[Illustration: H. G. WELLS]

H. G. WELLSByJ. D. BERESFORD

[Illustration]

NEW YORKHENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

_First Published in 1915_

CONTENTS

 PAGE

 I. INTRODUCTION 9 II. THE ROMANCES 17III. THE NOVELS 58 IV. SOCIOLOGY 97 BIBLIOGRAPHY 117 AMERICAN BIBLIOGRAPHY 121 INDEX 125

[Transcriber's Notes for e-book:

The spelling and punctuation are consistent with the original scanswith the following exceptions. If you are using this book for research, pleaseverify any spelling or punctuation with another source. 

I added ["] at end of phrase: "to recover the full-bodiedself-satisfaction of his early days. "

In the following sentence, I changed 'succeded' to 'succeeded': AndBensington, the other experimenter, succeeded in separating a foodthat produced regular instead of intermittent growth. ]

TOR. A. A. B. THIS ESSAY IS FRATERNALLYDEDICATED

I

INTRODUCTION

THE NORMALITY OF MR WELLS

In his Preface to the _Unpleasant Plays_, Mr Shaw boasts hispossession of "normal sight. " The adjective is the oculist's, and theapplication of it is Mr Shaw's, but while the phrase is misleadinguntil it is explained to suit a particular purpose, it has a pleasingadaptability, and I can find none better as a key to the works of MrH. G. Wells. 

We need not bungle over the word "normal, " in any attempt to meet theacademic objection that it implies conformity to type. In thisconnection, the gifted possessor of normal sight is differentiatedfrom his million neighbours by the fact that he wears no glasses; andif a few happy people still exist here and there who have no need forthe mere physical assistance, the number of those whose mental outlookis undistorted by tradition, prejudice or some form of bias is sosmall that we regard them as inspired or criminal according to theinclination of our own beloved predilection. And no spectacles willcorrect the mental astigmatism of the multitude, a fact that is oftena cause of considerable annoyance to the possessors of normal sight. That defect of vision, whether congenital or induced by theconfinements of early training, persists and increases throughoutlife, like other forms of myopia. The man who sees a ball as slightlyflattened, like a tangerine orange too tightly packed (an "oblatespheroid" would be the physicist's brief description), seeks thesociety of other men who share his illusion; and the company of themtake arms against the opposing faction, which is confirmed in thebelief that the ball is egg-shaped, that the bulge, in fact, is not"oblate" but "prolate. "

I will not elaborate the parable; it is sufficient to indicate that inmy reading of Mr Wells, I have seen him as regarding all life from areasonable distance. By good fortune he avoided the influences of hisearly training, which was too ineffectual to leave any permanent markupon him. His readers may infer, from certain descriptions in _Kipps_, and _The History of Mr Polly_, that Wells himself sincerely regretsthe inadequacies of that "private school of dingy aspect and stilldingier pretensions, where there were no object lessons, and thestudies of book-keeping and French were pursued (but never effectuallyovertaken) under the guidance of an elderly gentleman, who wore anondescript gown and took snuff, wrote copperplate, explained nothing, and used a cane with remarkable dexterity and gusto. " But, properlyconsidered, that inadequate elderly gentleman may be regarded as ourbenefactor. If he had been more apt in his methods, he might haveinfluenced the blessed normality of his pupil, and bound upon him thespectacles of his own order. Worse still, Mr Wells might have beenborn into the leisured classes, and sent to Eton and Christchurch, andif his genius had found any expression after that awful experience, hewould probably, at the best, have written polite essays or a historyof Napoleon, during the intervals of his leisured activity as a memberof the Upper House. 

Happily, Fate provided a scheme for preserving his eyesight, andpitched him into the care of Mr and Mrs Joseph Wells on the 21stSeptember 1866; behind or above a small general shop in Bromley. MrsWells was the daughter of an innkeeper at Midhurst and had been inservice as a lady's maid before her marriage. Joseph Wells had had amore distinguished career. He had been a great Kent bowler in theearly sixties, and it must have been, I think, only the year beforethe subject of our essay appeared at Bromley that his father took fourwickets with consecutive balls and created a new record in the annalsof cricket. The late Sir Francis Galton might have made something outof this ancestry; I must confess that it is entirely beyond my powers, although I make the reservation that we know little of the abilitiesof H. G. Wells' mother. She has not figured as a recognisable portraitin any of his novels. 

The Bromley shop, like most of its kind, was a failure. Moderatesuccess might have meant a Grammar School for young Wells, and thetemptations of property, but Fate gave our young radical another twistby thrusting him temporarily within sight of an alien and magnificentprosperity, where as the son of the housekeeper at Up Park, nearPetersfield, he might recognise his immense separation from themembers of the ruling class, as described in _Tono-Bungay_. 

After that came "the drapery, " first at Windsor and then at Southsea;but we have no autobiography of this period, only the details of thetrade and its circumstances. For neither Hoopdriver, nor Kipps, norPolly could have qualified for the post of assistant at MidhurstGrammar School, a position that H. G. Wells obtained at sixteen afterhe had broken his indentures with the Southsea draper. 

At this point we come up with Mr Lewisham, and may follow him in hisexperiences after he obtained what was, in fact, a scholarship at theNormal School of Science, South Kensington; but we drop that heroagain before his premature marriage and failure, to follow theuncharted course of Wells obtaining his B. Sc. With first-classhonours; passing to an assistant-mastership at the Henley HouseSchool, St John's Wood, and so coming by way of tutor, lecturer anddemonstrator to the beginnings of journalism, to the breaking of ablood-vessel and thence, without further diversion, to the trade ofletters, somewhere in the summer of 1893. 

I lave taken as my text the normality of Mr Wells, on theunderstanding that I shall define the essential term as I will; andthis brief outline of his early experiences may help to show, _interalia_, that he viewed life from many angles before he wastwenty-seven. That he had the capacity so to see life was either alucky accident or due to some untraceable composition of heredity. That he kept his power was an effect of his casual education. He wasfortunate enough to escape training in his observation of the sphere. 

Persistent repetition will finally influence the young mind, howevergifted, and if Mr Wells had been subject to the discipline of what maybe called an efficient education, he might have seen his sphere at theage of twenty-seven as slightly flattened--whether it appeared oblateor prolate is no consequence--and I could not have crowned him withthe designation that heads this Introduction. 

He is, in fact, normal just in so far as his gift of vision wasundistorted by the precepts and dogmas of his parents, teachers andearly companions. 

II

THE ROMANCES

Mr Wells' romances have little or nothing in common with those ofJules Verne, not even that peculiar quality of romance which revels inthe impossible. The heroes of Jules Verne were idealised creaturesmaking use of some wonderful invention for their own purposes; and thefuture of mankind was of no account in the balance against the lustfor adventure under new mechanical conditions. Also, Jules Verne'simagination was at the same time mathematical and Latin; and he wasentirely uninfluenced by the writings of Comte. 

Mr Wells' experiments with the relatively improbable have becomeincreasingly involved with the social problem, and it would bepossible to trace the growth of his opinions from this evidence alone, even if we had not the valuable commentary afforded by his novels andhis essays in sociology. But his interest in the present and futurewelfare of man would not in the first place have prompted him to thewriting of romance (unless it had been cast in the severelyallegorical form of _The Pilgrim's Progress_), and if we are toaccount for that ebullition, we shall be driven--like Darwin with hisconfounding peacock--to take refuge in some theory of exuberance. Thelater works have been so defensive and, in one sense, didactic thatone is apt to forget that many of the earlier books, and all the shortstories, must have originated in the effervescence of creativeimagination. 

Mr Wells must, also, have been slightly intoxicated by the firsteffects of reaction. A passage from _The Future in America_ exhibitshim somewhat gleefully reviving thoughts of the prison-house, and Iquote it in order to account for his first exercises in prophecy by astudy of contrasts. "I remember, " he writes, "that to me in my boyhoodspeculation about the Future was a monstrous joke. Like most people ofmy generation, I was launched into life with millennial assumptions. This present sort of thing, I believed, was going on for a time, interesting personally, perhaps, but as a whole inconsecutive, andthen--it might be in my lifetime or a little after it--there would betrumpets and shoutings and celestial phenomena, a battle ofArmageddon, and the Judgment. .. . To talk about the Man of the yearMillion was, of course, in the face of this great conviction, awhimsical play of fancy. The year Million was just as impossible, justas gaily nonsensical as fairyland. .. . "

The imprisoning bottle was opened when he became a student of biology, under Huxley, and the liquid of his suppressed thought began tobubble. He prefaced his romances by a sketch in the old _Pall MallGazette_, entitled _The Man of the Year Million_, an a priori studythat made one thankful for one's prematurity. After that physiologicalpiece of logic, however, he tried another essay in evolution, published in 1895 in book form under the title of _The TimeMachine_--the first of his romances. 

The machine itself is the vaguest of mechanical assumptions; a thingof ivory, quartz, nickel and brass that quite illogically carries itsrider into an existing past or future. We accept the machine as aliterary device to give an air of probability to the essential thing, the experience; and forget the means in the effect. The criterion ofthe prophecy in this case is influenced by the theory of "naturalselection. " Mr Wells' vision of the "Sunset of Mankind" was of men sonearly adapted to their environment that the need for struggle, withits corollary of the extermination of the unfit, had practicallyceased. Humanity had become differentiated into two races, bothrecessive; one, the Eloi, a race of childlike, simple, delicatecreatures living on the surface of a kindly earth; the other, theMorlocks, a more active but debased race, of bestial habits, who livedunderground and preyed cannibalistically on the surface-dwellers whomthey helped to preserve, as a man may preserve game. The Eloi, according to the hypothesis of the Time Traveller, are the descendantsof the leisured classes; the Morlocks of the workers. "The Eloi, likethe Carlovingian kings, had decayed to a mere beautiful futility. Theystill possessed the earth on sufferance; since the Morlocks, subterranean for innumerable generations, had come at last to find theday-lit surface intolerable. And the Morlocks made their garments, Iinferred, and maintained them in their habitual needs perhaps throughthe survival of an old habit of service. " All this is in the year802, 701 A. D. 

The prophecy is less convincing than the wonderful sight of thedeclining earth some million years later, sinking slowly into thedying fires of the worn-out sun. Man and the vertebrates havedisappeared, and the highest wonder of animal life is represented bygiant crustaceans, which in turn give way to a lower form. We have avision of an involution that shall succeed the highest curve ofdevelopment; of life ending where it began in the depths of the sea, as the initial energy of the solar system is dissipated and thematerial of it returns to rest at the temperature of the absolutezero. And the picture is made more horrible to the imaginative by thewonder whether the summit of the evolutionary curve has not alreadybeen reached--or it may be passed in the days of the Greekphilosophers. 

