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The Country of the Blind and Other Stories by H The Country of the Blind And Other Stories by H. G. Wells A Penn State Electronic Classics Series Publication The Country of the Blind, and Other Stories by H.G. Wells is a publication of the Pennsylvania State University. This Portable Document file is furnished free and without any charge of any kind. Any person using this document file, for any purpose, and in any way does so at his or her own risk. Neither the Pennsylvania State University nor Jim Manis, Faculty Editor, nor anyone associated with the Penn- sylvania State University assumes any responsibility for the material contained within the document or for the file as an electronic transmission, in any way. The Country of the Blind, and Other Stories by H.G. Wells, the Pennsylvania State University, Electronic Classics Series, Jim Manis, Faculty Editor, Hazleton, PA 18201-1291 is a Portable Document File pro- duced as part of an ongoing student publication project to bring classical works of literature, in English, to free and easy access of those wishing to make use of them. Cover Design: Jim Manis Copyright © 2004 The Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University is an equal opportunity university. Contents INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................. 5 THE JILTING OF JANE ................................................................................10 THE CONE.....................................................................................................16 THE STOLEN BACILLUS............................................................................27 THE FLOWERING OF THE STRANGE ORCHID .....................................34 IN THE AVU OBSERVATORY .....................................................................42 ÆPYORNIS ISLAND ....................................................................................48 THE REMARKABLE CASE OF DAVIDSON’S EYES...............................59 THE LORD OF THE DYNAMOS.................................................................69 THE MOTH....................................................................................................77 THE STORY OF THE LATE MR. ELVESHAM...........................................94 UNDER THE KNIFE ...................................................................................110 THE SEA RAIDERS ....................................................................................123 THE OBLITERATED MAN ........................................................................133 THE PLATTNER STORY............................................................................141 THE PURPLE PILEUS ................................................................................168 A SLIP UNDER THE MICROSCOPE ........................................................179 THE CRYSTAL EGG ..................................................................................197 THE STAR....................................................................................................213 THE MAN WHO COULD WORK MIRACLES.........................................224 A VISION OF JUDGMENT ........................................................................241 JIMMY GOGGLES THE GOD ...................................................................248 A DREAM OF ARMAGEDDON ................................................................276 THE VALLEY OF SPIDERS .......................................................................301 THE NEW ACCELERATOR .......................................................................311 THE TRUTH ABOUT PYECRAFT ............................................................325 THE MAGIC SHOP .....................................................................................335 THE EMPIRE OF THE ANTS .....................................................................345 THE DOOR IN THE WALL ........................................................................360 THE COUNTRY OF THE BLIND ..............................................................376 THE BEAUTIFUL SUIT..............................................................................400 H.G. Wells tionable merit find a place; it is an inclusive and not an ex- The Country of clusive gathering. And the task of selection and revision brings home to me with something of the effect of discovery that I was once an industrious writer of short stories, and that I am the Blind no longer anything of the kind. I have not written one now for quite a long time, and in the past five or six years I have And Other Stories made scarcely one a year. The bulk of the fifty or sixty tales from which this present three-and-thirty have been chosen by dates from the last century. This edition is more definitive than I supposed when first I arranged for it. In the presence H. G. Wells of so conclusive an ebb and cessation an almost obituary manner seems justifiable. INTRODUCTION I find it a little difficult to disentangle the causes that have restricted the flow of these inventions. It has happened, I remark, to others as well as to myself, and in spite of the THE ENTERPRISE of Messrs. T. Nelson & Sons and the friendly accommodation of Messrs. Macmillan render possible this kindliest encouragement to continue from editors and read- collection in one cover of all the short stories by me that I ers. There was a time when life bubbled with short stories; care for any one to read again. Except for the two series of they were always coming to the surface of my mind, and it is linked incidents that make up the bulk of the book called no deliberate change of will that has thus restricted my pro- Tales of Space and Time, no short story of mine of the slight- duction. It is rather, I think, a diversion of attention to more est merit is excluded from this volume. Many of very ques- sustained and more exacting forms. It was my friend Mr. 5 The Country of the Blind C.L. Hind who set that spring going. He urged me to write der logical indeed but other than our common sanity. short stories for the Pall Mall Budget, and persuaded me by The ‘nineties was a good and stimulating period for a short- his simple and buoyant conviction that I could do what he story writer. Mr. Kipling had made his astonishing advent desired. There existed at the time only the little sketch, “The with a series of little blue-grey books, whose covers opened Jilting of Jane,” included in this volume—at least, that is the like window-shutters to reveal the dusty sun-glare and blaz- only tolerable fragment of fiction I find surviving from my ing colours of the East; Mr. Barrie had demonstrated what pre-Lewis-Hind period. But I set myself, so encouraged, to could be done in a little space through the panes of his Win- the experiment of inventing moving and interesting things dow in Thrums. The National Observer was at the climax of that could be given vividly in the little space of eight or ten its career of heroic insistence upon lyrical brevity and a vivid such pages as this, and for a time I found it a very entertain- finish, and Mr. Frank Harris was not only printing good ing pursuit indeed. Mr. Hind’s indicating finger had shown short stories by other people, but writing still better ones me an amusing possibility of the mind. I found that, taking himself in the dignified pages of the Fortnightly Review. almost anything as a starting-point and letting my thoughts Longman’s Magazine, too, represented a clientèle of apprecia- play about it, there would presently come out of the dark- tive short-story readers that is now scattered. Then came the ness, in a manner quite inexplicable, some absurd or vivid generous opportunities of the Yellow Book, and the National little incident more or less relevant to that initial nucleus. Observer died only to give birth to the New Review. No short Little men in canoes upon sunlit oceans would come float- story of the slightest distinction went for long unrecognised. ing out of nothingness, incubating the eggs of prehistoric The sixpenny popular magazines had still to deaden down monsters unawares; violent conflicts would break out amidst the conception of what a short story might be to the imagi- the flower-beds of suburban gardens; I would discover I was native limitation of the common reader—and a maximum peering into remote and mysterious worlds ruled by an or- length of six thousand words. Short stories broke out every- 6 H.G. Wells where. Kipling was writing short stories; Barrie, Stevenson, stories in English. I do not know how far the decline in short- Frank-Harris; Max Beerbohm wrote at least one perfect one, story writing may not be due to that. Every sort of artist de- “The Happy Hypocrite”; Henry James pursued his wonder- mands human responses, and few men can contrive to write ful and inimitable bent; and among other names that occur merely for a publisher’s cheque and silence, however reassur- to me, like a mixed handful of jewels drawn from a bag, are ing that cheque may be. A mad millionaire who commissioned George Street, Morley Roberts, George Gissing, Ella d’Arcy, masterpieces to burn would find it impossible to buy them. Murray Gilchrist, E. Nesbit, Stephen Crane, Joseph Conrad, Scarcely any artist will hesitate in the choice between money Edwin Pugh, Jerome K. Jerome, Kenneth Graham, Arthur and attention; and it was primarily for that last and better sort Morrison, Marriott Watson, George Moore, Grant Allen, of pay that the short stories of the ‘nineties were written. People George
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