AT THE WINDOW
The War of the Worlds|H.G Wells
Author - H.G. Wells
AT THE WINDOW

I have already said that my storms of emotion have a trick of exhausting themselves. After a time I discovered that I was cold and wet, and with little pools of water about me on the stair carpet. I got up almost mechanically, went into the dining room and drank some whisky, and then I was moved to change my clothes.

After I had done that I went upstairs to my study, but why I did so I do not know. The window of my study looks over the trees and the railway towards Horsell Common. In the hurry of our departure this window had been left open. The passage was dark, and, by contrast with the picture the window frame enclosed, the side of the room seemed impenetrably(1) dark. I stopped short in the doorway.

The thunderstorm had passed. The towers of the Oriental College and the pine trees about it had gone, and very far away, lit by a vivid red glare, the common about the sand-pits was visible. Across the light huge black shapes, grotesque(2) and strange, moved busily to and fro.

It seemed indeed as if the whole country in that direction was on fire—a broad hillside set with minute tongues of flame, swaying and writhing(3) with the gusts of the dying storm, and throwing a red reflection upon the cloud scud(4) above. Every now and then a haze of smoke from some nearer conflagration drove across the window and hid the Martian shapes. I could not see what they were doing, nor the clear form of them, nor recognise the black objects they were busied upon. Neither could I see the nearer fire, though the reflections of it danced on the wall and ceiling of the study. A sharp, resinous tang of burning was in the air.

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The War of the Worlds

WRECKAGE

And now comes the strangest thing in my story. Yet, perhaps, it is not altogether strange. I remember, clearly and coldly and vividly1, all that I did that day until the time that I stood weeping and praising God upon the summit of Primrose Hill. And then I forget.

time-read
8 mins  |
H.G Wells
The War of the Worlds

WHAT WE SAW FROM THE RUINED HOUSE

After eating we crept back to the scullery, and there I must have dozed again, for when presently I looked round I was alone.

time-read
10+ mins  |
H.G Wells
The War of the Worlds

WHAT I SAW OF THE DESTRUCTION OF WEYBRIDGE AND SHEPPERTON

As the dawn grew brighter we withdrew from the window from which we had watched the Martians, and went very quietly downstairs.

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10+ mins  |
H.G Wells
The War of the Worlds

WHAT HAD HAPPENED IN SURREY

It was this howling and firing of the guns at Ripley and St. George’s Hill that we had heard at Upper Halliford.

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10+ mins  |
H.G Wells
The War of the Worlds

UNDER FOOT

In the first book I have wandered so much from my own adventures to tell of the experiences of my brother that all through the last two chapters I and the curate have been lurking1 in the empty house at Halliford whither we fled to escape the Black Smoke.

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10+ mins  |
H.G Wells
The War of the Worlds

THE “THUNDER CHILD”

Had the Martians aimed only at destruction, they might on Monday have annihilated1 the entire population of London, as it spread itself slowly through the home counties.

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10+ mins  |
H.G Wells
The War of the Worlds

THE WORK OF FIFTEEN DAYS

For some time I stood tottering on the mound regardless of my safety. Within that noisome den from which I had emerged I had thought with a narrow intensity only of our immediate security.

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6 mins  |
H.G Wells
The War of the Worlds

THE STILLNESS

My first act before I went into the pantry was to fasten the door between the kitchen and the scullery. But the pantry was empty; every scrap of food had gone..

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5 mins  |
H.G Wells
The War of the Worlds

THE MAN ON PUTNEY HILL

I spent that night in the inn that stands at the top of Putney Hill, sleeping in a made bed for the first time since my flight to Leatherhead.

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10+ mins  |
H.G Wells
The War of the Worlds

THE HEAT-RAY IN THE CHOBHAM ROAD

It is still a matter of wonder how the Martians are able to slay men so swiftly and so silently. Many think that in some way they are able to generate an intense heat in a chamber of practically absolute nonconductivity.

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4 mins  |
H.G Wells