Forgive the blatant obviousness of all this. But I'm bent on carrying through the discussion to the end. Granted, then, that our hero's feeling is not intrinsically wicked--what then? He faces a dilemma. Either he must run the risk of a new love affair, or--and this, I think, escaped "M. M."--present conditions must be changed. If he has a new love affair, he is at the least violating the Victorian lady's conventional morality, which says that every man must love not more than one woman as long as that woman lives. We come then to an extremely vital problem. On the one hand, is conventional morality desirable? On the other, can present conditions be so changed as to eliminate the danger? The solution of that problem is of great importance to anyone interested in human beings. If it can't be solved, it means that the man or woman must quench a right and healthy instinct along whichever line he or she chooses. And that's a bit of pessimism which a warm-hearted man like H. G. Wells doesn't want to accept without further investigation. That's the reason he wrote The Passionate Friends. He is engaged in the noble endeavor to do something at least toward freeing the great spirit of mankind from the network in which it is enmeshed. The history of that struggle is the history of human progress. Perhaps it isn't necessary further to defend Mr. Wells for the sort of novels he writes. But I'd like to offer an illustration of the difference between Wells and the old-fashioned novelist. The old writer started with the conviction that certain laws and fundamental conditions were forever fixed, and must limit the destinies of his characters. He then works out his little story according to rules, and gets his effect by arousing in us pity for the misfortunes, hatred for the sins, and joy for the virtuous triumphs of his people. The tendency of the whole was to show us once more what the eternal verities were--and the result was highly "moral." Every character was an object lesson. Wells, on the other hand, is not a preacher, but a scientist. He starts with the conviction that, through lack of impartial investigation, we don't really know what the eternal verities are, or what power can be derived from them. His attitude is as far from the old writers' as is Mme. Curie's from the alchemists'. He attempts to free his mind from every prejudice. Then he begins his experiment, puts his characters in their retort under "controlled conditions," and watches what happens. What his characters do corresponds to fact as well as his trained mind can make it. The result may be negative or positive--but at least it is true, and, like all truth, it is really valuable.