_The Time Machine_, despite certain obvious faults of imagination andstyle, is a brilliant fantasy; and it affords a valuable picture ofthe young Wells looking at the world, with his normal eyes, andfinding it, more particularly, incomplete. At the age of twenty-sevenor so, he has freed himself very completely from the bonds ofconventional thought, and is prepared to examine, and to present lifefrom the detached standpoint of one who views it all from arespectable distance; but who is able, nevertheless--an essentialqualification--to enter life with all the passion and generosity ofhis own humanity. 

And in _The Wonderful Visit_--published in the same year as _The TimeMachine_--he comes closer to earth. That ardent ornithologist, theRev. K. Hilyer, Vicar of Siddermouth, who brought down an angel with ashot-gun, is tenderly imagined; a man of gentle mind, for all thelimitations of his training. The mortalised angel, on the other hand, is rather a tentative and simple creature. He may represent, perhaps, the rather blank mind of one who sees country society without havinghad the inestimable privilege of learning how it came about. Histemperament was something too childlike--without the child'sbrutality--to investigate the enormous complexities of adjustment thathad brought about the conditions into which he was all too suddenlyplunged by a charge of duck-shot. He came and was filled with aninalterable perplexity, but some of his questions were too ingenuous;and while we may sympathise with the awful inertia of Hilyer beforethe impossible task of explaining the inexplicable differences betweenmortal precept and mortal practice, we feel that we might, in somecases at least, have made a more determined effort. We might havefound some justification for chairs, by way of instance, andcertainly an excuse for raising beds above the floor. But the woundedangel, like the metal machine, is only a device whereby the searchingexamination of our author may be displayed in an engrossing andintimate form. And in _The Wonderful Visit_, that exuberance wepostulated, that absorption in the development of idea, is moremarked; in the unfolding of the story we can trace the method of thenovelist. 

Indeed, the three romances that follow discover hardly a trace of thesocial investigator. _The Island of Dr Moreau_, _The Invisible Man_and _The War of the Worlds_ are essays in pure fantasy, and althoughthe first of the three is influenced by biology I class itunhesitatingly among the works of sheer exuberance. Each of thesebooks is, in effect, an answer to some rather whimsical question, andthe problem that Dr Moreau attempted to solve was: "Can we, bysurgery, so accelerate the evolutionary process as to make man out ofa beast in a few days or weeks?" And within limits he found that theanswer was: "Yes. "

In the seclusion of his island, and with the poor assistance of theoutlawed medical student, Montgomery, Dr Moreau succeeded in producingsome creditable parodies of humanity by his operations on pigs, bulls, dogs and other animals. These cut and remoulded creatures hadsomething the appearance and intelligence of Homo Sapiens, and couldbe maintained at that level by the exercise of discipline and theconstant recital of "the Law"; left to themselves they graduallyreverted to the habits and manners of the individual beasts out ofwhich they had been carved. We may infer that some subtle organicchemistry worked its determination upon their uncontrolled wills, butMr Wells offers no explanation, psychic, chemical or biological, andI do not think that he intended any particular fable beyond theevident one that, physically, one species is as like to the next asmakes no matter. What Moreau did well another man might have donebetter. It is a good story, and the adventures of the maroonedPrendick, alone, are sufficient justification for the originalconception. (I feel bound to note, however, the absurd comments ofsome early reviewers who seemed to imagine that the story was adefence of vivisection. )

The next romance (1897) seeks to answer the question: "What could aman do if he were invisible?" Various attempts to answer that questionhad been made by other writers, but none of them had come to it withMr Wells' practical grasp of the real problem; the earlier romanticshad not grappled with the necessity for clothes and the various waysin which a material man, however indistinguishable his body by oursense of sight, must leave traces of his passage. The study frombeginning to end is finely realistic; and even the theory of thealbino, Griffin, and in a lesser degree his method of winning theuseless gift of invisibility, are convincing enough to make us wonderwhether the thing is not scientifically possible. As a pure romanceset in perfectly natural surroundings, _The Invisible Man_ is possiblythe high-water mark of Mr Wells' achievement in this kind. He hasperfected his technique, and the interest in the development of thestory works up steadily to the splendid climax, when the form of theberserker Griffin returns to visibility, his hands clenched, his eyeswide open, and on his face an expression of "anger and dismay, " theelements--as I choose to think--of man's revolt against imprisonmentin the flesh. It is worth while to note that by another statement, thesame problem is posed and solved in the short story called _TheCountry of the Blind_. 

_The War of the Worlds_ (1898), although written in the first person, is in some ways the most detached of all these fantasies; and it is inthis book that Mr Wells frankly confesses his own occasional sense ofseparation. "At times, " says the narrator of the history, "I sufferfrom the strangest sense of detachment from myself and the world aboutme, I seem to watch it all from the outside, from somewhereinconceivably remote, out of time, out of space, out of the stress andtragedy of it all. " That sense must have remained with him as he wrotethe account of the invading Martians, so little passion does the bookcontain. The vision, however, is clear enough and there is moreinvention than in many of the other romances. The picture of theMartians themselves develops in one direction the theory of humanevolution expressed in _The Man of the Year Million_. The expansionof the brain case, and the apotheosis of pure intellect, devoid, sofar as we can judge, of any emotional expression, are the steadilybiological deductions that we should expect from the Wells of thisperiod. The fighting machines of these incomprehensible entities, theheat ray and the black smoke, are all excellent conceptions; and thenarrative is splendidly graphic. But only in the scenes with thecurate, when the narrator is stirred to passionate anger, and in hislater passages with the sapper, do we catch any glimpses of thenovelist intrigued with the intimate affairs of humanity. Even thenarrator's brother, in his account of the escape with two women in apony-carriage, has become infected with that sense of detachment. Thetwo women are strongly differentiated but leave little impression ofpersonality. 

The fact that I have made this comment on lack of passion indescribing one of these earlier romances is indicative of a particulardifference between Mr Wells' method in this sort and the method of thelesser writer of fantasias. The latter, whatever his idea, and it maybe a brilliant idea, is always intent on elaborating the wonder of histheme by direct description. Mr Wells is far more subtle and moreeffective. He takes an average individual, identifies him with theworld as we know it, and then proceeds gradually to bring his marvelwithin the range of this individual's apprehension. We see theimprobable, not too definitely, through the eyes of one who isprepared with the same incredulity as the reader of the story, and asa result the strange phenomenon, whether fallen angel, invisible man, converted beast or invading Martian, takes all the shape of reality. That this shape is convincing is due to the brilliance of Mr Wells'imagination and his power of graphic expression; the lesser writermight adopt the method and fail utterly to attain the effect; but itis this conception of the means to reach the intelligence and sensesof the average reader that chiefly distinguishes these romances fromthose of such writers as Jules Verne. Our approach to the wonderful isso gradual and so natural that when we are finally confronted with itthe incredible thing has become inevitable and expected. Finally, ithas become so identified with human surprise, anger or dismay that anyfailure of humanity in the chief person of the story reacts upon ourconception of the wonderful intrusion among familiar phenomena. 

Now, this power of creating the semblance of fact out of an ideal wastoo valuable a thing to be wasted on the making of stories that had nopurpose beyond that of interesting or exciting the reader with suchimaginations as the Martians, whose only use was to threaten humanitywith extinction. Mr Wells' own sight of our blindness, our complacentacceptance of the sphere as an oblate or prolate spheroid, might be, he hoped, another of the marvels which we should come to acceptthrough the medium of romance. So he began tentatively at first tointroduce a vivid criticism of the futility of present-day societyinto his fantasies, and the first and the least of these books wasthat published in 1899 as _When the Sleeper Wakes_, a title afterwardschanged to _The Sleeper Awakes_. 

In the two opening chapters we find the same delightfully realistictreatment of the unprecedented slowly mingling with the commonplace. The first appearance of Graham the Sleeper, tormented then by thespectres and doubts that accompany insomnia, is made so credible thatwe accept his symptoms without the least demur; his condition ismerely unusual enough to excite a trembling interest. Even thepassing of his early years of trance does not arouse scepticism. Butthen we fall with one terrific plunge into the world of A. D. 2100, and, like Graham, we cannot realise it. Moreover this changed, developed world has a slightly mechanical air. The immense enclosedLondon, imagined by Mr Wells, is no Utopia, yet, like the dream ofearlier prophets, it is too logical to entice us into anyhallucination; and we come, fatally, to a criticism of the syllogism. 

Mr Wells himself has confessed, in a new Preface, that this is "one ofthe most ambitious and least satisfactory" of his books; and explainsthat it was written against time, when he was on the verge of aserious illness. It is superfluous, therefore, to criticise it indetail, but one or two points in relation to the sociological ideamust be emphasised. 

The main theme is the growing division between Capital and Labour. The Giant Trust--managing the funds accumulated in Graham's name, atrust that has obtained possession of so immense a capital that itcontrols the chief activities of the world--is figured in the commandof a certain Ostrog, who, with all the dependents that profit by theuse of his wealth and such mercenaries as he can hold to himself, represents one party in opposition to the actual workers andproducers, generically the People. The picture is the struggle of ourown day in more acute form; the result, in the amended edition, isleft open. "Who will win--Ostrog or the People?" Mr Wells writes inthe Preface referred to above, and answers: "A thousand years hencethat will still be just the open question we leave to-day. "

I am not concerned in this place to question the validity of thatanswer, nor to suggest that the Wells of 1914 would not necessarilygive the same account of his beliefs as the Wells of 1909, but I mustdraw attention to the attitude displayed in the book underconsideration in order to point the change of feeling recognisable inlater books. In _The Sleeper Awakes_, even in the revised version, thesociological theory is still mechanical, the prophecy at once toological, and at the same time deduced from premises altogether toorestricted. The world of A. D. 2100 is the world of to-day, with itsmore glaring contrasts still more glaringly emphasised; with itssocial incongruities and blindness raised to a higher power. And allthat it lacked has been put into a romance called _In the Days of theComet_ (1906), a book to which I shall now leap, returning later toconsider the comparatively irrelevant theses of three other romancesthat chronologically intervened. 

