Page:My Dear Cornelia (1924).pdf/39



us now enter fearfully upon the burning ground of contemporary fiction. The territory is immense, and unexplorable here in detail. All that one can do is to stand upon the smoky borderland, and comment briefly upon some conspicuous spots in the conflagrant area and upon the general direction of the wind.

One cannot, on every occasion for mentioning him, reread the entire works of Mr. Wells. I retain a strong impression that most of his novels of contemporary life challenge the idea of indissoluble marriage. In this respect Mr. Wells is no innovator. I retain also the impression that one tends to derive from these novels a conviction that everyone's first marriage is a mistake. This indicates the direction of the wind. Now Mr. Wells is a long way from accepting Goldsmith's idea that death is the only way out of a bad situation. He has no patience with the doctrine of irretrievability. But as long as unlawful relations furnish the only available alternative way out, his