The Secret Places of the HeartWells, H. G. (Herbert George)
General
The Secret Places of the Heart
Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
England -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Psychological fiction
“And yet the New World is already completely established in our hearts.
What has been done in our minds can be done in most minds. In a little
while the muddled angry mind of Man upon his Planet will grow clear and
it will be this idea that will have made it clear. And then life will
be very different for everyone. That tyranny of disorder which oppresses
every life on earth now will be lifted. There will be less and less
insecurity, less and less irrational injustice. It will be a better
instructed and a better behaved world. We shall live at our ease, not
perpetually anxious, not resentful and angry. And that will alter all
the rules of love. Then we shall think more of the loveliness of other
people because it will no longer be necessary to think so much of the
dangers and weaknesses and pitifulliesses of other people. We shall not
have to think of those who depend upon us for happiness and selfrespect.
We shall not have to choose between a wasteful fight for a personal end
or the surrender of our heart’s desire.”
“Heart’s desire,” she whispered. “Am I indeed your heart’s desire?”
Sir Richmond sank his head and voice in response.
“You are the best of all things. And I have to let you go.”
Sir Richmond suddenly remembered Miss Seyffert and half turned his face
towards her. Her forehead was just visible over the hood of the open
coupe. She appeared to be intelligently intent upon the scenery. Then he
broke out suddenly into a tirade against the world. “But I am bored
by this jostling unreasonable world. At the bottom of my heart I am
bitterly resentful to-day. This is a world of fools and brutes in which
we live, a world of idiotic traditions, imbecile limitations, cowardice,
habit, greed and mean cruelty. It is a slum of a world, a congested
district, an insanitary jumble of souls and bodies. Every good thing,
every sweet desire is thwarted--every one. I have to lead the life of a
slum missionary, a sanitary inspector, an underpaid teacher. I am bored.
Oh God! how I am bored! I am bored by our laws and customs. I am bored
by our rotten empire and its empty monarchy. I am bored by its parades
and its flags and its sham enthusiasms. I am bored by London and its
life, by its smart life and by its servile life alike. I am bored
by theatres and by books and by every sort of thing that people call
pleasure. I am bored by the brag of people and the claims of people and
the feelings of people. Damn people! I am bored by profiteers and by the
snatching they call business enterprise. Damn every business man! I am
bored by politics and the universal mismanagement of everything. I am
bored by France, by Anglo-Saxondom, by German self-pity, by Bolshevik
fanaticism. I am bored by these fools’ squabbles that devastate the
world. I am bored by Ireland, Orange and Green. Curse the Irish--north
and south together! Lord! how I HATE the Irish from Carson to the last
Sinn Feiner! And I am bored by India and by Egypt. I am bored by Poland
and by Islam.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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