Citadels of Cosmopolis

Tug human speciei, says Clissold, is like an insect undergoing metamorphosis. Man used to live detached, or in separate communities, now-he is being gathered into one Society. Nor can he resist this hiving : he is no favoured child of Nature if he differentiates; he will degenerate and die. Therefore, he must follow the trend of history, integrate, coalesce, be synthesized : he must be mentally aware of this " flux of things " and reach happiness on the flood tide of the powers and possibilities of the age.

Clissold's " Open Conspiracy " is to show man his way through the fears and frailties of tradition to a vacuum-swept card-indexed Elysithh. It is " the simplification by concen- tration into -large organizations of the material life of the whole community in an atmosphere Of unlimited candour:"

That is Mr. Wells's immediate heaven, and whether the reader likes it or not, he will be compelled to confess that it sounds a possible, indeed a probahle paradise. One may be in two Mina about the charth of a World Directorate and the desirability of an international Press which would apparently . .

point a moral with its every morsel of news (at preSent the

public in all countries prefer plain sport and mUrders); but one feels that Mi. Wells is indeed a successor to Bacon and Cainpanella as this century's architect of Utopia. Ills " Open Conspiracy 'bears looking into, eventhough some of the sights are unpleasant. •

One passes by his gibes at the Royal Family. Mr. Wells should bury the long.:dead horse of his republicanism-no one will flog that carcass: Again, one must pardon the unfairness of his' attack on' achoohnasters. Having been a master himself, he knows the joints in the armour. This is how he

attacks := .

" He mirrounds his boys with an atmosphere in which good form' is better than great achievement. Persistently, the sug- gestion is conveyed that the • great things of life are shams and only the little things are real. There is a fatal responsiveness in boys to such treatment. Boys who will resist commands and prahibitiOns with the utmost rigour and persistence, yield with extraordinary ease to a sneer.. . . For religion, the hushed voice, the averted mind. For sex, darkness. ' Pig's stuff.' The world is full of things one does not do, does not speak about. . . . He will thwart where he can, and"deprocate always. But he loves to exalt the past; the Classic, magnified past, the glory of the sPleridid dead, who are deader even than he. . . . How can it be otherwise with him ? There is the real schoolmaster. I do not blame the man for being what he is. . . . But so long as we pass our youth through the sieve of the public schools, we shall find them triturated down to his dimensions, and the rank outsider' will Still bo negded to save us by his unimpaired initiatives." - What can one do 'but cry Foul, and laugh ? For there is more than a grain of truth in it all, as there is also in the indictment of Oxford and Cambridge as producing " pleasant; easy-going young men, up to nothing in particular and schooled out of faith, passion, or ambition." At any rate, even if Clissold exaggerates, our educational institutions have not yet earned the respect of the new rich, while the new poor' often suspect that their poverty is due to the way they were brought up.

" The Press, the cinema theatre, broadcasting centres, book Publishing and distributing organizations are the citadels that dominate Cosmopolis. Until they are in the hands of the Creative revolution, human progress is insecure." Our news- papers must present to us, day by day, week by week, " the victories of conscious change "—a fine phrase. Our pulses

are no longer to quicken at soldiers marching in Clissold's new World : even now he says that a Prince launching a ship, or opening a doek is as casual and illogical as a black cat ,131 a first night stage. But . why ? These things endure bon people like ceremonial and all that it implies.

The amalgamation of big businesses which Clissold so enthusiastically recommends is proceeding rapidly. But Chssold is.not content to rest there. " No energetic directive People are in love with inheritance," _ he says, and soon obacessful people, he confidently predicts. will return their share of the capital of their business and become annuitants cxty Family life will "fade out of modern existence."

n present " week-end " will be changed to a four-day

holiday 'every fortnight. The Press and police are to be the demi-gods of the age about •to dawn. " The modern policeman is something new in the world." Julius Caesar, could he revisit Piccadilly Circus, after admiring the plate glass windows and 'sky-signs, would marvel at " these rare- impassive persons who smoothed and pacified and assured and facilitated the thronging concourse." And surely he would notice—other people !

Which brings us to women. All Clissold's sixth and last " book " is about Love. " When a woman takes a man in her arms, she takes a duplex creature : a conqueror and a refugee. And he holds a queen and a slave." . . ." One finds the companion-mate as the dream in the hearts of a few people here and there, as an experiment, an almost hopeless experi- ment, like a match lit in a high wind." • The theatre, novelette, and cinema have flooded out all other traditions by the traditions of romance. " Unhappily there ha's been no increase in the supply of cowboy-chevaliers and successful sailor adventurers. The young man who sits beside the thrilling girl in the cinema theatre is already in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred a subordinated young man " who will never return from distant lands with " his hands full of gifts and his eyes full of crystalline desire. . . . He is going to be judged by false standards." Later, Clissold. speaks of " the fatal delusion that a woman can be the crown of a man's life. . . . No man has ever done any great creative thing . . primarily for the sake of a woman." Does not history as well as common experience confute the author ? Indeed, lie confutes himself well enough when he awakes suddenly

to love. .

Clementina turns on him the eyes of " an elf in deipair " and says, " You take rove so easily ! Love has come to you. Women have loved you. And you know nothing of love." So Clissold turns his attention fora moment (mercifully, for we are past the eight hundredth page) from dreams of a world republic to the polyglot and persuasive reality at his elbow. He marries it. Unfortunately, before their plans can mature, he drives his car over a precipice and they are both killed. Or was it better so ?

The last hundred pages are extraordinarily vivid : we live through the apotheosis of the author as he waits for the voice of Clementina " like bright, cold water " and we mourn with Sir Richard Clissold at the extinction of those brave spirits.

Mr. Wells has lost none of his mastery, but he should not have called this trilogy a novel.

It could be made into one with scissors and paste : here are some tentative directions. Read the preface and up to page 50, then pp. 128-162, skip all the rest, unless 178-198 (psycho- analysis of Karl Marx) amuse you. In Vol. II read 480-601, giving Clissold's " loVe" stories. In Vol. III no one should miss the last _half.

Again, Clissold could easily be made into an exposition of modern social philosophy by blue-pencilling a few prolixities. Here are some rough and irreverent suggestions : read up to page 50, then 97-122 and 169-245 ; 255-289 are of interest to advertising men ; 345-876 deal with Northcliffe and supermen ; 478-511 and 668-736 are recommended as samples of the Wells• thesis—if the reader is interested he can read 611 to 749 with profit.

Armed with these simple suggestions no one need hesitate to tackle Mr. Wells's 900 pages. Without doubt it is a startling book, and rather like those curious brutes they breed in Canada and call " cattaloes," with the body of a steer and the head of a bison. It is a literary experiment, as the latter are bovine, and Clissold is to a novel as a cattalo is to a cow. Both show what the creative spirit of man can achieve, but unlike the cattalo, Mr. Wells's hybrid is . a fierce animal ; it snorts and bellows, tosses convention over the fence, and crashes' into the china-shoP of our dearest beliefs.

Finally, this conscientious reviewer must confess he has failed to do justice to The World of William Clissold as a whole. It is as great and daring in design as it is in achievement, a book that will live and helm people to live..