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07 - How I Reached Home - The War of the Worlds - H G Wells · Classic Science Fiction Books

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  Speaker 1: Chapter seven, How I reached home. For my own part,
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  Speaker 1: I remembered nothing of my flight except the stress of
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  Speaker 1: blundering against trees and stumbling through the heather. All about
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  Speaker 1: me gathered the invisible terrors of the Martians. That pitiless
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  Speaker 1: sword of heat seemed whirling to and fro, flourishing overhead,
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  Speaker 1: before it descended and smote me out of life. I
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  Speaker 1: came into the road between the cross roads and Hawsel,
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  Speaker 1: and ran along this to the cross roads. At last
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  Speaker 1: I could go no further. I was exhausted with the
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  Speaker 1: violence of my emotion and of my flight, and I
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  Speaker 1: staggered and fell by the wayside that was near the
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  Speaker 1: bridge that crosses the canal by the gas works. I
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  Speaker 1: fell and lay still. I must have remained there some time.
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  Speaker 1: I sat up, strangely perplexed. For a moment, perhaps I
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  Speaker 1: could not clearly understand how I came there. My terror
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  Speaker 1: had fallen from me like a garment. My hat had gone,
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  Speaker 1: and my collar had burst away from its fastener. A
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  Speaker 1: few minutes before, there had only been three real things
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  Speaker 1: before me, the immensity of the night and space and nature,
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  Speaker 1: my own feebleness and anguish, and the near approach of death.
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  Speaker 1: Now it was as if something turned over and the
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  Speaker 1: point of view altered abruptly. There was no sensible transition
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  Speaker 1: from one state of mind to the other. I was
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  Speaker 1: immediately the self of every day again, a decent, ordinary citizen,
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  Speaker 1: the silent common. The impulse of my flight, the starting
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  Speaker 1: flames were as if they had been in a dream.
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  Speaker 1: I asked myself, had these latter things indeed happened? I
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  Speaker 1: could not credit it. I rose and wore unsteadily up
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  Speaker 1: the steep incline of the bridge. My mind was blank.
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  Speaker 1: Wonder My muscles and nerves seemed drained of their strength,
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  Speaker 1: I dare say. I staggered drunkenly. A head rose over
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  Speaker 1: the arch, and the figure of a workman carrying a
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  Speaker 1: basket appeared. Beside him ran a little boy. He passed me,
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  Speaker 1: wishing me good night. I was minded to speak to him,
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  Speaker 1: but did not. I answered his greeting with a meaningless mumble,
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  Speaker 1: and went on over the bridge. Over the Maybury Arch,
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  Speaker 1: a train, a billowing tumult of white violet smoke, and
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  Speaker 1: a long caterpillar of lighted windows went flying south, clatter clatter,
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  Speaker 1: clap rap, And it had gone A dim group of
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  Speaker 1: people talked in the gate of one of the houses
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  Speaker 1: in the pretty little row of gables that was called
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  Speaker 1: Oriental Terrace. It was all so real and so familiar,
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  Speaker 1: and that behind me it was frantic, fantastic. Such things,
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  Speaker 1: I told myself could not be. Perhaps I am a
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  Speaker 1: man of exceptional moods. I do not know how far
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  Speaker 1: my experience is common. At times I suffer from the
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  Speaker 1: strangest sense of detachment from myself and the world about me.
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  Speaker 1: I seemed to watch it all from the outside, from
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  Speaker 1: somewhere inconceivably remote, out of time, out of space, out
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  Speaker 1: of the stress and tragedy of it all. This feeling
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  Speaker 1: was very strong upon me that night. Here was another
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  Speaker 1: side to my dream. But the trouble was the blank
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  Speaker 1: incongruity of this serenity and the swift death flying yonder.
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  Speaker 1: Not two miles away. There was a noise of business
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  Speaker 1: from the gas works, and the electric lamps were all alight.
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  Speaker 1: I stopped at the group of people. What news from
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  Speaker 1: the common, said I. There were two men and a
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  Speaker 1: woman at the gate, Eh, said one of the men, turning,
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  Speaker 1: What news from the common? I said, ain't you just
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  Speaker 1: been there? Asked the men. People seem fair silly about
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  Speaker 1: the common, said the woman over the gate. What's it
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  Speaker 1: all about? Haven't you heard of the men from Mars?
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  Speaker 1: Said I, the creatures from Mars. Quite enough, said the
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  Speaker 1: woman over the gate. Thanks, and all of them laughed.
