The First Men in the Moon

The First Men In The Moon by H. G. Wells A Penn State Electronic Classics Series Publication The First Men in the Moon by H.G. Wells is a publication of the Pennsylvania State Univer- sity. This Portable Document file is furnished free and without any charge of any kind. Any person using this document file, for any purpose, and in any way does so at his or her own risk. Neither the Pennsylvania State University nor Jim Manis, Faculty Editor, nor anyone associated with the Pennsylvania State University assumes any responsibility for the mate- rial contained within the document or for the file as an electronic transmission, in any way. The First Men in the Moon by H.G. Wells, the Pennsylvania State University, Electronic Classics Series, Jim Manis, Faculty Editor, Hazleton, PA 18201-1291 is a Portable Docu- ment File produced as part of an ongoing student publication project to bring classical works of literature, in English, to free and easy access of those wishing to make use of them. Cover Design: Jim Manis Copyright © 2004 The Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University is an equal opportunity university. H. G. Wells uneventful place in the world. “Here, at any rate,” said I, “I The First Men In shall find peace and a chance to work!” And this book is the sequel. So utterly at variance is des- tiny with all the little plans of men. I may perhaps mention The Moon here that very recently I had come an ugly cropper in certain business enterprises. Sitting now surrounded by all the cir- by cumstances of wealth, there is a luxury in admitting my ex- tremity. I can admit, even, that to a certain extent my disas- H. G. Wells ters were conceivably of my own making. It may be there are directions in which I have some capacity, but the conduct of Chapter 1 business operations is not among these. But in those days I was young, and my youth among other objectionable forms Mr. Bedford Meets Mr. Cavor at Lympne took that of a pride in my capacity for affairs. I am young still in years, but the things that have happened to me have AS I SIT DOWN to write here amidst the shadows of vine- rubbed something of the youth from my mind. Whether leaves under the blue sky of southern Italy, it comes to me they have brought any wisdom to light below it is a more with a certain quality of astonishment that my participation doubtful matter. in these amazing adventures of Mr. Cavor was, after all, the It is scarcely necessary to go into the details of the specula- outcome of the purest accident. It might have been any one. tions that landed me at Lympne, in Kent. Nowadays even I fell into these things at a time when I thought myself re- about business transactions there is a strong spice of adven- moved from the slightest possibility of disturbing experiences. ture. I took risks. In these things there is invariably a certain I had gone to Lympne because I had imagined it the most 3 The First Men in the Moon amount of give and take, and it fell to me finally to do the came to Lympne. I reckoned myself lucky in getting that giving. Reluctantly enough. Even when I had got out of ev- little bungalow. I got it on a three years’ agreement. I put in erything, one cantankerous creditor saw fit to be malignant. a few sticks of furniture, and while the play was in hand I Perhaps you have met that flaming sense of outraged virtue, did my own cooking. My cooking would have shocked Mrs. or perhaps you have only felt it. He ran me hard. It seemed Bond. And yet, you know, it had flavour. I had a coffee-pot, to me, at last, that there was nothing for it but to write a a sauce-pan for eggs, and one for potatoes, and a frying-pan play, unless I wanted to drudge for my living as a clerk. I for sausages and bacon—such was the simple apparatus of have a certain imagination, and luxurious tastes, and I meant my comfort. One cannot always be magnificent, but sim- to make a vigorous fight for it before that fate overtook me. plicity is always a possible alternative. For the rest I laid in an In addition to my belief in my powers as a business man, I eighteen-gallon cask of beer on credit, and a trustful baker had always in those days had an idea that I was equal to came each day. It was not, perhaps, in the style of Sybaris, writing a very good play. It is not, I believe, a very uncom- but I have had worse times. I was a little sorry for the baker, mon persuasion. I knew there is nothing a man can do out- who was a very decent man indeed, but even for him I hoped. side legitimate business transactions that has such opulent Certainly if any one wants solitude, the place is Lympne. possibilities, and very probably that biased my opinion. I It is in the clay part of Kent, and my bungalow stood on the had, indeed, got into the habit of regarding this unwritten edge of an old sea cliff and stared across the flats of Romney drama as a convenient little reserve put by for a rainy day. Marsh at the sea. In very wet weather the place is almost That rainy day had come, and I set to work. inaccessible, and I have heard that at times the postman used I soon discovered that writing a play was a longer business to traverse the more succulent portions of his route with than I had supposed; at first I had reckoned ten days for it, boards upon his feet. I never saw him doing so, but I can and it was to have a pied-a-terre while it was in hand that I quite imagine it. Outside the doors of the few cottages and 4 H. G. Wells houses that make up the present village big birch besoms are the hills by Hastings under the setting sun. Sometimes they stuck, to wipe off the worst of the clay, which will give some hung close and clear, sometimes they were faded and low, idea of the texture of the district. I doubt if the place would and often the drift of the weather took them clean out of be there at all, if it were not a fading memory of things gone sight. And all the nearer parts of the marsh were laced and lit for ever. It was the big port of England in Roman times, by ditches and canals. Portus Lemanus, and now the sea is four miles away. All The window at which I worked looked over the skyline of down the steep hill are boulders and masses of Roman brick- this crest, and it was from this window that I first set eyes on work, and from it old Watling Street, still paved in places, Cavor. It was just as I was struggling with my scenario, hold- starts like an arrow to the north. I used to stand on the hill ing down my mind to the sheer hard work of it, and natu- and think of it all, the galleys and legions, the captives and rally enough he arrested my attention. officials, the women and traders, the speculators like myself, The sun had set, the sky was a vivid tranquillity of green all the swarm and tumult that came clanking in and out of and yellow, and against that he came out black—the oddest the harbour. And now just a few lumps of rubble on a grassy little figure. slope, and a sheep or two—and me And where the port had He was a short, round-bodied, thin-legged little man, with been were the levels of the marsh, sweeping round in a broad a jerky quality in his motions; he had seen fit to clothe his curve to distant Jungeness, and dotted here and there with extraordinary mind in a cricket cap, an overcoat, and cycling tree clumps and the church towers of old medical towns that knickerbockers and stockings. Why he did so I do not know, are following Lemanus now towards extinction. for he never cycled and he never played cricket. It was a for- That outlook on the marsh was, indeed, one of the finest tuitous concurrence of garments, arising I know not how. views I have ever seen. I suppose Jungeness was fifteen miles He gesticulated with his hands and arms, and jerked his head away; it lay like a raft on the sea, and farther westward were about and buzzed. He buzzed like something electric. You 5 The First Men in the Moon never heard such buzzing. And ever and again he cleared his gave way to amazement and curiosity. Why on earth should throat with a most extraordinary noise. a man do this thing? On the fourteenth evening I could stand There had been rain, and that spasmodic walk of his was it no longer, and so soon as he appeared I opened the french enhanced by the extreme slipperiness of the footpath. Ex- window, crossed the verandah, and directed myself to the actly as he came against the sun he stopped, pulled out a point where he invariably stopped. watch, hesitated. Then with a sort of convulsive gesture he He had his watch out as I came up to him.

Load more