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I have a problem to which I haven't been able to find a solution for hours. Recently, I have been reading Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw, and there is a sequel after the story ends. In that sequel, Shaw wrote such a sentence,

"To her amazement she found that some "quite nice" people were saturated with Wells, and that this accessibility to ideas was the secret of their niceness."

I can't understand what "be saturated with" and "accesibilty to ideas" mean. I have done some search on these 2 on Google but haven't been able find any satisfying answer. Please clarify me; I'd be so much grateful for you. Thanks.

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  • I think context is needed to understand it. In general"be saturated with" means full of.
    – Man_From_India
    Aug 17, 2021 at 23:56
  • The source is here.
    – Old Brixtonian
    Aug 18, 2021 at 0:00
  • I agree with Ronald Sole. By the way, we have been told (on the previous page) that Clara "discovered that her conversational qualifications were expected to include a grounding in the novels of Mr. H.G. Wells." And that she borrowed them and "swallowed them all within two months" and that "the result was a conversion of a kind quite common today." People at the time were evidently greatly affected by Wells's radical, socialist and forward-looking ideas.
    – Old Brixtonian
    Aug 18, 2021 at 0:07
  • Yes makes sense. Yes I too agree with Ronald's answer.
    – Man_From_India
    Aug 18, 2021 at 0:10
  • @OldBrixtonian - despite Wells' short stature and squeaky voice he was, famously, an enormous success with women. One of his ex-lovers said he 'smelt of honey'.
    – Michael Harvey
    Aug 18, 2021 at 6:37

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The sentence presumably means that the nice people had read many of the works of his prolific fellow author, H.G. Wells, and that their exposure to his remarkable ideas and stories had affected them accordingly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._G._Wells

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