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  Speaker 1: I felt foolish and angry. I tried and found I
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  Speaker 1: could not tell them what I had seen. They laughed
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  Speaker 1: again at my broken sentences. You'll hear more yet, I said,
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  Speaker 1: and went on to my home. I startled my wife
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  Speaker 1: at the doorway. So haggard was I. I went into
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  Speaker 1: the dining room, sat down, drank some wine, and so
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  Speaker 1: soon as I could collect myself sufficiently, I told her
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  Speaker 1: the thing I had seen. The dinner, which was a
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  Speaker 1: cold one, had already been served and remained neglected on
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  Speaker 1: the table while I told my story. There is one
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  Speaker 1: thing I said to allay the fears I had aroused.
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  Speaker 1: They are the most sluggish things I ever saw crawl.
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  Speaker 1: They may keep the pit and kill people who come
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  Speaker 1: near them, but they cannot get out of it. But
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  Speaker 1: the horror of them, don't dear, said my wife, knitting
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  Speaker 1: her brows and putting her hand on mine. Poor Ogilvy,
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  Speaker 1: I said, to think he may be lying dead, there.
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  Speaker 1: My wife at least did not find my experience incredible.
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  Speaker 1: When I saw how deadly white her face was, I
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  Speaker 1: ceased abruptly. They may come here, she said, again, and again.
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  Speaker 1: I pressed her to take wine, and tried to reassure her.
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  Speaker 1: They can scarcely move, I said. I began to comfort
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  Speaker 1: her and myself by repeating all that Ogilvy had told
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  Speaker 1: me of the impossibility of the Martians establishing themselves on
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  Speaker 1: the Earth. In particular, I laid stress on the gravitational
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  Speaker 1: difficulty on the surface of the Earth. The force of
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  Speaker 1: gravity is three times what it is on the surface
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  Speaker 1: of Mars. A martian therefore would weigh three times more
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  Speaker 1: than on Mars, albeit his muscular strength would be the same.
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  Speaker 1: His own body would be a cope of lead to him.
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  Speaker 1: That indeed was the general opinion. Both the Times and
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  Speaker 1: the Daily Telegraph, for instance, insisted on it the next morning,
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  Speaker 1: and both overlooked, just as I did, two obvious modifying influences.
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  Speaker 1: The atmosphere of the Earth, we now know, contains far
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  Speaker 1: more oxygen or far less argonne, whichever way one likes
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  Speaker 1: to put it, than Mars. The invigorating influences of this
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  Speaker 1: excess of oxygen upon the Martians, indisputably did much to
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  Speaker 1: counterbalance the increased weight of their bodies. And in the
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  Speaker 1: second place, we all overlooked the fact that such mechanical
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  Speaker 1: intelligence as the Martian possessed was quite able to dispense
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  Speaker 1: with muscular exertion at a pinch. But I did not
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  Speaker 1: consider these points at the time, and so my reasoning
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  Speaker 1: was dead against the chances of the invaders. With wine
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  Speaker 1: and food, the confidence of my own table, and the
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  Speaker 1: necessity of reassuring my wife, I grew by insensible degrees,
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  Speaker 1: courageous and secure. They have done a foolish thing, said I,
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  Speaker 1: fingering my wine glass. They are dangerous because, no doubt
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  Speaker 1: they are mad with terror. Perhaps they expected to find
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  Speaker 1: no living things, certainly no intelligent living things. A shell
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  Speaker 1: in the pit, said I. If the worst comes to
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  Speaker 1: the worst, we'll kill them all. The intense excitement of
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  Speaker 1: the events had no doubt left my perceptive powers in
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  Speaker 1: a state of erithism. I remember that dinner table with
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  Speaker 1: extraordinary vividness even now, my dear wife's sweet, anxious face
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  Speaker 1: peering at me from under the pink lamp shade, the
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  Speaker 1: white cloth with its silver and glass table furniture, for
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  Speaker 1: in those days even philosophical writers had many little luxuries.
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  Speaker 1: The crimson purple wine in my glass a photographically distinct.
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  Speaker 1: At the end of it, I sat tempering nuts with
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  Speaker 1: a cigarette, regretting Ogilvy's rashness and denouncing the short sighted
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  Speaker 1: timidity of the Martians. So some respectable Dodo in the
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  Speaker 1: Mauritius might have lauded it in his nest and discussed
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  Speaker 1: the arrival of that shipful of pitiless sailors in want
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  Speaker 1: of animal food. We will peck them to death to morrow,
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  Speaker 1: my dear, I did not know it, but that was
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  Speaker 1: the last civilized dinner I was to eat for many
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  Speaker 1: very strange and terrible days. End of Section seven.