not conclusive in favour of that one. The prize is open to all—detur digniori.
The author has done his best to make the book readable, but it is addressed to mature and earnest minds which care for something more than mere frothy sensation and amusement; the story being simply a vehicle, of no account in itself, but only in the single purpose it conveys, namely, uncompromising advocacy of the rights of women, and of their training for exercise of their rights. All else is beside the mark.