Twelve Stories and a Dream | Page 3

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ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* Etext scanned by Aaron Cannon,
formatted and proofed by Stephanie Johnson TWELVE STORIES
AND A DREAM BY H. G. WELLS CONTENTS 1. Filmer 2. The
Magic Shop 3. The Valley of Spiders 4. The Truth About Pyecraft 5.
Mr. Skelmersdale in Fairyland 6. The Story of the Inexperienced Ghost
7. Jimmy Goggles the God 8. The New Accelerator 9. Mr. Ledbetter's
Vacation 10. The Stolen Body 11. Mr. Brisher's Treasure 12. Miss
Winchelsea's Heart 13. A Dream of Armageddon 1. FILMER In truth
the mastery of flying was the work of thousands of men-- this man a
suggestion and that an experiment, until at last only one vigorous
intellectual effort was needed to finish the work. But the inexorable
injustice of the popular mind has decided that of all these thousands,
one man, and that a man who never flew, should be chosen as the
discoverer, just as it has chosen to honour Watt as the discoverer of
steam and Stephenson of the steam-engine. And surely of all honoured
names none is so grotesquely and tragically honoured as poor Filmer's,
the timid, intellectual creature who solved the problem over which the
world had hung perplexed and a little fearful for so many generations,
the man who pressed the button that has changed peace and warfare
and well-nigh every condition of human life and happiness. Never has
that recurring wonder of the littleness of the scientific man in the face
of the greatness of his science found such an amazing exemplification.
Much concerning Filmer is, and must remain, profoundly
obscure--Filmers attract no Boswells--but the essential facts and the
concluding scene are clear enough, and there are letters, and notes, and
casual allusions to piece the whole together. And this is the story one
makes, putting this thing with that, of Filmer's life and death. The first
authentic trace of Filmer on the page of history is a document in which
he applies for admission as a paid student in physics to the Government

laboratories at South Kensington, and therein he describes himself as
the son of a "military bootmaker" ("cobbler" in the vulgar tongue) of
Dover, and lists his various examination proofs of a high proficiency in
chemistry and mathematics. With a certain want of dignity he seeks to
enhance these attainments by a profession of poverty and disadvantages,
and he writes of the laboratory as the "gaol" of his ambitions, a slip
which reinforces his claim to have devoted himself exclusively to the
exact sciences. The document is endorsed in a manner that shows
Filmer was admitted to this coveted opportunity; but until quite
recently no traces of his success in the Government institution could be
found. It has now, however, been shown that in spite of his professed
zeal for research, Filmer, before he had held this