Heat-Ray - TWO WONDERS OF THE WORLD

Heat-Ray 

In the silence of the night, with that sense of the nearness of God that sometimes comes into the stillness and the darkness, I stood my trial, my only trial, for that moment of wrath and fear.

I faced the problem of the Martians and the fate of my wife. For the former I had no data; I could imagine a hundred things, and so, unhappily, I could for the latter. And suddenly that night became terrible. I found myself sitting up in bed, staring at the dark. I found myself praying that the Heat-Ray might have suddenly and painlessly struck her out of being. [!!] Since the night of my return from Leatherhead I had not prayed. I had uttered prayers, fetish prayers, had prayed as heathens mutter charms when I was in extremity; but now I prayed indeed, pleading steadfastly face to face with the darkness of God. Strange night! strangest in this, that so soon as dawn had come, I, who had talked with God, crept out of the house like a rat leaving its hiding-place - a creature scarcely larger, an inferior animal, a thing that for any passing whim of our masters might be hunted and killed. Perhaps they [!!] also prayed confidently to God. Surely, if we have learned nothing else, this war has taught us pity - pity for those witless souls that suffer our dominion. (pp. 119-120)

I felt no fear, only a wild, trembling exultation, as I ran up the hill towards the motionless monster... 

A mighty space it was, with gigantic machines here and there within it, huge mounds of material and strange shelter-places. And scattered about were the Martians - DEAD ! - slain by the putrefactive and disease bacteria against which their systems were unprepared; slain, after all man's devices had failed, by the humblest things that God, in his [His] wisdom, has put upon this earth. (p. 136)

- H. G. Wells: THE WAR OF THE WORLDS, Dover Publications, New York; 145 pages; ISBN 0 - 486 - 29506 - 0 (Dover Thrift Edition) $ 2.00

Kishalay Sinha [G]

TWO WONDERS OF THE WORLD 

Alibris and Better World Books - giant sellers of used books (which look like new) at very cheap prices - have millions of used books in stock which they can deliver in the USA and ship to many other countries of the world, including India. (I speak from first-hand experience. I got several fascinating books by Norman Lewis and Isaac Asimov which I ordered from India.) Alibris and Better World Books are amazing wonders of the world.

Kishalay Sinha [G]