Masters of Prose - H. G. Wells. H. G. Wells

to America questioning the certitudes of progress," Mr Wells says in his Envoy. "For a time I forgot my questionings, I sincerely believed, 'These people can do anything,' and, now I have it all in perspective, I have to confess that doubt has taken me again." And without question he has changed his opinion with regard to many of the observations he made nine years ago. I sincerely hope he has.

      New Worlds for Old is quite definitely a book of suggestions with regard to certain aspects of socialism. It is the most practical of all the sociological books, and makes so strong an appeal to the buried common-sense of even prejudiced readers, that a devoted Primrose Leaguer to whom I lent my copy was quite seriously disturbed in mind for nearly a week after he had read it. Fortunately for his own peace, he found an answer that permitted him comfortably to avoid the perpetual burden of an active responsibility. He thought that "Socialism would be all right in a perfect world," or words to that effect; and it was quite evident to him that the effort to make some small contribution towards raising the standard of human idealism was no part of his duty. In any case he greatly preferred the solid assurance of the Primrose League. And, speaking generally, as I have tried to do throughout, I find that New Worlds for Old presents a clearer indication to the possible path for the idealist than any of the other sociological essays. Mankind in the Making dealt very largely with education directed to a particular end, but in the book I am now considering may be found certain outlets for the expression of the less consistently strenuous. Education, whether of individual children in the home or regarded as a function of the State, offers continual perplexities that only the most resolute can confront day by day with renewed zeal; the problems of collective ownership are less confused by psychology, and the broad principles may be adopted and the energy of the young believer directed towards the accomplishment of minor detail. He may, for example, find good reason for the nationalising of the milk supply without committing himself to any broader theory of expropriation.

      Finally I come to the collection of various papers issued in 1914 under the title An Englishman Looks at the World—a book that I may pass with the comment that it exhibits Mr Wells in his more captious moods, deliberately more captious in some instances, no doubt, inasmuch as the various papers were written for serial publication—and that Confession of Faith and Rule of Life, published in 1907 as First and Last Things. The opening is unnecessarily complicated by the exposition of a metaphysic that is quite uncharacteristic and has little to do with the personal exposition that follows; and, indeed, I feel with regard to the whole work that it attempts to define the indefinable. I deprecate the note of finality implied in the title. "It is as it stands now," I read in the Introduction, "the frank confession of what one man of the early Twentieth Century has found in life and himself," but that man has found much since then, and will continue to find much as he grows continually richer in experience. So that while no student of Wells' writings can afford to overlook First and Last Things, I would warn him against the danger of concluding that in that book he will find at last the ultimate expression of character and belief, set out in the form of a categorical creed. Again I find a spirit and overlook the letter. I choose to take as representative such a passage as the following, with all its splendid vagueness and lack of dogma, rather than a definite expression of belief that Mr Wells does not believe in a personal immortality. This passage runs: "It seems to me that the whole living creation may be regarded as walking in its sleep, as walking in the sleep of individualised illusion, and that now out of it all rises man, beginning to perceive his larger self, his universal brotherhood, and a collective synthetic purpose to increase Power and realise Beauty...."

      And now that I have attempted my interpretation, I look back and confess that it is a very personal reading of my subject. I may have sought too eagerly for all those passages in which I found a note that roused in me the most thrilling response. I may have omitted to display vital issues that more truly characterise H.G. Wells than the appealing urgencies, idealisms, and fluencies that I have found most sympathetic and most admirable. But if I appear to have done him an injustice in some particulars, it is rather because I have been absorbed by the issue I sought to reveal, than because I deliberately weighed and rejected others. This short essay can be no more than an introduction to the works it describes. It was never intended to be critical. I have had no intention of discussing technique, nor of weighing Mr Wells against his contemporaries in any literary scale. But I have attempted to interpret the spirit and the message that I have found in his books; and I have made the essay in the hope that any reader who may consequently be stirred to read or to re-read Wells will 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 great writer. His fecundity, his mastery of language, his comprehension of character are gifts and abilities that certain of his contemporaries have in equal, or in some particulars in larger measure. But he alone has used his perfected art for a definite end. He has not been content to record his observations of the world as he has seen it, to elaborate this or that analysis of human motive, or to relate the history of a few selected lives. He has done all this, but he has done infinitely more by pointing the possible road of our endeavour. Through all his work moves the urgency of one who would create something more than a mere work of art to amuse the multitude or afford satisfaction to the critic. His chief achievement is that he has set up the ideal of a finer civilisation, of a more generous life than that in which we live; an ideal that, if it is still too high for us of this generation, will be appreciated and followed by the people of the future.