Buckley is a distinguished American educator and literary scholar whose studies focus primarily upon Victorian literature. In the following excerpt, he briefly outlines Wells's "The Door in the Wall" and suggests that the ending is open to interpretation.
Early in the new century H. G. Wells suggested through a compelling short story both the spell and the menace of a nostalgia for a buried time. "The Door in the Wall"—patently sexual in much of its symbolism and implication—describes a lonely child's vision of an enchanted garden, behind a green door in a high white wall, where the intruder feels instant joy and "a keen sense of homecoming," and where a benevolent somber woman, "very gentle and grave," shows him a picture book of his own life. Before opening the door, the boy has had not only.....
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