[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
the oil that allows the machine to function. From it proceed the ease
and the pleasure with which we read ahead.
Selection is of course a more controversial topic, and here the critics
can get going if they think it worth while. Each of us can write two
long lists: facts that Wells might have left out, and of facts that he ought
249
H.G.WELLS
to have put in. Here is an item from the first list: The Scythian expedition
of Darius occupies too much space: Wells has been seduced into garrulity
by the companionship of Herodotus, and in his account of the crossing
of the Danube he even inflicts imaginative touches that are unwarranted
by his original. And here is an item from the second list: The Sicilian
expedition of Athens occupies only a sentence; yet it is in the opinion
of other historians a fact of the highest importance pivotal, not merely
dramatic and Wells should at least show cause to the contrary. So might
one go on, even adding flourishes of scholarship such as Surely Pompey s
Pillar at Alexandria wasn t meant for a sea mark. But is there any point
in going on? Listen to the experts! They are beginning to argue over
their beer. They are saying to each other: It s only in my period he breaks
down he s quite sound in yours. There is not a man alive who could
have selected from those millions of years so well, and we had better
acknowledge this handsomely, and give the writer good again.
A third merit is the style. The surface of Wells English is poor, and
he does not improve its effect when he tints it purple. But it does do
its job, as the following example will show. He is speaking of the nomads
(and, by the way, his sympathy with outsiders contributes largely to
the balance of his historical outlook). He is wanting to describe their
migrations, which combined a steady advance with a north-and-south
movement between winter and summer pasturage. So he says: They moved
in annual swings, as the broom of a servant who is sweeping out a passage
swishes from side to side as she advances. You may complain that the
sentence is journalistic rather than literary. But hasn t it got the nomads
for you, and so fulfilled the aim of the historian? Similarly with the
refilling of the Mediterranean in 30,000 B.C. and with the disaster that
overtook the Mesozoic reptiles; such events, hitherto somewhat academic,
will be intimate in the future, because Wells has written of them racily.
Arrangement, selection, style: so these make up the case for his
Outline, and it is an overwhelming case. Now let us attempt to state
the other side.
II
We indicated last week the chief merits of Wells Outline. Now for the
defects, and the first of them is a serious one. Wells lucidity, so satisfying
when applied to peoples and periods, is somehow inadequate when
250
THE CRITICAL HERITAGE
individuals are thrown on to the screen. The outlines are as clear as
ever, but they are not the outlines of living men. He seldom has created
a character who lives (Kipps and the aunt in Tono-Bungay are the main
exceptions); and a similar failure attends his historical evocations. He
has occasion in this volume to sketch about thirty eminent humans, from
Akhnaton to St. Benedict, and only one of them sticks in one s mind.
That one is Cato the Censor, and he is galvanized into life not so much
by the author s insight as by his crossness. Cato is the type Wells cannot
stand, and the result is a brilliant tirade such as might occur in The
New Machiavelli. Of course he does not intend to produce a portrait
gallery, and it is well that this is not his intention, for if it were his
history would fail. As it is, the eminent humans appear as diagrams,
lettered at their characteristic angles; the lecturer points to the lettering
and then passes on. Often no harm is done; the case becomes serious
when an individual has, so to speak, to be the epitome of his age, when
he is required by the historian to focus all the unhappiness or joy or
hope that surrounds him. Xerxes was such an individual at Salamis, as
Æschylus and Herodotus both realized. But when Wells would also achieve
this most necessary effect, he makes a disagreeable rattling noise and
produces a passage like this:
We can imagine something of the coming and going of messengers, the issuing
of futile orders, the changes of plan, throughout the day. In the morning Xerxes
had come out provided with tables to mark the most successful of the commanders
for reward. In the gold of the sunset he beheld the sea power of Persia utterly
scattered, sunken and destroyed, and the Greek fleet over against Salamis& .
Over against such a sunset the only possible comment is, Don t do it
again; it isn t your line. But he does it again. Observe how he dramatizes
a sorrow even more representative than Xerxes :
[Quotes Wells s description of the Crucifixion.]
Over against such a red twilight the only possible comment is a coloured
illustration, and the publishers have provided one. There we may see
the three crosses, so far more tremendous than the fantasies of Tintoretto,
and we may reflect on the nemesis that attends the non-Christian who
would write sympathetically of Christ. Wells failure on Golgotha, however,
is due to the same cause as his failure at Salamis. He cannot create
individuals, and when he would use one to epitomize a great contemporary
emotion the result is a mess. Arrangement, selection, lucidity of style,
no longer assist him. He often tells us that individuals ought to merge
251
H.G.WELLS
themselves in something greater, and he has practised what he preaches,
for we come away with no knowledge of the faces and hearts of his
thirty dead leaders.
Thus, though his history lives, it is in a peculiar way: by its fundamental
soundness, expressed through brilliant parallels and metaphors; not by
imaginative reconstructions of individual people or scenes. We see the
nomads advancing into the Roman Empire like the housemaid s broom,
but if Wells took one of the twigs of the broom and tried to describe
its mentality he would at once become thin and sentimental. It is a history
of movements, not of man. Nor is this its only weakness. As a rule the
writer most admirably suppresses his personal likes and dislikes; there [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl exclamation.htw.pl
the oil that allows the machine to function. From it proceed the ease
and the pleasure with which we read ahead.
