was in him when, revolting against the aspects of the established order in which he had passed his youth, he came up to London:
I came up to it, young and without advisers, rather priggish, rather dangerously open-minded and very open-eyed, and with something—it is, I think, the common gift of imaginative youth, and I claim it unblushingly—fine in me, finer than the world and seeking fine responses. I did not want simply to live or simply to live happily or well; I wanted to serve and do and make—with some nobility. It was in me. It is in half the youth of the world.
Instead, then, of attempting to destroy Mr. Wells by saying that he developed the "Messiah complex," let us say this: He developed a loathing for a society as fixed and as unappetizing as cold mutton tallow. He thought it unendurable, and with that thought came a strong conviction that it is not necessary to endure it. It could be changed. In this age of astounding industrial and scientific progress the instruments were at hand for producing swiftly enormous and epoch-making changes in the political, social and personal life of all mankind. It was undeniable.
What stood in the way? What made the processes of beneficent change so slow? The vast inertia of humanity, its vast ignorance, its vast fear, its vast indolence, the well-nigh impossible task of clearing a free and open place for adventurous men to go forward amid the intricate labyrinths of old crooked customary ways. Not the means but the will to use the means was lacking. It was not that fine ends were impossible, but that the mass of men had not yet conceived of them. And so in Mr. Wells the vague
