The great change wrought by the coming of the Comet might be
sentimentally described as a change of heart; I prefer to call it a
change of reason. All the earlier part of the work, which is again
told in the first person, presents the life of a Midland industrial
area as seen by one who has suffered it. The Capital-Labour problem
bulks in the foreground, and is adequately supported by a passionate
exposition of the narrowness and misery of lower-middle-class life in
the jumble of limitations, barriers and injustices that arise from the
absolute ownership of property. Also, into this romance--the only one,
by the way--comes some examination of the relations of the sexes. And
all this jumble is due, if we are to believe the remedy, to human
misunderstanding. The influence of the Comet passed over the earth,
and men, after a few hours of trance, awoke to a new realisation. We
come to a first knowledge of the change in one of the most beautiful
passages that Mr Wells has written; and although I dislike to spoil a
passage by setting it out unclothed by the idea and expectations which
have led to its expression, given it form, and fitted it to a just
place in the whole composition, I will make an exception in this case
in order to justify my metaphor of "normal sight." The supposed writer
of the description had just awakened from the trance induced by the
passing of the Comet. He says:

"I came slowly, stepping very carefully because of those drugged,
feebly awakening things, through the barley to the hedge. It was a
very glorious hedge, so that it held my eyes. It flowed along and
interlaced like splendid music. It was rich with lupin,
honeysuckle, campions and ragged robin; bed straw, hops and wild
clematis twined and hung among its branches, and all along its
ditch border the starry stitchwort lifted its childish faces and