h. g. wells is not the hero of this book. i am holding my roses for a figure that has not yet appeared upon my little stage. but the career of mr. wells, whose novels have almost every quality except charm, is interesting to contemplate. that he is a born novelist was clear to me so early as the year 1895, when one of his best stories appeared—the wheels of chance. not long after came the novels of science and socialism that carried his name around the world; he was discussed in the salons of paris and in the prisons of siberia. his books were all busy, noisy, talkative, restless; they reflected in their almost truculent mental aggressiveness the mass of undigested and indigestible quasi-scientific fodder that perhaps disturbs more than it nourishes the twentieth century stomach; they made many readers fondly believe they were living the intellectual life. i mistakenly supposed he would keep up this squirrel-cage activity to the end of his days; for i[7] mistakenly supposed in all this clatter he was incapable of hearing the voice of the spirit. i used to think that if all the world suddenly became religious except one man, that man would be h. g. wells.
the war, which diverted the energies of so many quiet thinkers to matters of immediate and practical efficiency, produced a rather different effect upon this interesting man. he began to regard things that are temporal in relation to those of eternal import. he became converted—i have no hesitation in using the good old word—and while i can see no evidence of conviction of sin, for humility is not his most salient characteristic, he did come to believe and believes now, that religion ought to be the motive power of man. what direction his ideas may take in the future i cannot divine; but i am thankful for his conversion, if only for the reason that it inspired him to produce a masterpiece, mr. britling sees it through. this novel is not only far and away his best book, it is the ablest work of fiction about the war that i have read. but it owes its eminence not to its accurate reporting of the course of social history during the war, for after all, the much admired hockey-game is not much higher[8] than major journalism, but rather to the profound sense of spiritual values which is the core of the book.
i regard it as unfortunate that mr. wells felt it necessary to follow up the triumph of this tale with a treatise on theology called god the invisible king, and with a propagandist novel, called the soul of a bishop. for the last-named book illustrates all the faults of its species, as well as the cardinal sin against art. mr. britling sees it through is religious; the soul of a bishop is sectarian. and god the invisible king, while it should be read with sympathy for its author's sincerity and newly-found idealism, has all the arrogance and cock-sureness of an old-fashioned theologian without the preliminary years of devoted learning that gave the old-fashioned one some right to a hearing, provided of course he could induce any one to listen to him. no orthodox evangelist has ever been more sure of god than mr. wells. the novel was properly named mr. britling sees it through; and we might with equal propriety name the treatise, mr. britling sees through it.
strange and unfortunate that mr. wells should think that the religious element in mr.[9] britling needed additional emphasis. a work of art founded on eternal verities will accomplish more for the cause of religion than any tract. solely from the moral point of view, anna karenina is a more impressive book than most of its author's subsequent exhortations.
the soul of a bishop is not a realistic novel, for there is no real character in it. it is already on its way to limbo, along with robert elsmere and the inside of the cup. but it is an excellent illustration of the fate that awaits an artist when he sacrifices the truth of art for the enforcement of personal opinion. there was a time when the excitement over the question of trades-unions produced by put yourself in his place was at fever heat; but that novel today is almost forgotten, while the cloister and the hearth will be read by generation after generation, simply because it is a great story.
