U niversity
of
O regon M onthly
H. G. Wells—An Appreciation
ii
*
Two hundred years from the present day the control of the
civilizations of the world is centered in London under one powerful
corporation with its board of directors. London itself is one vast
hotel, of wonderful appliances and inventions with a common dining
hall.
There are only two classes, the aristocracy and the laborers.
The latter are unthinking, strange beings who do not even own the
clothes upon their backs; the-State furnishes a coarse blue suit.
They are hardly slaves for they are not Compelled to work at any
time. They have the privilege of relinquishing their suit and wan
dering about the city, homeless and penniless.
Carrying this trend of civilization some thousands of years for
ward, we see a race of small, fair, childishly simple people, the des
cendants of the rich and, apparently, sole possessers of the earth.
They have banished all signs of suffering and poverty, and live a
life of idle pleasures. But they are intensely afraid of the dark.
On investigation, another, race of people is found; they are the
Morlocks or the descendants of the poor. Their homes are under
ground, down long shafts from which one hears the great hum and
thud of machinery. There is not a ray of light below and nothing
can be seen but here and there two balls of shifting light like cat’s
eyes in the dark. These little, pale creatures can only see in the dark,
when their eyes meet the sun,, they stand blinking and dazzled.
Though superior to the Eloi, or the rich race, they slave for
them thus from force of,habit, but, in a desperate famine at one
time, they seized some Eloi for food and ever since then they have
stolen out at night to capture the helpless Jittle inhabitants of the
upper world.
Going again into the far future, all life, is extinct except am
phibians. ¿ The; sun has drawn the ^arth so close to it that it hangs
just in the horizon an immense, glowing ball.
The last stage sees;a sand flee, the lone inhabitant of a dense,
rarified atmosphere. .
Thus has H. G. Wells-interpreted our civilization* and its out-