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the new machiavelli-第1章

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The New Machiavelli 



by H。 G。 Wells  'Herbert George Wells'







CONTENTS



BOOK THE FIRST



THE MAKING OF A MAN



I。   CONCERNING A BOOK THAT WAS NEVER WRITTEN

II。  BROMSTEAD AND MY FATHER

III。 SCHOLASTIC

IV。  ADOLESCENCE





BOOK THE SECOND



MARGARET



I。   MARGARET IN STAFFORDSHIRE

II。  MARGARET IN LONDON

III。 MARGARET IN VENICE

IV。  THE HOUSE IN WESTMINSTER





BOOK THE THIRD



THE HEART OF POLITICS



I。   THE RIDDLE FOR THE STATESMAN

II。  SEEKING ASSOCIATES

III。 SECESSION

IV。  THE BESETTING OF SEX





BOOK THE FOURTH



ISABEL



I。   LOVE AND SUCCESS

II。  THE IMPOSSIBLE POSITION

III。 THE BREAKING POINT







BOOK THE FIRST



THE MAKING OF A MAN







CHAPTER THE FIRST



CONCERNING A BOOK THAT WAS NEVER WRITTEN





1



Since I came to this place I have been very restless; wasting my 

energies in the futile beginning of ill…conceived books。  One does 

not settle down very readily at two and forty to a new way of 

living; and I have found myself with the teeming interests of the 

life I have abandoned still buzzing like a swarm of homeless bees in 

my head。  My mind has been full of confused protests and 

justifications。  In any case I should have found difficulties enough 

in expressing the complex thing I have to tell; but it has added 

greatly to my trouble that I have a great analogue; that a certain 

Niccolo Machiavelli chanced to fall out of politics at very much the 

age I have reached; and wrote a book to engage the restlessness of 

his mind; very much as I have wanted to do。  He wrote about the 

relation of the great constructive spirit in politics to individual 

character and weaknesses; and so far his achievement lies like a 

deep rut in the road of my intention。  It has taken me far astray。  

It is a matter of many weeks nowdiversified indeed by some long 

drives into the mountains behind us and a memorable sail to Genoa 

across the blue and purple waters that drowned Shelleysince I 

began a laboured and futile imitation of 〃The Prince。〃  I sat up 

late last night with the jumbled accumulation; and at last made a 

little fire of olive twigs and burnt it all; sheet by sheetto 

begin again clear this morning。



But incidentally I have re…read most of Machiavelli; not excepting 

those scandalous letters of his to Vettori; and it seems to me; now 

that I have released myself altogether from his literary precedent; 

that he still has his use for me。  In spite of his vast prestige I 

claim kindred with him and set his name upon my title…page; in 

partial intimation of the matter of my story。  He takes me with 

sympathy not only by reason of the dream he pursued and the humanity 

of his politics; but by the mixture of his nature。  His vices come 

in; essential to my issue。  He is dead and gone; all his immediate 

correlations to party and faction have faded to insignificance; 

leaving only on the one hand his broad method and conceptions; and 

upon the other his intimate living personality; exposed down to its 

salacious corners as the soul of no contemporary can ever be 

exposed。  Of those double strands it is I have to write; of the 

subtle protesting perplexing play of instinctive passion and desire 

against too abstract a dream of statesmanship。  But things that 

seemed to lie very far apart in Machiavelli's time have come near to 

one another; it is no simple story of white passions struggling 

against the red that I have to tell。



The state…making dream is a very old dream indeed in the world's 

history。  It plays too small a part in novels。  Plato and Confucius 

are but the highest of a great host of minds that have had a kindred 

aspiration; have dreamt of a world of men better ordered; happier; 

