s
adumbrated in its predecessor. The agent of experience is still
retained in the person of Bert Smallways, but the restrictions imposed
by the report of an eye-witness have become too limiting, and, like
Hardy in _The Dynasts_, Mr Wells alternates between a near and a
distant vision. The Welt-Politik could not be explained through the
intelligence of a "little Cockney cad," even though he was "by no
means a stupid person and up to a certain limit not badly educated";
and the general development of the world-war, the account of the
collapse of the credit system and all such large and general effects
necessitated the broad treatment of the historian. So the intimate,
personal narrative of Smallways' adventures is occasionally dropped
for a few pages; Mr Wells shuts off his magic-lantern and fills the
interval with an analysis of larger issues.

And the issues are so vital, the _denouement_ so increasingly
probable, that, despite all the exaggerations necessary in a fiction
of this kind, the warning contained in this account of a world-war is
one that must remain in the minds of any thoughtful reader. Smallways'
pert reflection on the causes of the immense downfall represents the
wisdom that comes of bitter experience, and the application of it is
very pertinent to present conditions. "There was us in Europe all at
sixes and sevens with our silly flags and our silly newspapers raggin'
us up against each other and keepin' us apart," says Smallways, and
for the briefest analysis of causes that continually threaten us with
all the useless horrors of war, the summary could scarcely be
bettered.

Indeed, I think that _The War in the Air_ is the greatest of Mr Wells'
achievements in fantasy that has a deeper purpose than mere amusement.
The story is absorbing and Smallways a perfectly conceived character,
recommendations that serve to popularise the book as a romance; but
all the art of the construction is relevant to the theme, and to the
logical issue which is faced unflinchingly. In the many wild
prophecies that have been incorporated in various stories of a great
European war, there has been discoverable now and again some hint of
insight into the real dangers that await mankind. But such stories as
these degenerate into some accidental, but inferentially glorious,
victory of British arms, and any value in the earlier comments is
swamped in the sentimentality of the fortuitous, and designedly
popular, sequel. In the book