H G Wells

The Research Magnificent H G Wells

Book Excerpt: hite declares, they arestill after much experienced handling, an indigestible aggregation. On this point White is very assured. When Benham thought he wasgathering together a book he was dreaming, White says. There is nobook in it. . . . Perhaps too, one might hazard, Benham was dreaming when he thoughtthe noble life a human possibility. Perhaps man, like the ape andthe hyaena and the tapeworm and many other of God's necessary butless attractive creatures, is not for such exalted ends. That doubtnever seems to have got a lodgment in Benham's skull; though attimes one might suppose it the basis of White's thought. You willfind in all Benham's story, if only it can be properly told, nowsubdued, now loud and amazed and distressed, but always traceable, this startled, protesting question, "BUT WHY THE DEVIL AREN'T WE?"As though necessarily we ought to be. He never faltered in hispersuasion that behind the dingy face of this world, the earthystubbornness, the baseness and dulness of himself aRead Mor