The great change wrought by the coming of the Comet might besentimentally described as a change of heart; I prefer to call it achange of reason. All the earlier part of the work, which is againtold in the first person, presents the life of a Midland industrialarea as seen by one who has suffered it. The Capital-Labour problembulks in the foreground, and is adequately supported by a passionateexposition of the narrowness and misery of lower-middle-class life inthe jumble of limitations, barriers and injustices that arise from theabsolute ownership of property. Also, into this romance--the only one, by the way--comes some examination of the relations of the sexes. Andall this jumble is due, if we are to believe the remedy, to humanmisunderstanding. The influence of the Comet passed over the earth, and men, after a few hours of trance, awoke to a new realisation. Wecome to a first knowledge of the change in one of the most beautifulpassages that Mr Wells has written; and although I dislike to spoil apassage by setting it out unclothed by the idea and expectations whichhave led to its expression, given it form, and fitted it to a justplace in the whole composition, I will make an exception in this casein order to justify my metaphor of "normal sight. " The supposed writerof the description had just awakened from the trance induced by thepassing of the Comet. He says:

 "I came slowly, stepping very carefully because of those drugged, feebly awakening things, through the barley to the hedge. It was a very glorious hedge, so that it held my eyes. It flowed along and interlaced like splendid music. It was rich with lupin, honeysuckle, campions and ragged robin; bed straw, hops and wild clematis twined and hung among its branches, and all along its ditch border the starry stitchwort lifted its childish faces and chorused in lines and masses. Never had I seen such a symphony of note-like flowers and tendrils and leaves. And suddenly, in its depths, I heard a chirrup and the whir of startled wings. 

 "Nothing was dead, but everything had changed to beauty! And I stood for a time with clean and happy eyes looking at the intricate delicacy before me and marvelling how richly God has made his worlds. .. . "

And not only the writer but also every other person on the earth hadbeen miraculously cured of their myopia and astigmatism. They sawbeauty and the means to still more perfect beauty, and, seeing, theyhad but to believe and the old miseries vanished. In the old days menpreached a furious denial of self that led to the fatuity of anasceticism such as that of St Simon Stylites. The lesson--I cannotdeny that the book is didactic--of the change wrought by the comet isthat man should find the full expression of his personality insympathy and understanding. The egotism remains, but it works to acollective end. .. . 

War is necessarily touched upon in this book as an inevitablecorollary to the problems of personal and a fortiori of nationalproperty; but the real counterblast against wholesale fratricide wasreserved for the following romance, published in 1908. 

_The War in the Air_ definitely disclosed a change of method that wasadumbrated in its predecessor. The agent of experience is stillretained in the person of Bert Smallways, but the restrictions imposedby the report of an eye-witness have become too limiting, and, likeHardy in _The Dynasts_, Mr Wells alternates between a near and adistant vision. The Welt-Politik could not be explained through theintelligence of a "little Cockney cad, " even though he was "by nomeans a stupid person and up to a certain limit not badly educated";and the general development of the world-war, the account of thecollapse of the credit system and all such large and general effectsnecessitated the broad treatment of the historian. So the intimate, personal narrative of Smallways' adventures is occasionally droppedfor a few pages; Mr Wells shuts off his magic-lantern and fills theinterval with an analysis of larger issues. 

And the issues are so vital, the _dénouement_ so increasinglyprobable, that, despite all the exaggerations necessary in a fictionof this kind, the warning contained in this account of a world-war isone that must remain in the minds of any thoughtful reader. Smallways'pert reflection on the causes of the immense downfall represents thewisdom that comes of bitter experience, and the application of it isvery pertinent to present conditions. "There was us in Europe all atsixes and sevens with our silly flags and our silly newspapers raggin'us up against each other and keepin' us apart, " says Smallways, andfor the briefest analysis of causes that continually threaten us withall the useless horrors of war, the summary could scarcely bebettered. 

Indeed, I think that _The War in the Air_ is the greatest of Mr Wells'achievements in fantasy that has a deeper purpose than mere amusement. The story is absorbing and Smallways a perfectly conceived character, recommendations that serve to popularise the book as a romance; butall the art of the construction is relevant to the theme, and to thelogical issue which is faced unflinchingly. In the many wildprophecies that have been incorporated in various stories of a greatEuropean war, there has been discoverable now and again some hint ofinsight into the real dangers that await mankind. But such stories asthese degenerate into some accidental, but inferentially glorious, victory of British arms, and any value in the earlier comments isswamped in the sentimentality of the fortuitous, and designedlypopular, sequel. In the book now under consideration the conception istoo wide for any such lapses into the maudlin. British interests playan insignificant part in the drama. We have to consider war not as anincident in the history of a nation, but as a horrible disgrace in thehistory of humanity. 

And war is the theme also of _The World Set Free_ (1914), but it leadshere to a theory of reconstruction of which we have no sight in theearlier work. The opening chapters describe the inception of themeans, the discovery of the new source of energy--a perfectlyreasonable conception--that led to the invention of the "atomic bomb, "a thing so terribly powerful and continuous in its action that afterthe first free use of it in a European outbreak, war becameimpossible. As a romance, the book fails. The interest is not centredin a single character, and we are given somewhat disconnected glimpsesof various phases in the discovery of the new energy, in itsapplication, and of the catastrophes that follow its use as aninstrument of destruction. The essay form has almost dominated themethod of the novelist, and consequently the essential parable has notthe same force as in _The War in the Air_. Nevertheless, the vision isthere, obscured by reason of its more personal expression; and beforeI return to consider the three less pertinent romances interposedbetween those that have a more recognisable critical tendency, I wishto sum up the distinctive attitude of the four just considered. 

And in this thing I claim that the conscious purpose of the artist isof comparatively small account. I may be doing Mr Wells an injustice, either by robbing him of the credit of a clearly conceived intention, or by reading into his books a deliberation which he might wish todisclaim. But my business is not justice to the author in this sense, but an interpretation--necessarily personal--of the message his bookshave conveyed to a particular reader. And the plain message that allthese romances--including those that follow--have conveyed to me isthe necessity for ridding the mind of traditions of the hypnoticsuggestions of parents and early teachers, of the parochial influencesof immediate surroundings, of the prejudices and self-interesteddogmatisms and hyperboles of common literature, especially of thedaily and weekly press; in order that we may, if only for an exercisein simple reason, dissociate ourselves for a moment from all thoseintimate forces, and regard life with the calmness of one detachedfrom personal interests and desires. No human being who has not thusstood apart from life can claim to have realised himself; and in sofar as he is unable thus to separate himself temporarily from hiscircumstances he confesses that he is less a personality than a bundleof reactions to familiar stimuli. But given that power of detachment, the reader may find in these four books matter for the reconsiderationof the whole social problem. Whether he accept such tentativereconstructions as those suggested in _The World Set Free_ or _In theDays of the Comet_ is relatively unimportant, the essential thing isthat he should view life with momentarily undistracted eyes; and seeboth the failures of our civilisation and its potentialities for afiner and more gracious existence. .. . 

_The First Men in the Moon_ (1901) is little more than a piece ofsheer exuberance. The theory of the means to the adventure and theexperience itself are both plausible. There are a few minordiscrepancies, but when the chief assumption is granted thedeductions will all stand examination. The invention of cavorite, thesubstance that is impervious to the force--whatever it may be--ofgravitation, as other substances are impervious to light, heat, soundor electricity, is not a priori impossible, nor is the theory that themoon is hollow, that the "Selenites" live below the surface, or thatevolution has produced on our satellite an intelligent form which, anatomically, is more nearly allied to the insect than to thevertebrate type as we know it. The exposition of lunar socialconditions cannot be taken very seriously. Specialisation is thekey-note; the production by education and training, of minds, and, asfar as possible, bodies, adapted to a particular end, and incapable ofperforming other technical functions. The picture of this highlydeveloped state, however, is not such as would tempt us to emulation. As a machine it works; as an ideal it lacks any presentation of thething we call beauty. The apotheosis of intelligence in the concreteexample leaves us unambitious in that direction. 

One chapter, however, stands apart and elaborates once more thatdetachment for space and time which I have so particularly emphasisedas the more important feature of these particular books. Mr Bedford, alone in his Cavorite sphere between the Earth and the Moon, experiences this sensation of aloofness. "I became, if I may goexpress it, dissociate from Bedford, " he writes. "I looked down onBedford as a trivial, incidental thing with which I chanced to beconnected, " Bedford, unfortunately for my moral, was a poor creaturewho got no benefit from his privilege, who flouted it indeed andregretted his inability "to recover the full-bodied self-satisfactionof his early days. " Possibly the fact that in his case the knowledgewas thrust upon him may account for his failure. It is only theknowledge we seek that has any influence upon us. 

_The Sea Lady_ (1902) stands alone among Mr Wells' romances. Therealistic method remains, but the conception is touched with a poeticfancy of a kind that I have not found elsewhere in these books. TheVenus Annodomini who came out of the sea at Folkestone in the form ofan authentic mermaid was something more than a mere critic of ourcivilised conventions. She was that, too; she asked why people walkedon the Leas "with little to talk about and nothing to look at, andbound not to do all sorts of natural things, and bound to do all sortsof preposterous things. " But she was also the personification of"other dreams. " She had "the quality of the open sky, of deep tangledplaces, of the flight of birds . .. Of the high sea. " She representedto one man, at least, "the Great Outside. " And, if we still find arepetition of the old statement in that last description, it is, nevertheless, surrounded with a glamour that is not revealed in suchbooks as _In the Days of the Comet_. The ideal that is faintlyshadowed in _The Sea Lady_ is more ethereal, less practical; thestory, despite the naturalistic, half-cynical manner of its recountal, has the elements of romance. The closing scene describes theperplexity of a practical Kentish policeman "who in the small hoursbefore dawn came upon the wrap the Sea Lady had been wearing, just asthe tide overtook it, " He stands there on the foreshore with a foolishbewilderment, wondering chiefly "what people are up to. " He is the"simple citizen of a plain and obvious world. " And Mr Wells concludes:"I picture the interrogation of his lantern going out for a littleway, a stain of faint pink curiosity upon the mysterious vast serenityof the night. " And I make an application of the parable for my ownpurposes, and wonder how far the curiosity of Mr Wells' readers willcarry them into the great mystery that lies behind the illusion ofthis apparently obvious world. 

