MESSRS. METHUEN announce the issue at Is. net of a series of popular books, both Fiction and General Literature, by distinguished authors. The books are reprinted in handy form-fcap. 8voon good paper, and they are tastefully bound in cloth. The first volumes, either ready or in the press, are: Marie Corelli Stanley Weyman Lady Betty across the Water C. N. & A. M. Williamson E. Temple Thurston Peggy Webling Robert Hichens Louise Gerard Arthur Morrison E. Phillips Oppenheim Methuen & Co. Ltd., 36 Essex Street, London, W.C. WHETHER IN GENERAL WE ARE GETTING ON, AND IF SO WHERE WE ARE GOING TO "-RUSKIN SINTH EDITION METHUEN & CO. LTD. 36 ESSEX STREET W,C. 914.2 501218 First Published (Fifth edition), at rs. net, November 2nd, 1911 Sixth Edition December 1911 "I'VE PREFACE VE got to a time of Efe," says the team ff a modern novel, "when the only deres fac interest me are generalisations about realmes' Dice are many contemporary observers wic is act repre advancing years and a wider experence of iet concentrate them upon so serious a study. 10 that they deliberately turn towards cousćezacon if the meaning and progress of the actual i around them. It is that they cannot-with the best feste in the world—escape from such an encompassing problem. To those the only question beiors den is the present: the past but fursing nama through which that present can rightly be interpreet the future appearing as a present with a Lyng towards them-impatient to be born. They at fr fact; not make-believe. With Thorean, Be I He or death," they will cry, "We crave only sity. we are really dying, let us hear the fame i sur throats and feel cold in the extremities; ima alive, let us go about our business.” The following pages offer an attice some of these "realities" in the life of contengstay England. The effort might appear presung demanding not one volume but tem, the observanos, not of a decade, but of a lifetime. I would pisser however, that any contribution may help in wome degree the work of others in a more far-reading and detailed survey. The right judgment of such an attempt should be directed not at its compierna, but its sincerity. In my former work as a crite and reviewer it was this test alone that I sought to apply |