New-York tribune., 1902-02-19
ING THEM

recall. we have made more than one enticing
quotation. More recently public address de-
iivered by Mr.. Wells in London has reused
ltvelier discussion Of his surmises to the drift
which European and American society will uti
mately take. For this reason We have read with
special interest the remarks which Mr.. Rudolph
de Cordova extorted from Mr.. Wells in an in
terview secured for The King. an English
periodical. and We reproduce them herewith as
forming piquant contribution 10 the biography
OF an author to whom the public delights to
listen
ITO be perfectly frank with YOU I have not
the reuotest idea how my books written
Mr. Wells said 10 me as ! seated myself in his
study al Sandgate. They are written. and
there's the end OF my knowledge. Nor have l
the remotest idea how much I write time.
In an unguarded moment l once told inter
viewer that I wrote seven thousand words
day One must say something, you know.
That seven thousand words a day pursued me
IN paragraphs for months afterWard accom-
panied by every conceivab BILE form of reprehen-
sion, and if were to tell you how much really
olo-not that I know, you know. but out of
sincere desire TO oblige YOU after your Jour
ney-someUhlng Of the same sort might happen
again If wrote seven thousand words a day,
must have written all my books in the course
OF single year. That disnclines me TO believe
my statements
How do I work? have tried all sorts of
reglnlens IN order 10 get the best results of
rnyself-after all, that is my main business in
the world-but up till now I have NOT discovered
any sort Of dnahty. OF course, il goes without
the saying that one has TO be in decent health to
work, and therefore one has TO take a certain
amount Of exercise and TO live in a reasona BILE
and regular way But after that, Well there
is something Observation-Disclosures one might
call Atmosphere What IL is precisely I don't
know, but know il is always getting wrong.
and II must be got right before I do quite
satisfying work How 10 get that atmosphere
IS the mystery Of my life Sometimes fancy
You get II by talking with people who talk we'll,
~ otheT ulhes II seems TO come out OF solitary
meditation, or il is Wooed by persistent work or
by complete rest or by society, or by slow work
a. nome OF UE gong 10 i've IN quiet farm
house for some days-as I gather Mr.. Jacobs
does-and a very excellent method. too Travel
% places where there IS neither paper, pens
ink always seems TO me particularly conducive
70 the Atmosphere and the Desire.
Really. you know this is no testing matter
am always haunted by the dread of Coleridge-
ism. and I have tried again and again TO devise
working rules, say. from 10 TO u and 70
every day for FIVE days week, something OF
that sort. Any persistent regularity. however.
leads, I convinced, 10 dryness and nfeless-
ness in my work, and I am coming more and
more 10 the theory of the happy moment. Per
sonally, I find that I can do more in hour
under THAI condition Of spontaneous impulse
than in week Of effort
Almost all my earlier work was fairly spon-
taneoUs. For example, my essays in The Pail
Mall Gazette. which were republshed as Ger
tain Personal Matters and Select Converse
tions with an Uncle l used 10 get up in the
morning. talk 10 my wife about any ideas I had
and after breakfast 7 would sit down TO work
II il didn't come then. I set il aside and got it
later In this way / used to do about three ar
ticies a week, and with most of them I still
satisfied. a selection Of them now being re
printed in The English Illustrated Magazine
Under much the same conditions The Stolen
Bacillus and most Of my earlier short stories
were written.
when l came TO my earlier long books-for
example The Time Machine.-I wrote the
impulse in the same way. The Time Machine
came wonderfully fast. the final work of writing
it was all done in fortnight. True, had writ
ten chapters and episodes before but the work
as such was done in the time have mentioned.
Under that impulse wrote almost continuous
" from $50 in the morning till II at night.
only stopping for the necessary intermissions Of
10. 7 didn't dictate it I wrote it all with
my own hand, do everything else.
my earlier books, I think. are happier in
certain qualities than some Of my later ones, but
I hardly know how they were written. l 10
know they started in the beautiful spontaneous
state. were often dropped in the midst OF other
work then toiiec at taken 70 pieces. ana put
together again in all sorts Of ways. Most OF
them got printed too soon-but one must live
The War Of Worlds ana The Invisible
Man were each written in intermittent, pro-
longed bouts of the same nature as my short
stories
regular worI-from which, / believe, / am
emerging. Then I tried 10 work according TO
what appeared to be the accepted recipe for
more serious work / drew an elaborate scheme
beforehand and worked with elaborateness and
industry. You know the thing-a tremendously
elaborate scenario, memoranda, notebook, and
all the rest Of it. The LAGOON, l sometimes
fancy represents a novelist in the tolls Of a
scenario 1 have recently been looking at the
result Of the work OF that period, and the chief
book of that period Mr. Wells named it, but il
seems TO more interesting TO suppress that
namel appeals 10 the most stodgey and
overloaded thing 1 ever did.
In that phase and up now, l have had
the ambition to write a spacious novel a novel
with plot and underplot. great number of
characters and the various ramifications Of a
complicated intrigue. such is done with ap-
parent ease and wonderful effect by some Of my
contemporaries-for example by Mr. George
Gissing and Mrs. Humphry Ward. Out Of my
first essay in this direction after great toll and
an enormous destroying of scenes and chapters
there finally emerged that simple thread of
story which is Love and Mr. Lewisham'
abandoned quite as much matter as appears in
the book. And am just getting out of another
such complication, and saving one straight
plank of story out Of the vast impossible sea f.
fold designed. 1 like the result but I could
nave done IT so much better without all that,
i am coming back TO believe more and more
IN the spontaneous. not too definitely planned
work The First Men in the Moon for in
stance. began as a short story about 'Cavorte
Then ] decided to do what 1 am constantly
urged to do, and make a series of short stories