We come, finally, without any suggestion of climax, to _The Food ofthe Gods_ (1904). The food was produced, casually in the firstinstance, by two experimenters who served no cause but that of theirown inquisitive science. One of them, Redwood, had become intrigued bythe fact that the growth of all living things proceeded with burstsand intermissions; it was as if they had "to accumulate force to grow, grew with vigour only for a time, and then had to wait for a spacebefore they could go on growing again. " And Bensington, the otherexperimenter, succeeded in separating a food that produced regularinstead of intermittent growth. It was universal in its effects, influencing vegetable as well as animal life; and in the course oftwenty years it produced human giants, forty feet high. This is atheme for Mr Wells to revel in, and he does, treating the detail ofthe first two-thirds of the book with a fine realism. Like Bensington, he saw, "behind the grotesque shapes and accidents of the present, thecoming world of giants and all the mighty things the future has instore--vague and splendid, like some glittering palace seen suddenlyin the passing of a sunbeam far away. " The parable is plain enough, but the application of it weakens when we realise that so far as themerely physical development goes, the food of the gods is onlybringing about a change of scale. If we grant that this "insurgentbigness" must conquer the world, the final result is only humanity inthe same relation to life that it now occupies, and we are left toreflect with Bensington, after the vision had faded, on "sinistershadows, vast declivities and darknesses, inhospitable immensities, cold, wild and terrible things. "

The change of scale, however, so long as it was changing, presents inanother metaphor the old contrasts. The young giants, the Cossars andRedwood, looking down on common humanity from a vantage-point somethirty to forty feet higher than the "little people, " are critical byforce of circumstances; and they are at the same time handicapped byan inability to comprehend the thing criticised. They are toodifferentiated; and for the purpose of the fable none of them isgifted with the power to study these insects with the sympathy of aHenri Fabre. We may find some quality of blundering stupidity in theCossars and in young Redwood, they were too prejudiced by theirphysical scale; but the simple Caddles, born of peasant parents, uneducated and set to work in a chalk quarry, is the true enquirer. Hewalked up to London to solve his problem, and his fundamentalquestion: "What's it all _for_?" remained unanswered. The "littlepeople" could not exchange ideas with him, and he never met hisbrother giants. It is, however, exceedingly doubtful whether theycould have offered him any satisfactory explanation of the purpose ofthe universe. Their only ambition seemed to be reconstruction on alarger scale. 

I think the partial failure of _The Food of the Gods_ to furnish anyethical satisfaction is due to the fact that in this romance Mr Wellshas identified himself too closely with the giants; a fault thatindicates a slight departure from normality. The inevitable contrastbetween great and little lacks a sympathy and appreciation we findelsewhere. "Endless conflict. Endless misunderstanding. All life isthat. Great and little cannot understand one another" is the true textof the book; and it implies a weakness in the great not less than inthe little; a weakness that is hardly exonerated by the closingsentence: "But in every child born of man lurks some seed ofgreatness--waiting for the food. " I find a quality of reasonablenessin the little people's antagonism to the blundering superiority ofthose giants. 

To the tail of these romances I may pin the majority of Mr Wells'short stories. The best of them are all included in the collectionpublished under the title of _The Country of the Blind_. In this formMr Wells displays nothing but the exuberance of his invention. In thePreface to the collection he defines his conception of short-storywriting as "the jolly art of making something very bright and moving;it may be horrible or pathetic or funny, or beautiful, or profoundlyilluminating, having only this essential, that it should take fromfifteen to twenty minutes to read aloud. " I can add nothing to thatdescription, and would only take away from it so much as is implied bythe statement that I cannot call to mind any one of these storieswhich is "profoundly illuminating" in the same sense that I wouldcertainly apply the phrase to some of the romances. Jolly and brightthey undoubtedly are, but when they are moving, they provide food forwonder rather than for enlightenment. .. . 

I cannot leave these romances without a comment on Mr Wells'justification as preacher and prophet. Writing in the midst of theturmoil of war, I am vividly conscious of having had my mind preparedfor it by the material I have here so inadequately described. All themisunderstandings, the weaknesses, the noisy, meaningless ambitions, the tepid acceptance of traditional standards, have been exposed by MrWells in these fantasies of his. And in _The War in the Air_, withjust such exaggerations as are necessary for a fiction of this kind, he has forecast the conditions which have now overtaken us. Weknow--or we might know if we had the capacity for any sort ofconsequent consideration of our conditions--that in a reasonablyconducted civilisation no such awful catastrophe as this senselessconflagration could have been possible. No doubt we shall profit bythe lesson, but it is one that any individual might have learned forhimself from these romances, without paying the fearful price that isnow necessary. And because humanity is apt to forget its most drasticpunishments, to revert to its original inertia as soon as the smart ishealed, I feel that when the worst is over, these books will have agreater value than ever before. I believe that in them may be foundjust those essentials of detachment and broad vision which might serveto promote a higher and more stable civilisation. 

III

THE NOVELS

I am willing to maintain that H. G. Wells is second to none as a writerof romances of the type I have just examined. I am less certain of hisposition as a novelist. He brings to his fiction the open-eyedrecognition of realities, the fine analysis of modern conditions, thelucid consequent thought and the clean, graphic style that mark thequalities of his other method; he has that "poetic gift, the gift ofthe creative and illuminating phrase, " which, he has said, "alonejustifies writing"; but he has not the power of creating charactersthat stand for some essential type of humanity. On the one hand he isinclined to idealise the engineer and the scientific researcher, onthe other to satirise and, in effect, to group into onesloppy-thinking mass every other kind of Englishman, not exceptingphilosophers, politicians and social reformers. This broadgeneralisation omits any consideration of the merely uneducated, suchas Hoopdriver or Kipps, and the many women he has drawn. But theformer, however sympathetically treated, are certainly not idealised;and among the latter, the only real creation, in my opinion, is SusanPonderevo in _Tono-Bungay_; although there is a possible composite ofvarious women in the later books that may represent the generalinsurgent character of recent young womanhood. But now that I havemade this too definite statement I want to go back over it, touch itup and smooth it out. For if I have found Mr Wells' character typestoo few and too specialised; and as if, with regard to his more orless idealised males--such as Capes, George Ponderevo, Remington, Trafford, Stafford--he had modelled and re-modelled them in the effortto build up one finally estimable figure of masculine ability; therestill remains an enormous gallery of subsidiary portraits, for themost part faintly caricatured, of men and women who do stand forsomething in modern life; portraits that are valuable, interesting andmemorable. Nevertheless, I submit that Mr Wells' novels will not liveby reason of their characterisation. 

The desire to write essays in this class of fiction does not seem tohave overcome Wells until the last few years. Before 1909, he hadwritten all his sociology and all his romances, with the exception of_The World Set Free_, but only three novels--namely, _The Wheels ofChance_, _Love and Mr Lewisham_ and _Kipps_; and none of them givesany indication of the characteristic method of the later work. 

The first of the three, published in 1896, is in one respect asplendid answer to the objection against what has been called theepisodical novel. The story deals only with ten glorious days in thelife of Hoopdriver, a callow assistant in a draper's "emporium" atPutney. He learnt to ride a bicycle, set out to tour the south coastfor his short summer holiday and rode into romance. One section of thebook is a trifle too hilarious, coming perilously near to farce, butunderlying the steady humour of it all is a perfectly consistent, evensaddening, criticism of the Hoopdriver type. He has imaginationwithout ability; life is made bearable for him chiefly by the means ofhis poor little dreams and poses; he sees himself momentarily in thepart of a detective, a journalist, a South African millionaire, anyassumption to disguise the horrible reality of the draper's assistant;and yet there is fine stuff in him. (Perhaps the suggested antithesisis hardly justified!) We leave him at the door of the Putney shop fullof resolution to read, to undertake his own education, in some way, nodoubt, to better himself, as he might have phrased it. But we doubtthe quality of his determination and of the lasting influence of the"more wonderful desires and ambitions replacing those discrepantdreams. " We have only followed Hoopdriver through a ten-day episode, but all his story has been told. 

We are in quite a different position with regard to Lewisham. Thehistory of his encounter with love and the world, published in 1900, covers a period of four or five years, but while we leave himdown-at-heel, with a wife and a mother-in-law dependent upon him, andthe prospect of fatherhood adding to his responsibilities, we areuncertain whither his career will take him. Lewisham is the firstsketch for the type that was to be elaborated in five subsequentbooks. The allurements of his love for Ethel Henderson spoilt hischances at the science school, but he has the quality that is soconspicuously lacking in the Hoopdriver-Kipps-Polly succession. Lewisham had some resolution, undoubted energy, and the beginnings ofthat larger vision which was the gift of the later protagonists. Buthe is not idealised; he comes nearer to the average of humanity thanthe later pictures of his like; although they share with him thattendency to sudden irascibility, to outbursts of a somewhat pettytemper against the obvious limitations of life--a common tendencyobservable in nearly all Mr Wells' dominant male characters. Those fewyears of Lewisham's life were so well done, so consistently developed, that I have regretted the absence of a sequel. Indeed, I still regretit, although I realise very well that Mr Wells' steady progress in theconception of his own purpose as a writer has absolutely precludedany return to an older method. Lewisham was not quite strong enoughto portray the further development of the dominant idea, not asufficiently tempered tool for the dissection of the modern world. 

I have said little about the story of this fragment of Lewisham'scareer; I have not even mentioned that deliciously plausible and ablerogue, Chaffery, the fraudulent medium; but in this essay I am moreconcerned to trace the meaning of Mr Wells' books than to criticise orpraise the detail. With regard to the latter, the reader may alwaysfeel so perfectly safe. He need have no doubt that description ofaction, of mood, or of place will be vivid and convincing, true tolife and essential to the story. I do not pass this detail by becauseI have found it better done in other contemporary writers; I have not;but because I find a pregnancy and a growing force behind theseminutiĉ that is strangely lacking from any other works of fiction inwhich I can find any comparison. 

There are, however, still two more novels to be disposed of before Ican examine the full expression of Mr Wells' purpose as I find it inhis later books. One of these novels, _Kipps_ (1905), is the next inchronological order; the other, _The History of Mr Polly_, waspublished in 1910, interpolated between _Ann Veronica_ and _The NewMachiavelli_. Both Kipps and Polly began active life in a draper'sshop. The former is explicitly labelled "a simple soul. " He is at oncesillier and sharper than Hoopdriver, but, like that "dear fool" (thephrase is Mr Wells'), Kipps has some very sterling qualities. He hadthe good fortune to come into money--I cannot but count it goodfortune in his case--and was just wise enough to avoid a marriage withHelen Walshingham--"County family. Related to the Earl ofBeauprés"--and if he shirked that match rather from sheer funk thanfrom any clear realisation of the futility of what he was avoiding, hedid, at least, run away with and marry that very charming littlehousemaid, Ann Pornick, whom he had loved in his early boyhood. Afterhis marriage he lost the greater part of his money, and laterrecovered it again; but all these shocks of fortune left him the samesimple soul, untroubled by any urgent problems outside the range ofhis personal experience. His brief contact with the dreamer, Masterman, and his friendship with the capable youngengineer-socialist, Sid Pornick, Ann's brother, only roused Kipps to amomentary wonder, and his final enunciation of the great question wasrepresentative. "I was thinking just what a Rum Go everything is, " hesays. That question, to quote Mr Wells, "never reached the surface ofhis mind, it never took to itself substance or form; it looked upmerely as the phantom of a face might look, out of deep waters, andsank again into nothingness. "

Mr Polly is a third variant of the Hoopdriver-Kipps genus. He had moreinitiative, although he still presents a problem in inertia, and he isthe only one of the three who had a feeling for literature, and readpersistently, if vagariously. And Mr Polly did at last take his fateinto his own hands, commit arson, desert his wife and wander off, an"exploratious adventurer, " as he might have put it, to discover somejoy and poetry in life after a heroic battle that he funked mosthorribly and might have avoided. This may sound rather a criminalrecord, and even so I have taken no account of his fraud on the LifeAssurance Company, but no one could ever condemn Mr Polly--or wish hima happier employment than that he finally achieved partly by luck andpartly by his own effort. He was the sport of the forces that breakout so ungovernably in this haphazard world. As the "high-browedgentleman living at Highbury" explains: "Nothing can betterdemonstrate the collective dullness of our community, the crying needfor a strenuous, intellectual renewal, than the consideration of thatvast mass of useless, uncomfortable, under-educated, under-trained, and altogether pitiable people we contemplate when we use thatinaccurate and misleading term, the Lower Middle Class. A greatproportion of the lower middle class should properly be assigned tothe unemployed and the unemployable. " And that is the moral we may layto heart from the presentation of these three quite lovable and quitefutile draper's assistants. Their stories are told withoutdidacticism; the method displays at its brightest Mr Wells' intimateknowledge and understanding of the life and speech of the classportrayed; the developments are natural and absorbing enough to holdthe interest of the most idle reader; and here and there, perhaps, anintelligent man or woman may be stirred to realise that he or she isin part responsible for the futility of a Hoopdriver or a Kipps, orfor the jovial crimes of Mr Polly. .. . 

