The Research MagnificentWells, H. G. (Herbert George)
General
The Research Magnificent
Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Conduct of life -- Fiction
And as he sat upon the battlements of La Ferriere, Benham cast off from
his mind his last tolerance for earthly kings and existing States, and
expounded to another human being for the first time this long-cherished
doctrine of his of the Invisible King who is the lord of human destiny,
the spirit of nobility, who will one day take the sceptre and rule the
earth.... To the young American's naive American response to any simply
felt emotion, he seemed with his white earnestness and his glowing eyes
a veritable prophet....
“This is the root idea of aristocracy,” said Benham.
“I have never heard the underlying spirit of democracy, the real true
Thing in democracy, so thoroughly expressed,” said the young American.
5
Benham's notes on race and racial cultures gave White tantalizing
glimpses of a number of picturesque experiences. The adventure in Kieff
had first roused Benham to the reality of racial quality. He was caught
in the wheels of a pogrom.
“Before that time I had been disposed to minimize and deny race. I still
think it need not prevent men from the completest social co-operation,
but I see now better than I did how difficult it is for any man to purge
from his mind the idea that he is not primarily a Jew, a Teuton, or a
Kelt, but a man. You can persuade any one in five minutes that he or she
belongs to some special and blessed and privileged sort of human
being; it takes a lifetime to destroy that persuasion. There are these
confounded differences of colour, of eye and brow, of nose or hair,
small differences in themselves except that they give a foothold and
foundation for tremendous fortifications of prejudice and tradition, in
which hostilities and hatreds may gather. When I think of a Jew's nose,
a Chinaman's eyes or a negro's colour I am reminded of that fatal little
pit which nature has left in the vermiform appendix, a thing no use in
itself and of no significance, but a gathering-place for mischief. The
extremest case of race-feeling is the Jewish case, and even here, I am
convinced, it is the Bible and the Talmud and the exertions of those
inevitable professional champions who live upon racial feeling, far more
than their common distinction of blood, which holds this people together
banded against mankind.”
Between the lines of such general propositions as this White read little
scraps of intimation that linked with the things Benham let fall in
Johannesburg to reconstruct the Kieff adventure.
Benham had been visiting a friend in the country on the further side
of the Dnieper. As they drove back along dusty stretches of road amidst
fields of corn and sunflower and through bright little villages, they
saw against the evening blue under the full moon a smoky red glare
rising from amidst the white houses and dark trees of the town. “The
pogrom's begun,” said Benham's friend, and was surprised when Benham
wanted to end a pleasant day by going to see what happens after the
beginning of a pogrom.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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