Neil Haddon Nothing a human heart has loved (for HG Wells)

The happy turning by British writer HG Wells was published in 1945, the year before he died. In this short book, perhaps in anticipation of his demise, he writes: ‘nothing a human heart has loved will ever be lost’.

I first read Wells’ The war of the worlds (1898) decades ago as a boy in a dusty school room back in England. The introductory pages of this book, set in the leafy green environs of my upbringing, mention Tasmania (where I now live) and the decimation of Aboriginal peoples by invading Europeans.

I understand Wells’ sentiment about the human heart and I don’t, in equal measure.

Neil Haddon, 2022