I come now to the six novels which represent most truly the striving, persistent idealism of the mature Wells. In these books he has come tothe mastery of his own technique--so far as a man may ever master it. He admits that there remain inexpressible visions, he is apt at timesto be overtaken by his own mannerisms (a fault that in no way affectsthe enjoyment or enlightenment of the average reader), but he haswrought and perfected a delicate instrument of style that is finelyadapted to his purpose. I cannot avoid speaking of "purpose" inrelation to these five books, and yet the word is misleading. I do notmean by it that Mr Wells has ever sat down to write a novel with thedeliberate intention of converting an honest reader or so. But I domean that he has tried very deliberately to express his own attitudein these books, and that whether or not he was intentionally apropagandist, he has done his utmost to explain and to glorify thatattitude of his. Perhaps I shrink from that word "purpose" toosensitively, because it is so naturally associated in the mind withall that is clumsy and didactic in fiction. The "novel with apurpose, " as the dreadful phrase has it, is a horrible thing, and noneof this five could be so misdescribed. Nevertheless it is very plainthat Mr Wells has deliberately selected his stories and his charactersto illustrate certain points of view. The characters are consistent, and the story growing out of their influences and reactions is neverdistorted in order to score a point for the maintainer of a theory. But the preliminary selection cannot be overlooked. It has, withoutquestion, been made in each case to illustrate a thesis. 

_Ann Veronica_ (1909) opens an aspect of the sex question that hasbeen amplified in later novels. The chief person in the storyillustrates for us the revolt of young women against the limitationsof a certain, the most representative, type of home discipline. AnnVeronica was a well-educated young woman with that leaning towardsbiological science which seems an almost necessary element in themake-up of Mr Wells' exemplars of the open mind. She came to an openquarrel with her father on the question of attending a somewhatBohemian fancy-dress ball, and she had the courage and determinationto uphold her declaration of independence. She ran away, came up toLondon from her father's suburb, took lodgings and essayed quiteunsuccessfully to make her own living. She failed in this endeavourbecause she had not been educated or trained for any of those few andspecialised occupations that women may attempt in modern conditions. She learned by experience various essentials that had been omittedfrom any teaching she had received at home, and ended that phase ofher life by falling in love with Capes, demonstrator at theWestminster Imperial College, a man who was living apart from hiswife. Ann Veronica's story is the first serious essay in feminism--aterm that takes a much wider meaning in Mr Wells' definition than iscommonly attributed to it. The novel presents the claim of the womanto free herself from the restrictions that once almost necessarilylimited her sphere of action, restrictions that are ever becoming moremeaningless in a civilisation that has enforced new economicconditions. But Mr Wells goes far beyond that elementary proposition. He has tried in _Ann Veronica_--and again with a more delicate probein _Marriage_ and _The Passionate Friends_--to touch the hidden thingthat is causing all this surface inflammation. He has analysed anddiagnosed the exposed evil, always it seems with a certaintentativeness, and we are left to carry on his line of research; manyof the difficulties of the problem are indicated, but no sovereignspecific for the malady. 

_Tono-Bungay_ (1909) touches only casually on the sex question. Theinvolved love affairs of George Ponderevo are less essential than thecareer of his uncle, the inventor of the patent medicine that gives atitle to the book. In many ways _Tono-Bungay_ is the best novel thatMr Wells has given us. It is written in the first person, a narrativeform that afterwards served to convey Mr Wells' interpolatedcriticisms of the bodies social and politic in something nearlyapproaching the shape of an essay, but in _Tono-Bungay_ there are noimportant divagations from the development of the story. The frameworkof the book is provided by the life history of the narrator from earlyboyhood to middle age, matter interesting enough in itself even if ithad not provided the means for revealing the inwardness of EdwardPonderevo's character and career. He was not a bad little man, thisplump little chemist; a Lombroso or a Ferri would have founddifficulty in classifying him as a "criminal type, " however eagerthose investigators might have been to confirm their pet theories. Ponderevo's wife--the inimitable Aunt Susan--called him "Teddy" andhis nephew endorses the appropriateness of that diminutive; he affirmsthat there was a characteristic "teddiness" about Uncle Ponderevo. Hefailed as a retail chemist in Wimblehurst. He was not naturallydishonest, but he had windy ideas about finance, and he was carelessin the matter of certain trust monies. He was "imaginative, erratic, inconsistent, recklessly inexact, " and his imagination led him by wayof a patent medicine to company promoting on the Hooley scale. "Do yourealise the madness of the world that sanctions such a thing?" asks MrWells in the person of the supposed narrator and points that questionon a later page as follows:--"At the climax of his Boom, my uncle atthe most sparing estimate must have possessed in substance and creditabout two million pounds' worth of property to set off against hisvague colossal liabilities, and from first to last he must have had acontrolling influence in the direction of nearly thirty millions. Thisirrational muddle of a community in which we live gave him that, paidhim at that rate for sitting in a room and scheming and telling itlies. For he created nothing, he invented nothing, he economisednothing. I cannot claim that a single one of the great businesses weorganised added any real value to human life at all. "

The enormous success and rapid failure of this futile, ambitiouslittle chemist--a success that is, unhappily, only too conceivable andprobable--are seen against the background of his nephew's life, MrWells has given a greater value and credulity to the legalcriminalities of Ponderevo, by coming at him, as it were, through awider angle; just as he achieves all the circumstances of reality inhis romances by his postulation of an average eye-witness. But thereare many threads in George Ponderevo's life that were not immediatelyintertwined with the _Tono-Bungay_ career, and his love for BeatriceNormanby touches in quite another manner on the sex problem opened in_Ann Veronica_. In both these books the story is the essential thing, and the attack upon social conditions is relatively indirect. Thegeneral criticism is at times quite explicit, but it is subordinated. 

In _The New Machiavelli_ (1910) these relations are nearly reversed. The detailed exposure of the moving forces that stimulate ourpolitical energies, occupies long sections into which the humanrelations of Remington (the form is again that of an autobiography)hardly enter, except in an occasional conversation to sharpen up acriticism. This comment on politics (regarded in his own constituency, Remington says, not as a "great constructive process" but as a "kindof dog-fight") is the chief theme; subsidiary to it is the comment ona society that could waste so valuable a life as Remington's for thesake of a moral convention. Both comments point Mr Wells' expressionof what he calls in this book "the essential antagonism . .. In allhuman affairs . .. Between ideas and the established method--that is tosay, between ideas and the rule of thumb. " And he adds: "The world Ihate is the rule-of-thumb world; the thing I and my kind exist forprimarily is battle with that, to annoy it, disarrange it, reconstructit. " This confession is so lucid and characteristic that I cannotimprove upon it, and yet I see that it is a statement likely to arouseconsiderable resentment, "Of course we are detestable, " Remingtonadmits in this connection; and in these later, more urgently criticalnovels, we recognise a little too clearly that note of protest, almostof defensive proclamation. And in none of them do we see it moredefinitely than in the book now under consideration. In many ways _TheNew Machiavelli_ stands apart from the other novels. I find it alittle bitter in places, because the thing condemned appears too smallfor such unequivocal condemnation. The following superlative summaryis put into the mouth of a minor character, but I think it is fairlyrepresentative of Remington's later attitude. "But of all the damnedthings that ever were damned, " says the plain-spoken Britten, "yourdamned shirking, temperate, sham-efficient, self-satisfied, respectable, make-believe, Fabian-spirited Young Liberal is theutterly damnedest. " As a commentary, I find this exaggerated; andalthough it is in the mouth of one who is not presented as a spokesmanfor Mr Wells' own opinions, I feel that it comes very near to being atext for a considerable section of the political criticism; and thatit indicates bias, a departure from normality. 

And yet, despite this occasional exhibition of temper, _The NewMachiavelli_ is a most illuminating book. It reveals withextraordinary clearness the Wells of that period; but it also gives usa sight of the spirit in him that does not change. All his books, romances, novels and essays indicate a gradual process of growth; ifwe were to apply any label to him, we should inevitably land ourselvesin confusion. He is nothing "in the first place" but a man with anintense desire to understand life. As he says in this book: "A humanbeing who is a philosopher in the first place, a teacher in the firstplace, or a statesman in the first place, is thereby andinevitably--though he bring God-like gifts to the pretence--a quack. "But while he may dissociate himself from any clique, and disclaim anyfixed opinion that might earn for him the offensive and fiercelyrejected label, he nevertheless presents to us one unchanging attitudein these very refusals. "I'm going to get experience for humanity outof all my talents--and bury nothing, " says Remington; and that purposeis implicit in every book that Wells has written. He is an empiric, using first this test and then that to try the phenomena of life;publishing the detail of his experiment and noting certaindeductions. But while he may offer a prescription for certainsymptoms, he gives us to understand that he is only diagnosing a phasein human development; that he is seeking an ultimate which he neverhopes to find, and that the deductions he draws to-day may be rejectedto-morrow without a shadow of regret. He would be constant, I think, only in his inconstancy to any criterion of present conditions asapplicable or likely to be applicable to the future; he sees life as adynamic thing in process of change and growth. "All the history ofmankind, " he writes, "all the history of life has been and will be thestory of something struggling out of the indiscriminated abyss, struggling to exist and prevail over and comprehend individuallives--an effect of insidious attraction, an idea of invincibleappeal. " And it is for this reason that he is so eager to battle with, annoy, disarrange and reconstruct that rule-of-thumb world hecensures so steadily; he is fighting the assumption of a staticcondition which he knows to be impossible. 

