Page:Men of Letters, Scott, 1916.djvu/142

116 THE ARTLESSNESS OF MR. H. G. WELLS the irrepressible harlequin, the Wells pur sang. The magic wand this time is nothing less than the North Pole. Reviewing the whole situation quite practically, our clear-headed scientist decides that the only thoroughly sensible way of dealing with the problems of metropolitan life is — to go and live in Labrador. And he goes, taking Marjorie with him. From White House to Log Cabin. A journey as ridiculous and as real as that living, irrelevant, cross-country scamper after " quap " which shoots off at a mad tangent out of Tono-Bungay. They camp in the wilderness alone, brave hardships, weather a winter. Trafford breaks his leg hunting ; Marjorie tracks him and sets it, carries him back to the log-hut, nurses him (without soap), cooks for him (without candles), listens to his delirious ravings. In his fever he fronts the last problems of life, leaps to unattained heights. He surveys the world anew, and shows Marjorie the vision. "Where there is nothing there is God." Together, when the spring breaks, they return to life and London, filled with a new comprehension and radiant with certitude and hope. End. Eminently improbable? Rather! The world does not fall into focus when surveyed from the Pole. Life in a log-hut (without soap and candles) is far more cluttered and complex than life in a well-designed palace ; an intelligent house in Park Lane is the place to achieve true simplicity. Trafford's leg would certainly not have set so sweetly : it would probably have mortified horribly ; and the cramped conditions and the darkness, the poor food and the smell of it, Marjorie's amateurishness and the general misery, would only have exacerbated still further the little personal resentments they are supposed to have soothed and assuaged. Granted. But do let us realize, Mr. Practical Sceptic, the true source of these dis- crepancies. It is the practical planning of the book