Quote of the Day: From H.G. Wells, Mind at the End of Its Tether

The reality glares coldly and harshly upon any of those who can wrench their minds free to face the unsparing question that has overwhelmed the writer.

They discover that a frightful queerness has come into life. The habitual interest of the writer is his critical anticipation. Of everything he asks: To what will this lead? And it was natural for him to assume that there was a limit set to change, that new things and events would appear, but that they would appear consistently, preserving the natural sequence of life. So that in the present vast confusion of our world, there was always an assumption of an ultimate restoration of rationality. It was merely the fascinating question of what forms the rational phase would assume, what over-man, Erewhon or what not would break through the transitory clouds and turmoil. To this the writer set his mind.

He did his utmost to pursue that upward spiral towards their convergence in a new phase in the story of life, and the more he weighed the realities before him, the less he was able to detect any convergence whatever. Changes had ceased to be systematic, and the further he estimated the course they seemed to be taking, the greater the divergence. Hitherto, events had been held together by a certain logical consistency, as the heavenly bodies have been held together by gravitation. Now it is as if that cord had vanished, and everything was driving anyhow to anywhere at a steadily increasing velocity. The pattern of things to come faded away.