er
well says, "British stolidity, British conservatism, the unvarying
fixity of the social system, the sacrifice of individual needs and
cravings to caste and precedent and public opinion,--these are the
themes which Mr. Galsworthy never wearies of satirizing with a mordant
irony."

Since his object is to present problems of life, many of his
characters are but types. On the other hand, Soames Forsyte in _The
Man of Property_, Lord Miltoun, Mrs. Noel, and Lady Casterley in _The
Patrician_, are among the most brilliant and real characters in modern
fiction. Galsworthy's style is clear, his plot construction is
excellent, and his humor in caricaturing social types has many of the
qualities of Dickens's.

Herbert George Wells.--Wells was born in Bromley, Kent, in 1866. He
expected to be a shopkeeper and was apprenticed in his fourteenth year
to a chemist; but this did not satisfy his ambition. Later, however,
he won scholarships that enabled him to take a degree in science.
While preparing himself to graduate from the University of London, he
worked in Huxley's laboratory. The experiments there inspired him to
write stories based on scientific facts and hypotheses, such as _The
Time Machine_ (1895) and _In the Days of the Comet_ (1906). Wells is
also vitally interested in problems of sociology. The _Discovery of
the Future_ (1902) and _The Future in America_ (1906) present
possibilities of scientifically planning man's further development.
_Kipps: The Story of a Simple Soul_ (1905) and _Marriage_ (1912) are
his best works, considered as actual novels of character. _Kipps_ is a
bitter but strong portrayal of the pretense and hypocrisy of society
and of its inertia in responding to human needs, and _Marriage_ is a
subtle, psychological analysis of a conjugal misunderstanding and an
attempted readjustment. Wells's study of man as a biological
development and his preference of actual facts to sentimental
conclusions are in accord with the trend of modern social science.

[Illustration: HERBERT GEORGE WELLS.]

The work of Wells covers a wide range of subjects. He has written
scientific romances, blood-curdling tales, strange phantasies,
prophetic Utopias, and sociological novels. He shows an increasing
tendency to depict the human struggle with environment, heredity, and
the manifold forces that affect the earning of a livelihood. His
characters are more often remembered as specimens exhibiting some
phase of life than as