The Atlantic's Bookshelf
by . New York: The Macmillan Company. 1925. 12mo. vii+391 pp. $2.50.
THIS is the story of one of the world’s misfits, an idealist doomed by marriage to manage a laundry. Albert Edward Preemby is the father of Christina Alberta, and rather a pathetic little figure with an ill-defined desire for something deeper and more spiritual than laundering can provide. This takes the form of a curiosity to learn about the lost Atlantis, ancient kings, and semi-occult subjects; but until the death of his wife, and his removal to a tiny artistic colony in Chelsea, the passion remains to a large extent ungratified. He had always heard that traces of Atlantis could he found at Tunbridge Wells, and he finds it a relief to flee from the artistic crudities of Chelsea to the respectable vulgarity of a boarding-house. Here Mr. Wells has placed the significant event in Mr. Preemby’s life and the raison d’être of his vagaries. At a pseudo-séance conducted by a Cambridge undergraduate he becomes convinced that he is Sargon, King of Kings, returned to earth, and that his duty is to lead the world again to the peace and glory which it possessed in the days of that monarch. The calling of disciples inevitably precipitates a conflict with the police, and in a very short time the bewildered Mr. Preemby finds himself committed to a lunatic asylum. This affords Mr. Wells a grand opportunity to turn and rend the Lunacy Laws and their administration; even George Bernard Shaw could put the sea! of his approval to this noble attack.
Of course he is rescued, but not all saviors have the delightful charm of the young would-be author who plays the rôle on this occasion. Besides the authorities at the asylum he has the machinations of Mr. Preemby’s brother-in-law to cope with; yet his success is short -lived, for pneumonia seizes poor Sargon, and he passes on, pathetically brave to the end.
This novel is a return to Mr. Wells’s earlier method of expression, but it is a return enhanced by a growth in sympathy and understanding, although the urge to preach proves too strong for him in the concluding pages. The illusion of a potential greatness persists in nearly every human heart, and the reader unconsciously responds to the appeal of a man who almost succeeds in demonstrating that a truly royal heart can beat in the breast of a laundryman. The artistic colony is a target for some barbed but fairly harmless shafts; the old problem of marriage is taken out, aired, and put back much as it was; and the London police remain as reliable as ever. In fact, this is Wells as we have learned to expect him; yet in humor and characterization the novel is the equal of nearly everything that he has written, and in depth and penetration it is, perhaps, superior.
L. H. TITTERTON