have settled every question once
and for all beyond reopening, "Wells? No! I draw the line at Wells. He
stirs up the dregs. I don't mind the froth, but dregs I--will--not have!"
And silence reigned as we stared at the reputation of Wells lying dead on
the carpet. When, with the thrill of emotion that a great work
communicates, I finished reading "Tono-Bungay," I thought of the smart
little woman in the Bayswater drawing-room. I was filled with a holy joy
because Wells had stirred up the dregs again, and more violently than
ever. I rapturously reflected, "How angry this will make them!" "Them"
being the whole innumerable tribe of persons, inane or chumpish (this
adjective I give to the world), who don't mind froth but won't have dregs.
Human nature--you get it pretty complete in "Tono-Bungay," the entire
tableau! If you don't like the spectacle of man whole, if you are afraid
of humanity, if humanity isn't good enough for you, then you had better
look out for squalls in the perusal of "Tono-Bungay." For me, human nature
is good enough. I love to bathe deep in it. And of "Tono-Bungay" I will
say, with solemn heartiness: "By God! This is a book!"

* * * * *

You will have heard that it is the history of a patent medicine--the
nostrum of the title. But the rise and fall of Tono-Bungay and its
inventor make only a small part of the book. It is rather the history of
the collision of the soul of George Ponderevo (narrator, and nephew of the
medicine-man) with his epoch. It is the arraignment of a whole epoch at
the bar of the conscience of a man who is intellectually honest and
powerfully intellectual. George Ponderevo transgresses most of the current
codes, but he also shatters them. The entire system of sanctions tumbles
down with a clatter like the fall of a corrugated iron church. I do not
know what is left standing, unless it be George Ponderevo. I would not
call him a lovable, but he is an admirable, man. He is too ruthless, rude,
and bitter to be anything but solitary. His harshness is his fault, his
one real fault; and his harshness also marks the point where his attitude
towards his environment becomes unscientific. The savagery of his
description of the family of Frapp, the little Nonconformist baker, and of
the tea-drinkers in the housekeeper's room at Bladesover, somewhat impairs
even the astounding force of this, George's first and only novel--not
because he exaggerates the offensiv