The Young H. G. Wells by Claire Tomalin

Author:Claire Tomalin [Tomalin, Claire]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2021-11-02T00:00:00+00:00

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Wells believed—when he had time to think about it—that he would write better if he were not always under pressure, forced to work on several books simultaneously. And in 1904 he had another idea for improving his financial position. It came to him after his second meeting with Balfour, at Mrs. Webb’s dinner table, after which Balfour sent him a copy of a talk he had given on science, to which Wells responded politely by sending a paper of his own. Then, in May 1905, Wells wrote to Balfour again, this time with a bold suggestion: that he should endow him financially, or set up an academic position that would pay him—possibly a chair in sociology—in order to free him from “the pressure of the market place,” of having to write more than he wanted to or should, simply to keep solvent. He explained that he was not “needy,” but that he was at present forced to write too much: had he only some free time, “I believe I could do better and more significant work than under existing conditions.”8 This was almost certainly true—it was, all the same, a surprising request—and he said nothing about it to either of the Webbs.

Balfour did not reply personally—he was about to resign as prime minister—but he handed Wells’s letter to a private secretary, Ramsay, asking him to look into the matter. Ramsay reported to Balfour on June 12, saying Wells had made a good case, but that he was not sure Wells was a true genius, and, further, he did not consider sociology to be an exact science. More simply, he believed that since Wells earned over a thousand pounds a year already, an appointment of the kind he had suggested would raise an outcry. Balfour told Ramsay to reply to Wells, and he doubtless wrote with proper tact. Wells acknowledged his letter, saying his suggestion had been “quite casually made” and that he would have been “amazed” had it produced any result. He added a sentence saying “the problem of unremunerated or not immediately remunerative work” was too little regarded—and there the matter ended.9 Balfour resigned on December 5, 1905, without alluding to Wells’s request, the two men met again from time to time without embarrassment, and Wells always spoke respectfully of Balfour.

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