And for a moment in _The New Machiavelli_, and again in his next book, _Marriage_, he has a passing vision of some greater movement of whichwe are but the imperfect instruments. He develops and then drops theidea of a "hinterland, " not only to the individual mind but to thegeneral consciousness. The "permanent reality, " he calls it, "which isnever really immediate, which draws continually upon human experienceand influences human action more and more, but which is itself neverthe actual player upon the stage. It is the unseen dramatist who nevertakes a call. " And in another place he writes in the same connection:" . .. The ideas go on--as though we are all no more than little cellsand corpuscles in some great brain beyond our understanding. "

We come again to a hint of that explanation at the end of _Marriage_, published in 1912. The story, reduced to the barest outline, is thatof the relations of Trafford to his wife. It is not complicated by anysexual temptations or jealousies, but it gradually evolves theintegral problem of the meaning of life. 

Trafford, before his engagement to Marjorie Pope, and for a year ortwo after his marriage, was engaged in research work. His specialitywas molecular physics and he was a particularly brilliantinvestigator. That research, with all the possibilities that it heldof some immense discovery of the laws that govern the constitution ofinorganic and progressively, perhaps, of organic, matter, wassufficient to engross his mental energies, to give him a sense ofsatisfaction in life; but his six hundred pounds a year provedinsufficient to satisfy the demands of Marjorie's claim to enjoyment. She was not a mere type of the worldly-minded woman. She represents, indeed, the claim of modern women for a distinctive interest andemployment not less urgent and necessary than the interests andemployments of men. And when she failed, as she plainly must havefailed, to find any such occupation, her sense of beauty and herjustifiable demand for life found an outlet largely in shopping, inentertaining, in all such ephemeral attractions and amusements aswomen in her class may seek and reject. That way of escape, however, soon raised financial obstructions to Trafford's work. He had to finda means for increasing his income, and came at last and inevitably tothe necessity for making more money and continually still more. Theroad to wealth was opened for him and he took it by sacrificing hisresearch work, but when the economic problem had been triumphantlysolved, he could not return to his first absorption in the problemsof molecular physics. Life pressed upon him at every moment of theday, he had been inveigled into a net. 

The manner of Trafford's escape from the thing that intrigued him hasbeen severely criticised. After I had first read the book I too wasinclined to deprecate the device of taking Trafford and Marjorie intothe loneliness of a Labrador winter, in order to set them right withthemselves and give them a clearer vision of life. But I have read_Marriage_ twice since I formed that premature judgment, and each timeI have found a growing justification for what at first may seem asomewhat whimsical solution to the difficulties of an essentiallysocial problem. 

But in effect this is the same specific that I upheld in my comment onthe romances; it illustrates the need felt by a certain class of mindfor temporary withdrawal from all the immediate urgencies and callsof social life; the overwhelming desire to see the movements andintricacies of human initiative and reactions, from a momentarilydetached standpoint. And Mr Wells has offered us a further commentaryon the difficulties of this abstraction, by withholding any visionfrom Trafford until he was finally isolated from Marjorie, and evenfrom any physical contact with the movement of what we call reality, by illness and fever. Only then, indeed, did he touch the vitalissues. I find the statement of this ultimate thing, vaguely phrasedin Trafford's semi-delirium, presenting another expression of thethought quoted from _The New Machiavelli_; the conception of humanityas an instrument. "Something trying to exist, " he says, something"which isn't substance, doesn't belong to space or time, somethingstifled and enclosed, struggling to get through. " And later herepeats: "It struggles to exist, becomes conscious, becomes nowconscious of itself. That is where I come in as a part of it. Abovethe beast in me is that--the desire to know better, toknow--beautifully, and to transmit my knowledge. That's all there isin life for me beyond food and shelter and tidying up. ThisBeing--opening its eyes, listening, trying to comprehend. Every goodthing in man is that--looking and making pictures, listening andmaking songs. .. . We began with bone-scratching. We're still--near it. I'm just a part of this beginning--mixed with other things. Everybook, every art, every religion is that, the attempt to understand andexpress--mixed with other things. "

I have reached something like a climax with this passage; a climaxthat I would willingly maintain if it were possible, inasmuch as itholds a representation of that unchanging influence which I find as aninspiration and a force behind all H. G. Wells' books. Necessarilythis vital inspiration is, as he says, "mixed with other things"; hehas had to find a means to express it, and our means of expression islimited not only by our own powers but in a large degree by thelimitations of the audience addressed. Moreover H. G. Wells' artrepresents him in that it is a practical art. He is, in anunspecialised sense, a pragmatist. He comes back from his isolationsto find in this world all the substance and potentialities of beautyboth in outward appearance and in conduct. And he is not content tovapour of ideals. He recognises that the stuff of admiration anddesire that animates his own being is present throughout humanity. Only the sight of it is obscured by all those stupidities andcondescensions to rule-of-thumb that he attacks so furiously. Thoseare the impediments that he would clear away, and he acknowledges thatthey stand between him and his own sight of beauty. He is compelledalways to struggle--and we can see the signs of it in all hewrites--with his own weakness and limitations; criticising himself ashe satirises the thing condemned, but striving without ceasing toserve the purpose of that which he knows is "struggling to exist. "This, to me, is the spirit of H. G. Wells, and I find it a spirit thatis as admirable as it is human. .. . 

_The Passionate Friends_ (1913) is another experiment in exposition. The very real and fine love of Stafford (the autobiographer in thiscase) and Lady Mary Christian is spoiled, made to appear insignificantand debased, by all the conventions and petty, unoriginal judgmentsthat go to the making of the rule of our society. The woman had tomake her choice between love in an undignified poverty for which allher training had unfitted her, and a sterile ease and magnificencethat gave her those opportunities which her temperament and educationdemanded. She chose for dignity and opportunity, was tempted to graspat love, and thus finally came into a blind alley from which death wasthe only escape. It is another picture of the old conflict illustratedin the persons of Ann Veronica and Marjorie Trafford; the constantinability that our conditions impose on the desire to lovebeautifully. The implicit demand is that for greater freedom forwomen, socially and economically. Incidentally we see that the man, Stafford, does not suffer in the same degree. His splendid love forLady Mary is thwarted, but he finds an outlet. It is a new aspect ofescape, by the way, for Stafford's illuminating business of spreadingand collating knowledge is a relief from the scientific research whichwas in some form or another the specific of the earlier novels--if weexclude Remington's political propaganda in _The New Machiavelli_, asuggested solution that was, at the best, something half-hearted. AndStafford's escape, and his version of going to the mountain apart--byway of a sight of the East and of America--bring us back to thatintegral theme which I have so insisted upon, even at the risk oftedious repetition. "I was already beginning to see the great problemof mankind, " writes Stafford, "as indeed nothing other than amagnification of the little problem of myself, as a problem in escapefrom grooves, from preoccupations and suspicions, precautions andancient angers. .. . For all of us, as for each of us, salvation isthat. We have to get away from ourselves to a greater thing, to agiant's desire and an unending life, ours and yet not our own. "

The last novel published at the time I write is _The Wife of Sir IsaacHarman_ (1914). The same theme is presented, but in othercircumstances. Ellen Sawbridge, when she married, at eighteen, thefounder and proprietor of "The International Bread Shops, " was aningenuous schoolgirl; and for more than seven years the change from arelatively independent poverty to the luxuries she could enjoy as thewife of a man who had not outgrown the Eastern theory with regard tothe position of women, sufficed to keep her reasonably content. MrBrumley was the instrument of Fate that seriously disturbed hersatisfaction; but she must have come to much the same crisis, if MrBrumley had never existed. Brumley was a writer, but he was not one of"the really imaginative people, the people with vision, the people wholet themselves go"--I quote the expression of George Wilkins, thenovelist--and Lady Harman never fell very deeply in love with him. Nevertheless it was through Brumley's interference with her life thatshe faced the crux of her position as the closely restricted occupantof "a harem of one. " She never broke out of that cage. One desperateeffort led her, by way of a suffragist demonstration on a post officewindow, to a month's freedom in prison; but Sir Isaac and society weretoo clever and too strong for her. When she was enlarged from thesolitude of confinement in a cell, she was tricked and bullied intothe resumption of her marital engagements. And presumably she musthave continued to act as the nurse of her now invalid husband for therest of her life, suffering the indignities of his abuse and therestrictions of liberty that the paid attendant may escape by a changeof situation, if release had not come through Sir Isaac's death. Bythat time Lady Harman had learnt her lesson. I am distinctly sorry forMr Brumley, but I should have been seriously disappointed in EllenHarman if she had consented to marry him. 

Thus far I have only traced an imperfect outline of what I take to bethe more important motive of the book. But there is a second patternhardly less essential--namely, the criticism of the management and, _àfortiori_, of the conception of principle, in relation to theInternational Bread Shops. Arising out of this interwoven theme wecome to some examination of the status of the female employee ingeneral, and particularly in connection with the question of theirboard and lodging outside business hours. But in _The Wife of SirIsaac Harman_ the essay manner has been abandoned. Any diversion fromthe development of the story is carried out by the expressed opinionsof the characters themselves; and, as a consequence, the two essentialproblems are not unduly intruded upon the reader, although for thatvery reason they may remain longer in his thoughts. One more commentshould be added, which is that this is the wittiest book that MrWells has yet given us. However serious the motives that give it life, it must be classed as a comedy. .. . 

In concluding this brief review of Mr Wells' novels, I feel that Imust hark back to a passage in _The Passionate Friends_ in order toindicate a spirit which, if it is not so definitely phrased in thislast book of his, is certainly upheld in the matter of the story. Forit is that spirit which seems to me the thing that should live and beremembered. Here is one of its more characteristic expressions in themouth of Stafford, who writes:

"I know that a growing multitude of men and women outwear the ancientways. The bloodstained organised jealousies of religious intolerance, the delusions of nationality and cult and race, that black hatredwhich simple people, and young people and common people cherishagainst all that is not in the likeness of themselves cease to be theundisputed ruling forces of our collective life. We want to emancipateour lives from this slavery and these stupidities, from dull hatredsand suspicions. .. . A spirit . .. Arises and increases in human affairs, a spirit that demands freedom and gracious living as our inheritancetoo long deferred. .. . "

And surely H. G. Wells has striven to give a freer and more vitalexpression to that spirit, working through his own life, than anyother novelist of our day. Indeed I would go further and claim that nosuch single and definite inspiration can be found in the works of anyother secular writer. Wells has given to the novel a new criticismand, to a certain degree, a new form. 

