Wells, H. G. (Herbert George), 1866-1946 -- Criticism and interpretation
I have reached something like a climax with this passage; a climax
that I would willingly maintain if it were possible, inasmuch as it
holds a representation of that unchanging influence which I find as an
inspiration and a force behind all H.G. Wells' books. Necessarily
this vital inspiration is, as he says, "mixed with other things"; he
has had to find a means to express it, and our means of expression is
limited not only by our own powers but in a large degree by the
limitations of the audience addressed. Moreover H.G. Wells' art
represents him in that it is a practical art. He is, in an
unspecialised sense, a pragmatist. He comes back from his isolations
to find in this world all the substance and potentialities of beauty
both in outward appearance and in conduct. And he is not content to
vapour of ideals. He recognises that the stuff of admiration and
desire that animates his own being is present throughout humanity.
Only the sight of it is obscured by all those stupidities and
condescensions to rule-of-thumb that he attacks so furiously. Those
are the impediments that he would clear away, and he acknowledges that
they stand between him and his own sight of beauty. He is compelled
always to struggle--and we can see the signs of it in all he
writes--with his own weakness and limitations; criticising himself as
he satirises the thing condemned, but striving without ceasing to
serve 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 that
is as admirable as it is human....
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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