rd and lodging outside business hours. But in _The Wife of Sir
Isaac Harman_ the essay manner has been abandoned. Any diversion from
the development of the story is carried out by the expressed opinions
of the characters themselves; and, as a consequence, the two essential
problems are not unduly intruded upon the reader, although for that
very reason they may remain longer in his thoughts. One more comment
should be added, which is that this is the wittiest book that Mr
Wells has yet given us. However serious the motives that give it life,
it must be classed as a comedy....

In concluding this brief review of Mr Wells' novels, I feel that I
must hark back to a passage in _The Passionate Friends_ in order to
indicate a spirit which, if it is not so definitely phrased in this
last book of his, is certainly upheld in the matter of the story. For
it is that spirit which seems to me the thing that should live and be
remembered. Here is one of its more characteristic expressions in the
mouth of Stafford, who writes:

"I know that a growing multitude of men and women outwear the ancient
ways. The bloodstained organised jealousies of religious intolerance,
the delusions of nationality and cult and race, that black hatred
which simple people, and young people and common people cherish
against all that is not in the likeness of themselves cease to be the
undisputed ruling forces of our collective life. We want to emancipate
our lives from this slavery and these stupidities, from dull hatreds
and suspicions.... A spirit ... arises and increases in human affairs,
a spirit that demands freedom and gracious living as our inheritance
too long deferred...."

And surely H.G. Wells has striven to give a freer and more vital
expression to that spirit, working through his own life, than any
other novelist of our day. Indeed I would go further and claim that no
such single and definite inspiration can be found in the works of any
other secular writer. Wells has given to the novel a new criticism
and, to a certain degree, a new form.

IV

SOCIOLOGY

Mr Wells' essays in sociology are not dry treatises, based on Blue
books and the gathering together of information and statistics from a
formless and largely worthless collection of earlier sources. He has
approached this question of man in relation to the State in the same
generous spirit displayed in his works of fiction; and it is only by
using the word "sociology" in its full