IV

SOCIOLOGY

Mr Wells' essays in sociology are not dry treatises, based on Bluebooks and the gathering together of information and statistics from aformless and largely worthless collection of earlier sources. He hasapproached this question of man in relation to the State in the samegenerous spirit displayed in his works of fiction; and it is only byusing the word "sociology" in its fuller sense as conceived by Comte, rather than in the restricted sense of "social science" with itsimplication of economics, as narrowed by Herbert Spencer, that I dareto head this last chapter with so dangerously technicalised a term. Indeed, I would not use the word "sociology" now if I could find amore inclusive heading. For it must be obvious, I think, to anyone whohas followed my exposition of the romances and the novels that MrWells has a way of treating all such subjects as relate to thebetterment of humanity with a broad outlook, an entire disrespect forconventional forms however hallowed by precedent, and a habit oftrenchant criticism that could hardly be fettered by an analysis ofsociological literature or continual deference to this or thatexperiment in practice or theory. He approaches his subject with thenormal mind of one who sees the world, its customs and rules ofconduct, from what is, after all, the point of view ofcommon-sense--another term that has been so grossly misused that thepossessor of true common-sense is apt to be regarded as a mostuncommon person. It is, in fact, the least common of qualities. 

The first three books under this heading form some sort of a trilogy, and have a definite air of consequence. Of these, _Anticipations_ waspublished in 1901, and _Mankind in the Making_ and _A Modern Utopia_followed in 1903 and 1905 respectively. The scheme of the first twobooks combines a criticism of present conditions with a growingconstructiveness that points the way to the ideal of what is called"The New Republic. " Now, one of the labels that has been mostfrequently and adhesively affixed to Mr Wells is that of "Socialist, "and no doubt it would proclaim his purpose admirably enough if wecould satisfactorily define the word in its relation to him. But, personally, I refuse so to label him, because I know that socialismmeans as many things to different people as religion, and is as much aterm of reproach in the mouth of some self-labelled individualists asthe designation "Christian" might be in the mouth of the "truebelievers"--as the Mohammedans call themselves. Wherefore I amparticularly anxious in approaching any description of "The NewRepublic, " to make it quite clear that that idealised State is notbuilt of the bricks that have been modelled and cast by anyrecognisable group of propagandists, working to permeate, or moreforcibly to convert, a section of the public under the flags of, say, Fabianism or Social Democracy. The essential thing about Mr Wells isthat he is not a Follower, whether of Marx, or Hyndman, or Shaw, orBebel; he may have learnt from any or all of them, but his theory ofsocial reconstruction is pre-eminently and characteristically his own. He does not believe in the private ownership of land, for example, butI do not remember that he has ever advocated the means of the "SingleTax. " And in these sociological essays, as in his novels, his methodis that of picturing the more desirable thing or condition, themethod of sweet persuasion rather than that of the sectarian who hasa pet specific. Nevertheless Mr Wells uses his sharpened weapon ofsatire with considerable effect when he contemplates and displays forus the world as he sees it to-day. I find no hint of sweetness orpersuasiveness on that side. 

It would be impossible in an exposition of this kind to dissect theseessays in detail, nor would it be desirable. Many of the suggestionswith regard to actual practice, suggestions that might be embodied inmodern legislation, are open to criticism in detail, and I would notpin Mr Wells down to the letter of any one of them. He has certainlychanged his mind on many points since he wrote these essays inconstructive sociology, and the fact that he has so altered andenlarged his opinions is the best possible evidence of his reliabilityand sincerity. He is before all else devoted to the services ofgrowth and progress. "To rebel against instinct, " he writes, "to rebelagainst limitation, to evade, to trip up, and at last to close withand grapple and conquer the forces that dominate him, is thefundamental being of man. " And no man can hope to dominate thoseforces, if he is content to let his opinions crystallise at the age ofthirty-five or so. If he would retain his powers of criticism andconstruction he must have the patience and the energy to maintain thenormal, receptive mind with which he is naturally endowed. Unfortunately with that endowment commonly comes another--namely, atendency to avoid the irk or constant struggle by taking the line ofleast resistance; by adopting an opinion and upholding it in the faceof all reason; and only a man of exceptional patience, courage andability can keep himself free from the prejudices and fixed opinionswhich not only bring him a delusive peace and certainty but also arethe means to worldly success. 

So I would advise the readers of _Anticipations_ and _Mankind in theMaking_ to be influenced by the spirit rather than by the letter ofthese two books. The spirit is definite enough; it is the spirit ofhumaneness, of a passionate criticism of all the evils, miseries anddisease that are the outcome of our present haphazard civilisation;the spirit for a desire for order, wider prospects and opportunities, greater freedom for growth. Men are born unequal, with differenttendencies, different desires, different potentialities, but thereshould be a place for every one of them in the great economy of "TheNew Republic. " Each has to learn the lesson--for discipline isessential--that he is not an independent unit as regards his work, buta factor, more or less insignificant, in the sum of individuals thatmake up the greater State. The good New Republican "will seekperpetually to gauge his quality, he will watch to see himself themaster of his habits and of his powers; he will take his brain, blood, body and lineage as a trust to be administered for the world. "

Such, I think, is the spirit, the permanent principle of these twobooks. That remains and increases. The conception of the process bywhich the New Republic shall be built is less constant, and Mr Wellswill change his opinions concerning it for just so long as hecontinues to grow. Should he ever adopt an inalterable policy, subscribe to some "ism, " and wear a label, he would brand himselftruly as inconsistent. Then, indeed, he would have contradictedhimself. We search for truth never hoping to find it complete andwhole; and he who is contented with a part denies God. .. . 

_A Modern Utopia_ (1905) is an attempt to picture "The New Republic"in being; a very different dream of reconstruction from thatdisplayed in Edward Bellamy's _Looking Backward_, and _Equality_, buthaving nevertheless certain points of likeness to the former at least, and especially in the method of marking contrasts by a form ofparallelism, by keeping the world as we know it within the circle ofattention in order to break the paralysing illusion that we are movingin romantic and quite impossible surroundings. Mr Wells' machinery isslightly complicated. He takes two figures from the beginning of thistwentieth century. The Owner of the Voice ("you will go with himthrough curious and interesting experience. Yet, ever and again, youwill find him back at the table, the manuscript in his hand . .. ") andthe "botanist, " a foil and a stimulator to the other expositor. "Theimage of a cinematograph entertainment is the one to grasp, " writes MrWells in his preliminary explanation. "There will be an effect ofthese two people going to and fro in front of the circle of a ratherdefective lantern, which sometimes jams and sometimes gets out offocus, but which does occasionally succeed in displaying on a screen amomentary moving picture of Utopian conditions. "

I think Mr Wells tried very valiantly to avoid the all too obviousmistake made by other Utopian builders, both romantic and practical. He began, I feel sure, with the admirable intention of depicting thepeople of the early twentieth century in new conditions, changed onlyin so far as they were influenced by the presentation of finer idealsand by more beautiful circumstance. He even introduced a contemporarycritic of Utopian conditions in the shape of the talkative person, "aconscious Ishmaelite in the world of wit, and in some subtlyinexplicable way a most consummate ass. " But once we begin topostulate our Utopian villains, the reader's thought is distractedfrom the contemplation of the heroic which is the cement that bindsevery stone in the visionary city. In order to change conditions it isnecessary to change much in the present cast of human nature. In afiction of Utopia there is no place for a Napoleon, a Rockefeller, oran ambition-swelled Imperialist. So Mr Wells is driven with varioushesitations and resentments to assume that the interactions of causeand effect have indeed tended to produce a sweeter-tempered, moregenerous race of men and women; that the spirit which moves us now toseek a larger liberty and a greater tolerance has been encouraged andincreased by the exercise of its own tendencies and the sight of itsown triumphs; and that those who set their minds to the building gainan added grace in the labour. It is a perfectly fair and consistentassumption, but Mr Wells has been warned by his predecessors, fromRobert Owen back to Plato and forward to Edward Bellamy, that thedesigns for Utopia have always been flawed by an altered conception ofthe humanity that walks within the city; and he has begun by trying toavoid a fallacy and ended by begging a question that he might verywell have convincingly argued. 

By many people _A Modern Utopia_ is definitely labelled as the"Samurai" book. That conception of a natural aristocracy of spirit andability did indeed return upon its creator in the form of an objectlesson that filled him with a disgust for what was really a fineideal, only too temptingly displayed. So many of his readers, andparticularly his younger readers, formed the wish to become "Samurai"without more ado, a high office for which none of them, perhaps, hadthe ability or the determination to fill. For Utopias take even longerto build than Rome or London. But the plan is there--vague andtentative as the original scheme of a Gothic cathedral, a plan to becontinually modified and changed in its most important features; andthe building has begun. .. . 

The last books that can strictly fall into the present category are_The Future of America_ (1906) and _New Worlds for Old_ (1908). Theformer is rather a record of impressions than the attempt at prophecywhich the title and the first chapter indicate; and the finalconclusion is too hesitating even to convince us that America has afuture. "I came to America questioning the certitudes of progress, " MrWells says in his Envoy. "For a time I forgot my questionings, Isincerely believed, 'These people can do anything, ' and, now I have itall in perspective, I have to confess that doubt has taken me again. "And without question he has changed his opinion with regard to many ofthe observations he made nine years ago. I sincerely hope he has. 

_New Worlds for Old_ is quite definitely a book of suggestions withregard to certain aspects of socialism. It is the most practical ofall the sociological books, and makes so strong an appeal to theburied common-sense of even prejudiced readers, that a devotedPrimrose Leaguer to whom I lent my copy was quite seriously disturbedin mind for nearly a week after he had read it. Fortunately for hisown peace, he found an answer that permitted him comfortably to avoidthe perpetual burden of an active responsibility. He thought that"Socialism would be all right in a perfect world, " or words to thateffect; and it was quite evident to him that the effort to make somesmall contribution towards raising the standard of human idealism wasno part of his duty. In any case he greatly preferred the solidassurance of the Primrose League. And, speaking generally, as I havetried to do throughout, I find that _New Worlds for Old_ presents aclearer indication to the possible path for the idealist than any ofthe other sociological essays. _Mankind in the Making_ dealt verylargely with education directed to a particular end, but in the book Iam now considering may be found certain outlets for the expression ofthe less consistently strenuous. Education, whether of individualchildren in the home or regarded as a function of the State, offerscontinual perplexities that only the most resolute can confront day byday with renewed zeal; the problems of collective ownership are lessconfused by psychology, and the broad principles may be adopted andthe energy of the young believer directed towards the accomplishmentof minor detail. He may, for example, find good reason for thenationalising of the milk supply without committing himself to anybroader theory of expropriation. 