Selection is of course a more controversial topic, and here the critics
can get going if they think it worth while. Each of us can write two
long lists: facts that Wells might have left out, and of facts that he ought
249
H.G.WELLS
to have put in. Here is an item from the first list: The Scythian expedition
of Darius occupies too much space: Wells has been seduced into garrulity
by the companionship of Herodotus, and in his account of the crossing
of the Danube he even inflicts imaginative touches that are unwarranted
by his original. And here is an item from the second list: The Sicilian
expedition of Athens occupies only a sentence; yet it is in the opinion
of other historians a fact of the highest importance pivotal, not merely
dramatic and Wells should at least show cause to the contrary. So might
one go on, even adding flourishes of scholarship such as Surely Pompey s
Pillar at Alexandria wasn t meant for a sea mark. But is there any point
in going on? Listen to the experts! They are beginning to argue over
their beer. They are saying to each other: It s only in my period he breaks
down he s quite sound in yours. There is not a man alive who could
have selected from those millions of years so well, and we had better
acknowledge this handsomely, and give the writer good again.
A third merit is the style. The surface of Wells English is poor, and
he does not improve its effect when he tints it purple. But it does do
its job, as the following example will show. He is speaking of the nomads
(and, by the way, his sympathy with outsiders contributes largely to
the balance of his historical outlook). He is wanting to describe their
migrations, which combined a steady advance with a north-and-south
movement between winter and summer pasturage. So he says: They moved
in annual swings, as the broom of a servant who is sweeping out a passage
swishes from side to side as she advances. You may complain that the
sentence is journalistic rather than literary. But hasn t it got the nomads
for you, and so fulfilled the aim of the historian? Similarly with the
refilling of the Mediterranean in 30,000 B.C. and with the disaster that
overtook the Mesozoic reptiles; such events, hitherto somewhat academic,
will be intimate in the future, because Wells has written of them racily.
Arrangement, selection, style: so these make up the case for his
Outline, and it is an overwhelming case. Now let us attempt to state
the other side.
II
We indicated last week the chief merits of Wells Outline. Now for the
defects, and the first of them is a serious one. Wells lucidity, so satisfying
when applied to peoples and periods, is somehow inadequate when
250
THE CRITICAL HERITAGE
individuals are thrown on to the screen. The outlines are as clear as
ever, but they are not the outlines of living men. He seldom has created
a character who lives (Kipps and the aunt in Tono-Bungay are the main
exceptions); and a similar failure attends his historical evocations. He
has occasion in this volume to sketch about thirty eminent humans, from
Akhnaton to St. Benedict, and only one of them sticks in one s mind.
That one is Cato the Censor, and he is galvanized into life not so much
by the author s insight as by his crossness. Cato is the type Wells cannot
stand, and the result is a brilliant tirade such as might occur in The
New Machiavelli. Of course he does not intend to produce a portrait
gallery, and it is well that this is not his intention, for if it were his
history would fail. As it is, the eminent humans appear as diagrams,
lettered at their characteristic angles; the lecturer points to the lettering
and then passes on. Often no harm is done; the case becomes serious
when an individual has, so to speak, to be the epitome of his age, when
he is required by the historian to focus all the unhappiness or joy or
hope that surrounds him. Xerxes was such an individual at Salamis, as
Æschylus and Herodotus both realized. But when Wells would also achieve
this most necessary effect, he makes a disagreeable rattling noise and
produces a passage like this:
We can imagine something of the coming and going of messengers, the issuing
of futile orders, the changes of plan, throughout the day. In the morning Xerxes
had come out provided with tables to mark the most successful of the commanders
for reward. In the gold of the sunset he beheld the sea power of Persia utterly
scattered, sunken and destroyed, and the Greek fleet over against Salamis& .
Over against such a sunset the only possible comment is, Don t do it
again; it isn t your line. But he does it again. Observe how he dramatizes
a sorrow even more representative than Xerxes :
[Quotes Wells s description of the Crucifixion.]
Over against such a red twilight the only possible comment is a coloured
illustration, and the publishers have provided one. There we may see
the three crosses, so far more tremendous than the fantasies of Tintoretto,
and we may reflect on the nemesis that attends the non-Christian who
would write sympathetically of Christ. Wells failure on Golgotha, however,
is due to the same cause as his failure at Salamis. He cannot create
individuals, and when he would use one to epitomize a great contemporary
emotion the result is a mess. Arrangement, selection, lucidity of style,
no longer assist him. He often tells us that individuals ought to merge
251
H.G.WELLS
themselves in something greater, and he has practised what he preaches,
for we come away with no knowledge of the faces and hearts of his
thirty dead leaders.
Thus, though his history lives, it is in a peculiar way: by its fundamental
soundness, expressed through brilliant parallels and metaphors; not by
imaginative reconstructions of individual people or scenes. We see the
nomads advancing into the Roman Empire like the housemaid s broom,
but if Wells took one of the twigs of the broom and tried to describe
its mentality he would at once become thin and sentimental. It is a history
of movements, not of man. Nor is this its only weakness. As a rule the
writer most admirably suppresses his personal likes and dislikes; there [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]