_To H. G. Wells._
Lamb House, Rye.
January 20th, 1902.
My dear Wells,
Don't, I beseech you, measure the interest I've taken in your brilliant
book (that is in the prior of the recent pair of them,) and don't
measure any other decency or humanity of mine (in relation to anything
that is yours,) by my late abominable and aggravated silence. You most
handsomely sent me _Anticipations_ when the volume appeared, and I was
not able immediately to read it; I was bothered and preoccupied with
many things, wished for a free mind and an attuned ear for it, so let it
wait till the right hour, knowing that neither you nor I would lose by
the process. The right hour came, and I gave myself up--utterly,
admirably up--to the charm; but the charm, on its side, left me so
spent, as it were, with saturation, that I had scarce pulled myself
round before the complications of Xmas set in, and the New Year's
flood--in respect to correspondence--was upon me; which I've been till
now buffeting and breasting. And then I was ashamed--and I'm ashamed
still. That is the penalty of vice--one's shame disqualifies one for the
company of virtue. Yet, all this latter time, I've taken the greatest
pleasure in my still throbbing and responding sense of the book.
I found it then, I assure you, extraordinarily and unceasingly
interesting. It's not that I haven't--hadn't--reserves and reactions,
but that the great source of interest never failed: which great source
was simply H. G. W. himself. You, really, come beautifully out of your
adventure, come out of it immensely augmented and extended, like a
belligerent who has annexed half-a-kingdom, with drums and trumpets and
banners all sounding and flying. And this is because the thing, in our
deadly day, is such a charming exhibition of complete freedom of mind.
That's what I enjoyed in it--your intellectual disencumberedness; very
interesting to behold as the direct fruit of training and observation. A
gallant show altogether--and a gallant temper and a gallant tone. For
the rest, you will be tired of hearing that, for vaticination, you, to
excess, simplify. Besides, the phrophet (see how I recklessly spell him,
to do him the greater honour!) _must_--I can't imagine a subtilizing
prophet. At any rate I don't make you a reproach of simplifying, for if
you hadn't I shouldn't have been able to understand you. But on the
other hand I think your reader asks himself too much "Where is _life_ in
all this, life as I feel it and know it?" Subject of your speculations
as it is, it is nevertheless too much left out. That comes partly from
your fortunate youth--it's a more limited mystery for you than for the
Methuselah who now addresses you. There's less of it with you to provide
for, and it's less a perturber of your reckoning. There are for instance
more kinds of people, I think, in the world--more irreducible
kinds--than your categories meet. However, your categories do you, none
the less, great honour, the greatest, worked out as they are; and I
quite agree that, as before hinted, if one wants more life, there is Mr.
Lewisham himself, of Spade House, exhaling it from every pore and in the
centre of the picture. That is the great thing: he _makes_, Mr. Lewisham
does, your heroic red-covered romance. It had to have a hero--and it has
an irresistible one. Such is my criticism. I can't go further. I can't
take you up in detail. I am under the charm. My world _is_, somehow,
other; but I can't produce it. Besides, I don't want to. You can, and
do, produce yours--so you've a right to talk. Finally, moreover, your
book is full of truth and wit and sanity--that's where I mean you come
out so well. I go to London next week for three months; but on my
return, in May, I should like well to see you. What a season you must
have had, with philosophy, poetry and the banker! I had a saddish letter
from Gissing--but rumours of better things for him (I mean reviving
powers) have come to me, I don't quite know how, since. Conrad haunts
Winchelsea, and Winchelsea (in discretion) haunts Rye. So foot it up,
and accept, at near one o'clock in the morning, the cordial good-night
and general benediction of yours, my dear Wells, more than ever,