The Project Gutenberg EBook of The New Machiavelli, by Herbert George Wells

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Title: The New Machiavelli

Author: Herbert George Wells

Posting Date: August 2, 2008 [EBook #1047]
Release Date: September, 1997

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE NEW MACHIAVELLI

by H. G. Wells

CONTENTS

BOOK THE FIRST

THE MAKING OF A MAN

I. CONCERNING A BOOK THAT WAS NEVER WRITTEN
II. BROMSTEAD AND MY FATHER
III. SCHOLASTIC
IV. ADOLESCENCE

BOOK THE SECOND

MARGARET

I. MARGARET IN STAFFORDSHIRE
II. MARGARET IN LONDON
III. MARGARET IN VENICE
IV. THE HOUSE IN WESTMINSTER

BOOK THE THIRD

THE HEART OF POLITICS

I. THE RIDDLE FOR THE STATESMAN
II. SEEKING ASSOCIATES
III. SECESSION
IV. THE BESETTING OF SEX

BOOK THE FOURTH

ISABEL

I. LOVE AND SUCCESS
II. THE IMPOSSIBLE POSITION
III. THE BREAKING POINT

BOOK THE FIRST: THE MAKING OF A MAN

CHAPTER THE FIRST ~~ CONCERNING A BOOK THAT WAS NEVER WRITTEN

1

Since I came to this place I have been very restless, wasting my
energies in the futile beginning of ill-conceived books. One does not
settle down very readily at two and forty to a new way of living, and
I have found myself with the teeming interests of the life I have
abandoned still buzzing like a swarm of homeless bees in my head. My
mind has been full of confused protests and justifications. In any case
I should have found difficulties enough in expressing the complex thing
I have to tell, but it has added greatly to my trouble that I have a
great analogue, that a certain Niccolo Machiavelli chanced to fall out
of politics at very much the age I have reached, and wrote a book to
engage the restlessness of his mind, very much as I have wanted to do.
He wrote about the relation of the great constructive spirit in politics
to individual character and weaknesses, and so far his achievement lies
like a deep rut in the road of my intention. It has taken me far as