H.G. Wells: “A Dream of Armageddon”
In 1901, British writer H.G. Wells published the short story “A Dream of Armageddon.” The story begins with the narrator on a train bound for London. The train has just made a stop in the town of Rugby, where a man boards and finds a place in the narrator’s carriage (compartment). The man is pale and acts strangely, such that the narrator attempts to avoid him by pretending to read. The reading material, a book called Dream States by a writer named Fortnum-Roscoe, catches the strange traveler’s eye. The traveler declares the book worthless and proceeds to start telling the narrator about a set of dreams he has had – a set of dreams so real it became, for him, an alternative and even more vivid reality than his waking life.
The traveler’s dream, as he tells it, takes place in the distant future. In the dream, the man, named Cooper in late 19th century England, is now called Hedon. Hedon is together with a woman of incredible beauty in a pleasurable or even paradisal environment – which is later revealed to be a future version of the Italian island Capri. Hedon is completely infatuated and in love with the stunning woman. He tells the narrator in ecstatic fashion:
The face of a dream — the face of a dream. She was beautiful. Not that beauty which is terrible, cold, and worshipful, like the beauty of a saint; nor that beauty that stirs fierce passions; but a sort of radiation, sweet lips that softened into smiles, and grave grey eyes. And she moved gracefully, she seemed to have part with all pleasant and gracious things—
This woman and this pleasure-world contrasts directly with the life of political affairs Hedon had left behind in the “North.” The contrast is made direct between the public affairs of men – the world of politics – and private affairs of love:
You see — in this dream, anyhow — I had been a big man, the sort of man men come to trust in, to group themselves about. Millions of men who had never seen me were ready to do things and risk things because of their confidence in me. I had been playing that game for years, that big laborious game, that vague, monstrous political game amidst intrigues and betrayals, speech and agitation. It was a vast weltering world, and at last I had a sort of leadership against the Gang — you know it was called the Gang — a sort of compromise of scoundrelly projects and base ambitions and vast public emotional stupidities and catchwords — the Gang that kept the world noisy and blind year by year, and all the while that it was drifting, drifting towards infinite disaster. But I can’t expect you to understand the shades and complications of the year — the year something or other ahead. I had it all down to the smallest details — in my dream. I suppose I had been dreaming of it before I awoke, and the fading outline of some queer new development I had imagined still hung about me as I rubbed my eyes. It was some grubby affair that made me thank God for the sunlight. I sat up on the couch and remained looking at the woman and rejoicing — rejoicing that I had come away out of all that tumult and folly and violence before it was too late. After all, I thought, this is life — love and beauty, desire and delight, are they not worth all those dismal struggles for vague, gigantic ends? And I blamed myself for having ever sought to be a leader when I might have given my days to love. But then, thought I, if I had not spent my early days sternly and austerely, I might have wasted myself upon vain and worthless women, and at the thought all my being went out in love and tenderness to my dear mistress, my dear lady, who had come at last and compelled me — compelled me by her invincible charm for me — to lay that life aside.
Key Documents:
Additional Resources:
Jules Verne, From the Earth to the Moon (Click on "Remove this header" on following page to view document)
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