Читать книгу The Black Avons I - How They Fared in the Time of the Tudors - Edgar Wallace - Страница 4

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"HISTORIES," said Hare, "used often to be stories. The fashion now is to leave out the story."

I have not, I hope, in recording the doings of the Black Avons, sacrificed history for the sake of romance. A right reading of history frequently offers us a solution to our present-day problems. It is a truism that history repeats itself, and it is a curious fact that we can find parallels for almost every political and national situation of to-day, if we delve into the story of the past.

I have endeavoured in the course of these narratives, which comprise the history of a fictitious family, to be honest, not only in my conclusions, but honest also to myself. We live too near to the great events of the immediate past to understand properly the true significance of that terrible conflict which drew into the field of war the civilized nations of the earth. Many of us are blinded by prejudice and suspicion, and may have forgotten that the spectre of military Germany was the successor to one as hideous and as terrifying, the spectre of an armed France, bent to the will of Napoleon Bonaparte.

The day must come, sooner or later—and history supplies inexorable proofs—when there will be a change in the orientation, not only of British policy but in the policies of the great nations of Europe. War and peace are no longer the playthings of despots. The widespread of education to which a great band of men and women have devoted their lives, has largely paralysed political machinery and has substituted the intelligent reasoning of the masses. As the fate of great parties is in the hands of the educated mass, so is the question of peace and war.

This little book is an unpretentious effort to present in story form some of the factors which determined the growth of British dominion. It is necessarily incomplete since it was impossible that I could bring into a short story all the factors that went to the making of our history. My only hope is that the stories may interest the student and lead him into the field of research—a field which holds many treasures for the diligent seeker.

E. W.

The Black Avons I. Frontispiece