The War of the Worlds H. G. Wells (nice books to read txt) đ
- Author: H. G. Wells
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And I succumbed to his conviction.
âIf they come after me,â he said; âLord, if they come after me!â and subsided into a grim meditation.
I sat contemplating these things. I could find nothing to bring against this manâs reasoning. In the days before the invasion no one would have questioned my intellectual superiority to hisâ âI, a professed and recognised writer on philosophical themes, and he, a common soldier; and yet he had already formulated a situation that I had scarcely realised.
âWhat are you doing?â I said presently. âWhat plans have you made?â
He hesitated.
âWell, itâs like this,â he said. âWhat have we to do? We have to invent a sort of life where men can live and breed, and be sufficiently secure to bring the children up. Yesâ âwait a bit, and Iâll make it clearer what I think ought to be done. The tame ones will go like all tame beasts; in a few generations theyâll be big, beautiful, rich-blooded, stupidâ ârubbish! The risk is that we who keep wild will go savageâ âdegenerate into a sort of big, savage rat.â ââ ⊠You see, how I mean to live is underground. Iâve been thinking about the drains. Of course those who donât know drains think horrible things; but under this London are miles and milesâ âhundreds of milesâ âand a few days rain and London empty will leave them sweet and clean. The main drains are big enough and airy enough for anyone. Then thereâs cellars, vaults, stores, from which bolting passages may be made to the drains. And the railway tunnels and subways. Eh? You begin to see? And we form a bandâ âable-bodied, clean-minded men. Weâre not going to pick up any rubbish that drifts in. Weaklings go out again.â
âAs you meant me to go?â
âWellâ âI parleyed, didnât I?â
âWe wonât quarrel about that. Go on.â
âThose who stop obey orders. Able-bodied, clean-minded women we want alsoâ âmothers and teachers. No lackadaisical ladiesâ âno blasted rolling eyes. We canât have any weak or silly. Life is real again, and the useless and cumbersome and mischievous have to die. They ought to die. They ought to be willing to die. Itâs a sort of disloyalty, after all, to live and taint the race. And they canât be happy. Moreover, dyingâs none so dreadful; itâs the funking makes it bad. And in all those places we shall gather. Our district will be London. And we may even be able to keep a watch, and run about in the open when the Martians keep away. Play cricket, perhaps. Thatâs how we shall save the race. Eh? Itâs a possible thing? But saving the race is nothing in itself. As I say, thatâs only being rats. Itâs saving our knowledge and adding to it is the thing. There men like you come in. Thereâs books, thereâs models. We must make great safe places down deep, and get all the books we can; not novels and poetry swipes, but ideas, science books. Thatâs where men like you come in. We must go to the British Museum and pick all those books through. Especially we must keep up our scienceâ âlearn more. We must watch these Martians. Some of us must go as spies. When itâs all working, perhaps I will. Get caught, I mean. And the great thing is, we must leave the Martians alone. We mustnât even steal. If we get in their way, we clear out. We must show them we mean no harm. Yes, I know. But theyâre intelligent things, and they wonât hunt us down if they have all they want, and think weâre just harmless vermin.â
The artilleryman paused and laid a brown hand upon my arm.
âAfter all, it may not be so much we may have to learn beforeâ âJust imagine this: four or five of their fighting machines suddenly starting offâ âHeat-Rays right and left, and not a Martian in âem. Not a Martian in âem, but menâ âmen who have learned the way how. It may be in my time, evenâ âthose men. Fancy having one of them lovely things, with its Heat-Ray wide and free! Fancy having it in control! What would it matter if you smashed to smithereens at the end of the run, after a bust like that? I reckon the Martiansâll open their beautiful eyes! Canât you see them, man? Canât you see them hurrying, hurryingâ âpuffing and blowing and hooting to their other mechanical affairs? Something out of gear in every case. And swish, bang, rattle, swish! Just as they are fumbling over it, swish comes the Heat-Ray, and, behold! man has come back to his own.â
For a while the imaginative daring of the artilleryman, and the tone of assurance and courage he assumed, completely dominated my mind. I believed unhesitatingly both in his forecast of human destiny and in the practicability of his astonishing scheme, and the reader who thinks me susceptible and foolish must contrast his position, reading steadily with all his thoughts about his subject, and mine, crouching fearfully in the bushes and listening, distracted by apprehension. We talked in this manner through the early morning time, and later crept out of the bushes, and, after scanning the sky for Martians, hurried precipitately to the house on Putney Hill where he had made his lair. It was the coal cellar of the place, and when I saw the work he had spent a week uponâ âit was a burrow scarcely ten yards long, which he designed to reach to the main drain on Putney Hillâ âI had my first inkling of the gulf between his dreams and his powers. Such a hole I could have dug in a day. But I believed in him sufficiently to work with him all that morning until past midday at his digging. We had a garden barrow and shot the earth we removed against the kitchen range. We refreshed ourselves with a tin of mock-turtle soup and wine from the neighbouring pantry. I found
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