An Englishman Looks at the World. H. G. Wells

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       H. G. Wells

      An Englishman Looks at the World

      Being a Series of Unrestrained Remarks upon Contemporary Matters

      Published by Good Press, 2019

       [email protected]

      EAN 4057664630636

Table of Contents

       THE COMING OF BLIRIOT

       (July, 1909 .)

       MY FIRST FLIGHT

       (EASTBOURNE, August 5, 1912—three years later .)

       OFF THE CHAIN

       (December, 1910)

       OF THE NEW REIGN

       (June, 1911 .)

       WILL THE EMPIRE LIVE?

       THE LABOUR UNREST

       (May, 1912 .)

       SOCIAL PANACEAS

       (June, 1912 .)

       SYNDICALISM OR CITIZENSHIP

       THE GREAT STATE

       THE NORMAL SOCIAL LIFE

       THE COMMON SENSE OF WARFARE

       CONSCRIPTION

       THE CONTEMPORARY NOVEL

       THE PHILOSOPHER'S PUBLIC LIBRARY

       ABOUT CHESTERTON AND BELLOC

       ABOUT SIR THOMAS MORE

       TRAFFIC AND REBUILDING

       THE SO-CALLED SCIENCE OF SOCIOLOGY

       DIVORCE

       THE SCHOOLMASTER AND THE EMPIRE

       THE ENDOWMENT OF MOTHERHOOD

       DOCTORS

       AN AGE OF SPECIALISATION

       IS THERE A PEOPLE?

       THE DISEASE OF PARLIAMENTS

       THE AMERICAN POPULATION

       THE POSSIBLE COLLAPSE OF CIVILISATION

       (New Year, 1909 .)

       THE IDEAL CITIZEN

       SOME POSSIBLE DISCOVERIES

       THE HUMAN ADVENTURE

THE COMING OF BLIRIOT

       Table of Contents

(July, 1909.)

       Table of Contents

      The telephone bell rings with the petulant persistence that marks a trunk call, and I go in from some ineffectual gymnastics on the lawn to deal with the irruption. There is the usual trouble in connecting up, minute voices in Folkestone and Dover and London call to one another and are submerged by buzzings and throbbings. Then in elfin tones the real message comes through: "Bliriot has crossed the Channel. … An article … about what it means."

      I make a hasty promise and go out and tell my friends.

      From my garden I look straight upon the Channel, and there are white caps upon the water, and the iris and tamarisk are all asway with the south-west wind that was also blowing yesterday. M. Bliriot has done very well, and Mr. Latham, his rival, had jolly bad luck. That is what it means to us first of all. It also, I reflect privately, means that I have under-estimated the possible stability of aeroplanes. I did not expect anything of the sort so soon. This is a good five years before my reckoning of the year before last.

      We all, I think, regret that being so near we were not among the fortunate ones who saw that little flat shape skim landward out of the blue; surely they have an enviable memory; and then we fell talking and disputing about what that swift arrival may signify. It starts a swarm of questions.

      First one remarks that here is a thing done, and done with an astonishing effect of ease, that was incredible not simply to ignorant people but to men well informed in these matters. It cannot be fifteen years ago since Sir Hiram Maxim made the first machine that could lift its weight from the ground, and I well remember how the clumsy quality of that success confirmed the universal doubt that men could ever in any