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The War of the Worlds / Destruction and Capture
And I saw one, one day, out by Wandsworth, picking houses to pieces and routing among the wreckage. So soon as they’ve settled all our guns and ships,...
The War of the Worlds / Confronting Mortality
“That’s what I’ve been thinking,” he said; “that’s what I’ve been thinking. Most of the people were hard at it squealing and exciting themselves. I’ve...
The War of the Worlds / Battlefield Contrast
Everyone stood arrested by the sudden stir of battle, near us and yet invisible to us. Nothing was to be seen save flat meadows, cows feeding unconcer...
The War of the Worlds / Survival Under Siege
A man, knee-deep near the towing path, shouted inaudibly to me and pointed. Looking back, I saw the other Martians advancing with gigantic strides dow...
The War of the Worlds / Urban Isolation
I was weary after eating, and went into the parlour behind the bar, and slept on a black horsehair sofa I found there. I awoke to find that dismal how...
The War of the Worlds / Monotony of Existence
All these—the sort of people that lived in these houses, and all those damn little clerks that used to live down _that_ way—they’d be no good. They ha...
The War of the Worlds / Curiosity and Connection
“It’s a pity they make themselves so unapproachable,” he said. “It would be curious to know how they live on another planet; we might learn a thing or...
The War of the Worlds / Survival and Conflict
And I would sit in the darkness unable to keep my mind off him by reason of his importunities. He ate more than I did, and it was in vain I pointed ou...
The War of the Worlds / Echoes of Despair
I have an impression that many of the houses here were still occupied by scared inhabitants, too frightened even for flight. Here too the evidence of ...
The War of the Worlds / Domestic Dread
I startled my wife at the doorway, so haggard was I. I went into the dining room, sat down, drank some wine, and so soon as I could collect myself suf...
The War of the Worlds / Urban Dichotomy
The church bells were ringing for evensong, and a squad of Salvation Army lassies came singing down Waterloo Road. On the bridge a number of loafers w...
The War of the Worlds / Decay and Ambition
The pit was still in darkness; the mighty engines, so great and wonderful in their power and complexity, so unearthly in their tortuous forms, rose we...
The War of the Worlds / Hidden Depths
He told me that a faint stirring was occasionally still audible within the case, but that the workmen had failed to unscrew the top, as it afforded no...
The War of the Worlds / Urban Panic
There is no safety from the Black Smoke but in instant flight.” That was all, but it was enough. The whole population of the great six-million city wa...
The War of the Worlds / Conflict and Isolation
Instead of keeping close to me and trying to oust me from the slit, the curate had gone back into the scullery. I snatched in the darkness, and my fin...
The War of the Worlds / Natures Wrath
All about me the red weed clambered among the ruins, writhing to get above me in the dimness. Night, the mother of fear and mystery, was coming upon m...
The War of the Worlds / Signal Lights
My wife pointed out to me the brightness of the red, green, and yellow signal lights hanging in a framework against the sky. It was seen early in the ...
The War of the Worlds / Mechanical Innovations
These last had brought with them certain fresh appliances that stood in an orderly manner about the cylinder. The second handling-machine was now comp...
The War of the Worlds / Thames and Labor
“We can dig better on this Thames-side burgundy,” said I. Let us take a rest and gather strength while we may.
The War of the Worlds / Journey of Companionship
When it was clear to him that I meant to go alone—had reconciled myself to going alone—he suddenly roused himself to come. And all being quiet through...
The War of the Worlds / Railway Ruin
There was a light down below the hill, on the railway, near the arch, and several of the houses along the Maybury road and the streets near the statio...
The War of the Worlds / Indiscriminate Warfare
Never before in the history of warfare had destruction been so indiscriminate and so universal. And shining with the growing light of the east, three ...
The War of the Worlds / Visceral Recognition
Nearer, I distinguished the green slime of ditches mixing with the pale drab of dried clay and shiny, coaly patches. His black hair fell over his eyes...
The War of the Worlds / Collective Panic
Sparks and burning twigs began to fall into the road, and single leaves like puffs of flame. There were shrieks and shouts, and suddenly a mounted pol...
The War of the Worlds / Struggle and Despair
As the days wore on, his utter carelessness of any consideration so intensified our distress and danger that I had, much as I loathed doing it, to res...
The War of the Worlds / Panic in Proximity
Then a hoarse murmur and a movement of feet—a splashing from the water. A man, too frightened to drop the portmanteau he carried on his shoulder, swun...
The War of the Worlds / Martian Physiology
They were huge round bodies—or, rather, heads—about four feet in diameter, each body having in front of it a face. This face had no nostrils—indeed, t...
The War of the Worlds / Nature and Mechanization
Once the lightning had begun, it went on in as rapid a succession of flashes as I have ever seen. The thunderclaps, treading one on the heels of anoth...
The War of the Worlds / Disruption and Isolation
I could just see the curate’s face, a dim, oval shape, and his collar and cuffs. Outside there began a metallic hammering, then a violent hooting, and...
The War of the Worlds / War Fever
For my own part, I had been feverishly excited all day. Something very like the war fever that occasionally runs through a civilised community had got...
The War of the Worlds / Meteoric Discovery
But very early in the morning poor Ogilvy, who had seen the shooting star and who was persuaded that a meteorite lay somewhere on the common between H...
The War of the Worlds / Preservation of Knowledge
It’s saving our knowledge and adding to it is the thing. We must make great safe places down deep, and get all the books we can; not novels and poetry...
The War of the Worlds / Titan Encounter
I marched on recklessly towards this Titan, and then, as I drew nearer and the light grew, I saw that a multitude of black birds was circling and clus...
