Page:Critical Woodcuts (1926).pdf/129

 You are no realist, Mr. Wells. Unlike Mr. Hardy and Joseph Conrad, you have small respect for Chance, and you minimize Necessity, those great powers in the real world. But you have been a brave mythmaker and a heartening poet to the Intellectuals of your time. You have turned an entire generation of novelists and readers from contemplating the fatal forces of heredity and environment and instinct to considering the god-like power of an intelligent will to control instinct, environment and heredity. And I am going to turn upon you your own fine valediction to Oswald in your "Joan and Peter," for I think it sums up your virtue and your valor and that air of being awake and radiant which you have communicated to the more delightful young people of our day: