These thoughts and feelings (often inconsistent and
contradictory to each other), stupid or careless, or ill-willed persons,
have represented as my own opinions, having, as it seems to me, turned
the book upside down before they began to read it. I am bound to pay the
working men, and their organs in the press, the compliment of saying that
no such misrepresentations proceeded from them. However deeply some of
them may have disagreed with me, all of them, as far as I have been able
to judge, had sense to see what I meant; and so, also, have the organs of
the High-Church party, to whom, differing from them on many points, I am
equally bound to offer my thanks for their fairness. But, indeed, the way
in which this book, in spite of its crudities, has been received by persons
of all ranks and opinions, who instead of making me an offender for a
word, have taken the book heartily and honestly, in the spirit and not in
the letter, has made me most hopeful for the British mind, and given me
a strong belief that, in spite of all foppery, luxury, covetousness, and
unbelief, the English heart is still strong and genial, able and willing
to do and suffer great things, as soon as the rational way of doing and
suffering them becomes plain.
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