Finally I come to the collection of various papers issued in 1914under the title _An Englishman Looks at the World_--a book that I maypass with the comment that it exhibits Mr Wells in his more captiousmoods, deliberately more captious in some instances, no doubt, inasmuch as the various papers were written for serialpublication--and that _Confession of Faith and Rule of Life_, published in 1907 as _First and Last Things_. The opening isunnecessarily complicated by the exposition of a metaphysic that isquite uncharacteristic and has little to do with the personalexposition that follows; and, indeed, I feel with regard to the wholework that it attempts to define the indefinable. I deprecate the noteof finality implied in the title. "It is as it stands now, " I read inthe Introduction, "the frank confession of what one man of the earlyTwentieth Century has found in life and himself, " but that man hasfound much since then, and will continue to find much as he growscontinually richer in experience. So that while no student of Wells'writings can afford to overlook _First and Last Things_, I would warnhim against the danger of concluding that in that book he will find atlast the ultimate expression of character and belief, set out in theform of a categorical creed. Again I find a spirit and overlook theletter. I choose to take as representative such a passage as thefollowing, with all its splendid vagueness and lack of dogma, ratherthan a definite expression of belief that Mr Wells does not believe ina personal immortality. This passage runs: "It seems to me that thewhole living creation may be regarded as walking in its sleep, aswalking in the sleep of individualised illusion, and that now out ofit all rises man, beginning to perceive his larger self, his universalbrotherhood, and a collective synthetic purpose to increase Power andrealise Beauty. .. . "

 * * * * *

And now that I have attempted my interpretation, I look back andconfess that it is a very personal reading of my subject. I may havesought too eagerly for all those passages in which I found a note thatroused in me the most thrilling response. I may have omitted todisplay vital issues that more truly characterise H. G. Wells than theappealing urgencies, idealisms, and fluencies that I have found mostsympathetic and most admirable. But if I appear to have done him aninjustice in some particulars, it is rather because I have beenabsorbed by the issue I sought to reveal, than because I deliberatelyweighed and rejected others. This short essay can be no more than anintroduction to the works it describes. It was never intended to becritical. I have had no intention of discussing technique, nor ofweighing Mr Wells against his contemporaries in any literary scale. But I have attempted to interpret the spirit and the message that Ihave found in his books; and I have made the essay in the hope thatany reader who may consequently be stirred to read or to re-read Wellswill do so with a mind prepared to look below the surface expression. 

I feel no shade of hesitation when I say that H. G. Wells is a greatwriter. His fecundity, his mastery of language, his comprehension ofcharacter are gifts and abilities that certain of his contemporarieshave in equal, or in some particulars in larger measure. But he alonehas used his perfected art for a definite end. He has not been contentto record his observations of the world as he has seen it, toelaborate this or that analysis of human motive, or to relate thehistory of a few selected lives. He has done all this, but he has doneinfinitely more by pointing the possible road of our endeavour. Through all his work moves the urgency of one who would createsomething more than a mere work of art to amuse the multitude orafford satisfaction to the critic. His chief achievement is that hehas set up the ideal of a finer civilisation, of a more generous lifethan that in which we live; an ideal that, if it is still too high forus of this generation, will be appreciated and followed by the peopleof the future. 

A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF H. G. WELLS' PRINCIPAL WRITINGS

Select Conversations with an Uncle (_Lane_). 1895. 

The Time Machine--An Invention (_Heinemann_). 1895. 

*The Stolen Bacillus and Other Stories (_Macmillan_). 1895. 

The Wonderful Visit (_Dent_). 1895. 

The Island of Dr Moreau (_Heinemann_). 1896. 

The Wheels of Chance (_Dent_). 1896. 

*The Plattner Story (_Macmillan_). 1897. 

The Invisible Man (_MacMillan_). 1897. 

The War of the Worlds (_Heinemann_). 1898. 

When the Sleeper Wakes (_Nelson_). 1899. 

Afterwards published (1911) in a revised and alterededition, as "The Sleeper Awakes. "

*Tales of Space and Time (_Macmillan_). 1899. 

Love and Mr Lewisham (_Macmillan_). 1900. 

Certain Personal Matters (_Unwin_). 1901. 

Anticipations of the Reaction of Mechanical andScientific Progress upon Human Life and Thought(_Chapman & Hall_). 1901. 

The First Men in the Moon (_Macmillan_). 1901. 

The Discovery of the Future (A Lecture given at theRoyal Institute). 1902. 

The Sea Lady--A Tissue of Moonshine. 1902. 

Mankind in the Making (_Chapman & Hall_). 1903. 

*Twelve Stories and a Dream (_Macmillan_). 1903. 

The Food of the Gods and How it Came to Earth(_Macmillan_). 1904. 

A Modern Utopia (_Nelson_). 1905. 

Kipps--The Story of a Simple Soul (_Macmillan_). 1905. 

In the Days of the Comet (_Macmillan_). 1906. 

The Future in America--A Search after Realities(_Chapman & Hall_). 1906. 

First and Last Things--A Confession of Faith andRule of Life (_Constable_). 1907. 

The Misery of Boots (Fabian Tract). 1907. 

Socialism and Marriage (Fabian Tract). 1908. 

New Worlds for Old (_Constable_). 1908. 

The War in the Air (_Bell_). 1908. 

Tono-Bungay (_Macmillan_). 1909. 

Ann Veronica--A Modern Love Story (_Unwin_). 1909. 

The History of Mr Polly (_Nelson_). 1910. 

The New Machiavelli (_Lane_) 1910. 

The Country of the Blind and Other Stories(_Nelson_). 1911. 

Floor Games (A book about play for children)(_Palmer_). 1911. 

Socialism and the Great State (A contribution byH. G. Wells. The book is written by fifteenauthors) (_Harper_). 1911. 

Marriage (_Macmillan_). 1912. 

The Passionate Friends--A Novel (_Macmillan_). 1913. 

Little Wars (A book about play for children)(_Palmer_). 1913. 

An Englishman Looks at the World (_Cassell_). 1914. 

The World Set Free--A Story of Mankind(_Macmillan_). 1914. 

The volumes marked * are collections of shortstories, the best of which were republished in "TheCountry of the Blind, " 1911. 

NOTE. --Some of these volumes have been publishedunder different titles in the U. S. A. (See AmericanBibliography. )

AMERICAN BIBLIOGRAPHY

Island of Dr Moreau (_Duffield_). 1896. 

Invisible Man (_Harper_). 1898. 

Thirty Strange Stories (_Harper_). 1898. 

When the Sleeper Wakes [English title, "The Sleeper Awakes. "] (_Harper_). 1899. 

Anticipations (_Harper_). 1902. 

Discovery of the Future (_Smithsonian InstituteWashington_). 1903. 

Discovery of the Future (_Huebsch_). 1913. 

Food of the Gods and How it Came to Earth(_Scribners_). 1904. 

Love and Mr Lewisham (_Stokes_). 1904. 

Mankind in the Making (_Scribners_). 1904. 

Modern Utopia (_Scribners_). 1905. 

Twelve Stories and a Dream (_Scribners_). 1905. 

Kipps (_Scribners_). 1905. 

Future in America (_Harper_). 1906. 

Time Machine--An Invention (_Holt & Company_). 1906. 

In the Days of the Comet (_Century Company_). 1906. 

First and Last Things (_Putnams_). 1908. 

New Worlds for Old (_Macmillan Company_). 1908-13. 

Socialism and the Family (_Ball Publishing Company, Boston, Massachusetts_). 1908. 

This Misery of Boots (_Ball Publishing Company, Boston, Massachusetts_). 1908. 

War in the Air (_Macmillan Company_). 1908. 

War in the Air (_Grosset & Dunlap_). 1910. 

Ann Veronica (_Harper_). 1909. 

Select Conversations with an Uncle (_SaalfieldPublishing Company, Akron, Ohio_). 1909. 

Tono-Bungay (_Duffield_). 1909. 

War of the Worlds (_Harper_). 1909. 

History of Mr Polly (_Duffield_). 1910. 

History of Mr Polly (_Grosset & Dunlap_). 1912. 

New Machiavelli (_Duffield_). 1910. 

Door in the Wall and Other Stories (_MitchellKennerley_). 1911. 

Floor Games (_Small, Maynard & Company, Boston, Massachusetts_). 1912. 

Socialism and the Great State (_Harper_). 1912. (See page 119. )

Marriage (_Duffield_). 1912. 

Little Wars (_Small, Maynard & Company, Boston, Massachusetts_). 1913. 

Passionate Friends (_Harper_). 1913. 

Wheels of Chance--A Bicycling Idyll (_MacmillanCompany_). 1913. Illustrated by F. A. Symington. [English title, "The Wheels of Chance: A HolidayAdventure. "]

The Wonderful Visit (_E. P. Dutton & Company_). 1914. 

Social Forces in England and America (_Harper_). 1914. 

The World Set Free (_E. P. Dutton & Company_). 1914. 

INDEX

_Ann Veronica_, 65, 76_Anticipations_, 99

Bebel, 100Bellamy, Edward, 105Bromley, 13

Capital and Labour, 35Characterisation, 60Common-sense, 98Comte, 97_Country of the Blind, The_, 29, 55

_Dynasts, The_, 40

Education, 111_Englishman Looks at the World, An_, 112

Fabre, Henri, 63Fecundity, 115Feminism, 72_First and Last Things_, 112_First Men in the Moon, The_, 46Fixed Opinions, 102_Food of the Gods, The_, 51, 54_Future of America, The_, 109

Henley House, 15_History of Mr Polly, The_, 65, 67Huxley, 19Hyndman, 100

Idealism, 69Insurgent Bigness, 52_In the Days of the Comet_, 36, 46_Invisible Man, The_, 25, 28_Island of Dr Moreau, The_, 25Isolation, 86

_Kipps_, 60-65

_Love and Mr Lewisham_, 60-64

_Man of the Year Million, The_, 20, 30_Mankind in the Making_, 99_Marriage_, 73, 82-85Marx, 100Metaphysics, 112Midhurst Grammar School, 14_Modern Utopia, A_, 99, 104

_New Machiavelli, The_, 65, 77-79, 82, 86New Republic, The, 99, 103, 104_New Worlds for Old_, 109

_Passionate Friends, The_, 73, 89, 95

Rule of Thumb, 77, 78, 88

Samurai, 108_Sea Lady, The_, 49, 50Shaw, 100Socialism, 99, 110South Kensington School, 14Spencer, Herbert, 97Spirit of Freedom, 96, 103

_Time Machine, The_, 20, 23_Tono-Bungay_, 59, 73

Up Park, 14Utopias, 106-108

Verne, Jules, 17

_War in the Air, The_, 40, 42, 44, 56_War of the Worlds, The_, 25, 29Wells, Mr and Mrs Joseph, 12_Wheels of Chance, The_, 60_When the Sleeper Wakes (The Sleeper Awakes)_, 33, 36_Wife of Sir Isaac Harman, The_, 91, etc. Women Employees, 92, 94_Wonderful Visit, The_, 23, 25_World Set Free, The_, 43, 46