THE NEW MACHIAVELLI by H. G. Wells CONTENTS BOOK THE FIRST THE MAKING OF A MAN I. CONCERNING A BOOK THAT WAS NEVER WRITTEN II. BROMSTEAD AND MY FATHER III. SCHOLASTIC IV. ADOLESCENCE BOOK THE SECOND MARGARET I. MARGARET IN STAFFORDSHIRE II. MARGARET IN LONDON III. MARGARET IN VENICE IV. THE HOUSE IN WESTMINSTER BOOK THE THIRD THE HEART OF POLITICS I. THE RIDDLE FOR THE STATESMAN II. SEEKING ASSOCIATES III. SECESSION IV. THE BESETTING OF SEX BOOK THE FOURTH ISABEL I. LOVE AND SUCCESS II. THE IMPOSSIBLE POSITION III. THE BREAKING POINT BOOK THE FIRST: THE MAKING OF A MAN CHAPTER THE FIRST ~~ CONCERNING A BOOK THAT WAS NEVER WRITTEN 1 Since I came to this place I have been very restless, wasting my energies in the futile beginning of ill-conceived books. One does not settle down very readily at two and forty to a new way of living, and I have found myself with the teeming interests of the life I have abandoned still buzzing like a swarm of homeless bees in my head. My mind has been full of confused protests and justifications. In any case I should have found difficulties enough in expressing the complex thing I have to tell, but it has added greatly to my trouble that I have a great analogue, that a certain Niccolo Machiavelli chanced to fall out of politics at very much the age I have reached, and wrote a book to engage the restlessness of his mind, very much as I have wanted to do. He wrote about the relation of the great constructive spirit in politics to individual character and weaknesses, and so far his achievement lies like a deep rut in the road of my intention. It has taken me far astray. It is a matter of many weeks now--diversified indeed by some long drives into the mountains behind us and a memorable sail to Genoa across the blue and purple waters that drowned Shelley--since I began a laboured and futile imitation of “The Prince.” I sat up late last night with the jumbled accumulation; and at last made a little fire of olive twigs and burnt it all, sheet by sheet--to begin again clear this morning.