finer; securer。  They imagined cities grown more powerful and 

peoples made rich and multitudinous by their efforts; they thought 

in terms of harbours and shining navies; great roads engineered 

marvellously; jungles cleared and deserts conquered; the ending of 

muddle and diseases and dirt and misery; the ending of confusions 

that waste human possibilities; they thought of these things with 

passion and desire as other men think of the soft lines and tender 

beauty of women。  Thousands of men there are to…day almost mastered 

by this white passion of statecraft; and in nearly every one who 

reads and thinks you could find; I suspect; some sort of answering 

response。  But in every one it presents itself extraordinarily 

entangled and mixed up with other; more intimate things。



It was so with Machiavelli。  I picture him at San Casciano as he 

lived in retirement upon his property after the fall of the 

Republic; perhaps with a twinge of the torture that punished his 

conspiracy still lurking in his limbs。  Such twinges could not stop 

his dreaming。  Then it was 〃The Prince〃 was written。  All day he 

went about his personal affairs; saw homely neighbours; dealt with 

his family; gave vent to everyday passions。  He would sit in the 

shop of Donato del Corno gossiping curiously among vicious company; 

or pace the lonely woods of his estate; book in hand; full of bitter 

meditations。  In the evening he returned home and went to his study。  

At the entrance; he says; he pulled off his peasant clothes covered 

with the dust and dirt of that immediate life; washed himself; put 

on his 〃noble court dress;〃 closed the door on the world of toiling 

and getting; private loving; private hating and personal regrets; 

sat down with a sigh of contentment to those wider dreams。



I like to think of him so; with brown books before him lit by the 

light of candles in silver candlesticks; or heading some new chapter 

of 〃The Prince;〃 with a grey quill in his clean fine hand。



So writing; he becomes a symbol for me; and the less none because of 

his animal humour; his queer indecent side; and because of such 

lapses into utter meanness as that which made him sound the note of 

the begging…letter writer even in his 〃Dedication;〃 reminding His 

Magnificence very urgently; as if it were the gist of his matter; of 

the continued malignity of fortune in his affairs。  These flaws 

complete him。  They are my reason for preferring him as a symbol to 

Plato; of whose indelicate side we know nothing; and whose 

correspondence with Dionysius of Syracuse has perished; or to 

Confucius who travelled China in search of a Prince he might 

instruct; with lapses and indignities now lost in the mists of ages。 

They have achieved the apotheosis of individual forgetfulness; and 

Plato has the added glory of that acquired beauty; that bust of the 

Indian Bacchus which is now indissolubly mingled with his tradition。  

They have passed into the world of the ideal; and every humbug takes 

his freedoms with their names。  But Machiavelli; more recent and 

less popular; is still all human and earthly; a fallen brotherand 

at the same time that nobly dressed and nobly dreaming writer at the 

desk。



That vision of the strengthened and perfected state is protagonist 

in my story。  But as I re…read 〃The Prince〃 and thought out the 

manner of my now abandoned project; I came to perceive how that stir 

and whirl of human thought one calls by way of embodiment the French 

Revolution; has altered absolutely the approach to such a question。  

Machiavelli; like Plato and Pythagoras and Confucius two hundred odd 

decades before him; saw only one method by which a thinking man; 

himself not powerful; might do the work of state building; and that 

was by seizing the imagination of a Prince。  Directly these men 

turned their thoughts towards realisation; their attitudes became

what shall I call it?secretarial。  Machiavelli; it is true; had 

some little doubts about the particular Prince he wanted; whether it 

was Caesar Borgia of Giuliano or Lorenzo; but a Prince it had to be。  

Before I saw clearly the differences of our own time I searched my 

mind for the modern equivalent of a Prince。  At various times I 

redrafted a parallel dedication to the Prince of Wales; to the 

Emperor William; to Mr。 Evesham; to a certain newspaper proprietor 

who was once my schoolfellow at City Merchants'; to Mr。 J。 D。 

Rockefellerall of them men in their several ways and circumstances 

and possibilities; princely。  Yet in every case my pen bent of its 

own accord towards irony becausebecause; although at first I did 

not realise it; I myself am just as free to be a prince。  The appeal 

was unfair。  The old sort of Prince; the old little principality has 

vanished from the world。  The commonweal is one man's absolute 

estate and responsibility no more。  In Machiavelli's time it was 

indeed to an extreme degree one man's affair。  But the days of the 

Prince who planned and directed and was the source and centre of all 

power are ended。  We are in a condition of affairs infinite
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