they are growing weaker. But one purely modern man has emerged
in the strictly modern decades who does carry into our world the clear
personal simplicity of the old world of science. One man of genius
we have who is an artist, but who was a man of science, and who seems
to be marked above all things with this great scientific humility.
I mean Mr. H. G. Wells. And in his case, as in the others above
spoken of, there must be a great preliminary difficulty in convincing
the ordinary person that such a virtue is predicable of such a man.
Mr. Wells began his literary work with violent visions--visions of
the last pangs of this planet; can it be that a man who begins
with violent visions is humble? He went on to wilder and wilder
stories about carving beasts into men and shooting angels like birds.
Is the man who shoots angels and carves beasts into men humble?
Since then he has done something bolder than either of these blasphemies;
he has prophesied the political future of all men; prophesied it
with aggressive authority and a ringing decision of detail.
Is the prophet of the future of all men humble ? It will indeed
be difficult, in the present condition of current thought about
such things as pride and humility, to answer the query of how a man
can be humble who does such big things and such bold things.
For the only answer is the answer which I gave at the beginning
of this essay. It is the humble man who does the big things.
It is the humble man who does the bold things. It is the humble
man who has the sensational sights vouchsafed to him, and this
for three obvious reasons: first, that he strains his eyes more
than any other men to see them; second, that he is more overwhelmed
and uplifted with them when they come; third, that he records
them more exactly and sincerely and with less adulteration
from his more commonplace and more conceited everyday self.
Adventures are to those to whom they are most unexpected--that is,