the war of the worlds

by HG Wells

chapter1- the eve of the war

no one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than maan\'s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scru-tinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water, with infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs^^^^^^^