TONO-BUNGAY
by H.G Wells
BOOK THE FIRST
THE DAYS BEFORE TONO-BUNGAY WAS INVENTED
CHAPTER THE FIRST
OF BLADESOVER HOUSE, AND MY MOTHER; AND THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY
I
Most people in this world seem to live "in character"; they have
a beginning, a middle and an end, and the three are congruous one
with another and true to the rules of their type. You can speak
of them as being of this sort of people or that. They are, as
theatrical people say, no more (and no less) than "character
actors." They have a class, they have a place, they know what is
becoming in them and what is due to them, and their proper size
of tombstone tells at last how properly they have played the
part. But there is also another kind of life that is not so much
living as a miscellaneous tasting of life. One gets hit by some
unusual transverse force, one is jerked out of one's stratum and
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