Many times Wells has gone into his laboratory to invent our future, in the same state of mind in which an automobile manufacturer works out an improvement in his car.

His disposition has greatly mellowed of late, in this respect, but underneath he is the same Wells.
Citizens of America, wise or foolish, when they look into the coming days, have the submarine mood of Verne, the press-the-button complacency of Bellamy, the wireless telegraph enthusiasm of Wells.

If they express hopes that can be put into pictures with definite edges, they order machinery piled to the skies.

They see the redeemed United States running deftly in its jewelled sockets, ticking like a watch.
This, their own chosen outlook, wearies the imaginations of our people, they do not know why.

It gives no full-orbed apocalyptic joy.