New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1913-11-08
Mr.. WELLS ON JEALOUSY.

THE PASSIONATE FRIENDS. BY II.
G.. Wells. illustrated. l2mo PIP. 800
| Harper q Bros.
! The passion of Mr.. Wells's novels
never rings true. The note is always
spoiled by an admixture Of basest al
loy-evasion and deception, trickery
and subterfuge and treachery, refusal
to pay the cost until society insists
upon collecting It, shutting fear OF the
err morality" affects to hold in con-
tempt. 1t was thus in THE New
Machiavelli"; the defiance of Ann
Veronica" ended lamely with conform
| ity at the earliest possible moment;
and 1t is thus once more In this new
story A preacher Of revolt against
conventional morality. taken seriously
in that role by thousands Of readers,
Mr.. Wells is in reality an eloquent
witness to the ruthless efficiency of
that morality in the enforcement or
its law. At last, he believes, he has
found the obstacle In the way of those
who, in homely phrase. would have
their cake and eat 1t. too. Ii is jeal-
ousy-the sense Of sex ownership in
men and women. Jealousy, so 1t APP
pears to him. Is one of those primitive
passions which civilization must eradi-
cate for its own higher good; but the
woman Of this story, the object OF con-
tan hot hn nd
lover, who is sacrificed in their strug-
gle over her, asserts that the instinct
will survive, because her sex will keep
it alive as its most potent weapon.
I'VE will set you by the ears. We
hold ourselves up as my little nephews
do some coveted object and say Quts!
and the whole brotherhood shouts Ego!
to the challenge. Back you go
into Individualism at the word, and
all your Brotherhood crumbles into
dust again. We're all to pieces.
That's what brought down Rome. The
women went to pieces then, and the
women are going to pieces to-day.
Something has to be done for women"
II is hardly necessary to point out
the weakness of arguments like these.
The future Of the human race, of civ
ilization, is not going to be directed by
passionate friends who get themselves
into passionate messes, and who, over
wheImed by the consequences, are un-
able to think logically. The future
lies in the hands OF normal men and
women, in full control of their brains
and senses, capable Of normally seek
ing new adjustments where they are
needed, of correcting. the mistakes of
the past. Sex obsesson will never rule
the world.
But when he breaks away from this
growing preoccupation Of his Mr.. Wells
is invariably richly suggestive. He
has his fling once more at British edu-
cation, which units the Englishman,
he holds, for competition in the marts
of trade and industry with Americans.
Germans and Belgians. Never has he
written more understandingly than in
these pages of the sense of the worth
Of the individual, Of the equality Of
men, which this country gives and is
spreading over the world as a leaven.
His is the larger view still-he fore
sees more confidently than ever the
federation of the nations OF the earth.
British Imperialism is to him a thing
of dwindling Importance, except as one
Of the means to this larger end. The
he considers as only a conceivable
source of incidental delay and retro
erosion. Il was already" says his
hero, who is touring the .Yorld, com