The War of the Worlds / National Identity
A number of people were standing about it, and some sappers were busy in the midst of it. Over it flaunted a Union Jack, flapping cheerfully in the mo...
The War of the Worlds / Human Folly and Resilience
All that’s happened so far is through our not having the sense to keep quiet—worrying them with guns and such foolery. And losing our heads, and rushi...
The War of the Worlds / Shared Struggle
It would seem that a number of men or animals had rushed across the lawn. I began to see his face, blackened and haggard, as no doubt mine was also.
The War of the Worlds / Martian Threat
That night another invisible missile started on its way to the earth from Mars, just a second or so under twenty-four hours after the first one. I rem...
The War of the Worlds / Control and Chaos
I am not an expert driver, and I had immediately to turn my attention to the horse. When I looked back again the second hill had hidden the black smok...
The War of the Worlds / Military Disruption
Patrols of soldiers—here no longer hussars, but grenadiers in white—were warning people to move now or to take refuge in their cellars as soon as the ...
The War of the Worlds / Survival in Darkness
Here we happened on no dead, though the night was too dark for us to see into the side roads of the place. In Sheen my companion suddenly complained o...
The War of the Worlds / Fate of Humanity
And as the day came they became aware of a fighting-machine standing near by the Langham and looking down at them. He came down the road towards them,...
The War of the Worlds / Survival and Threat
I stopped to look at them, drawing a lesson from their stout resolve to live. And presently, turning suddenly, with an odd feeling of being watched, I...
The War of the Worlds / Desolation Aftermath
In a few minutes there was, so far as the soldier could see, not a living thing left upon the common, and every bush and tree upon it that was not alr...
The War of the Worlds / Alien Encounter
Something was moving to and fro there, very quietly; every now and then it tapped against the wall, or started on its movements with a faint metallic ...
The War of the Worlds / Urban Conflict
Going on towards Brompton, the streets were quiet again. Here I came once more upon the black powder in the streets and upon dead bodies. I saw altoge...
The War of the Worlds / Collective Resilience
I heard answering shouts from the people in the water about me. I could have leaped out of the water with that momentary exultation.
The War of the Worlds / Ordinary Catastrophe
He extended a thin white hand and spoke in almost a complaining tone. The morning service was over, I was walking through the roads to clear my brain ...
The War of the Worlds / Confronting Death
When it came, I saw that he was a sturdy man, cheaply but not shabbily dressed; his head was bent under his body, and he lay crumpled up close to the ...
The War of the Worlds / Technological Horror
The Cardigan men had tried a rush, in skirmishing order, at the pit, simply to be swept out of existence. Then the monster had risen to its feet and h...
The War of the Worlds / Uncanny Encounter
It worried at the catch for a minute, perhaps, and then the door opened. In the darkness I could just see the thing—like an elephant’s trunk more than...
The War of the Worlds / Sound of Conflict
He would probably have remained longer had it not been for the sound of guns that began about that hour in the south. As if in answer, the ironclad se...
The War of the Worlds / Disorder and Decay
Outside, the soil was banked high against the house. At the top of the window frame we could see an uprooted drainpipe.
The War of the Worlds / Power Dynamics
And even if there’s a delay, how can it alter the end? There’s the ants builds their cities, live their lives, have wars, revolutions, until the men w...
The War of the Worlds / Survival in Darkness
He had eaten no food since midday, he told me early in his narrative, and I found some mutton and bread in the pantry and brought it into the room. We...
The War of the Worlds / Nature and Decay
The red creeper swarmed up the trees about the old palace, and their branches stretched gaunt and dead, and set with shrivelled leaves, from amid its ...
The War of the Worlds / Fear and Avoidance
He made a wide curve to avoid me, as though he feared I might prove a fresh competitor. As the yelping died away down the silent road, the wailing sou...
The War of the Worlds / Unexpected Encounters
In another moment a bend in the road hid the three men from my brother’s eyes. So, quite unexpectedly, my brother found himself, panting, with a cut m...
The War of the Worlds / Natures Sublime Encounter
The thought that had flashed into my mind grew real, grew credible. I felt no fear, only a wild, trembling exultation, as I ran up the hill towards th...
The War of the Worlds / Destruction and Indifference
Two days after I was imprisoned it had been destroyed, with every soul in it, by a Martian. He had swept it out of existence, as it seemed, without an...
The War of the Worlds / Concealment and Urgency
My brother pushed the pony and chaise back into the hedge, and the man drove by and stopped at the turn of the way. It was a carriage, with a pole for...
The War of the Worlds / Hope Amidst Despair
It grew upon my mind, once I could face the facts, that terrible as our position was, there was as yet no justification for absolute despair. Our chie...
The War of the Worlds / Chaos and Indifference
It was this howling and firing of the guns at Ripley and St. George’s Hill that we had heard at Upper Halliford. The Ripley gunners, unseasoned artill...
The War of the Worlds / Encounters with the Unknown
But, looking, I presently saw something stirring within the shadow: greyish billowy movements, one above another, and then two luminous disks—like eye...
The War of the Worlds / Technological Innovation
These last had brought with them certain fresh appliances that stood in an orderly manner about the cylinder. The second handling-machine was now comp...
The War of the Worlds / Hope Amid Destruction
Plentiful hope—for all this destruction!” I began to explain my view of our position. He listened at first, but as I went on the interest dawning in h...
The War of the Worlds / Unexpected Alliance
Suddenly he stumbled and fell; his immediate pursuer went headlong, and he rose to his feet to find himself with a couple of antagonists again. He wou...
The War of the Worlds / Urban Despair
My brother supposes they must have filled outside London, for at that time the furious terror of the people had rendered the central termini impossibl...