Carmen’s Reviews > The War of the Worlds > Status Update

Wells really likes the word 'multitudinous,' that's for sure.

89%

For a moment I believed that the destruction of Sennacherib had been repeated, that God had repented, that the Angel of Death had slain them in the night.

89%

Why was I wandering alone in this city of the dead?

87%

I sat contemplating these things. I could find nothing to bring against this man's reasoning. In the days before the invasion no one would have questioned my intellectual superiority to his - I, a professed and recognised writer on philosophical themes, and he, a common soldier; and yet he had already formulated a situation that I had scarcely realised.

82%

"Cities, nations, civilisation, progress - it's all over. That game's up. We're beat."

"But if that is so, what is there to live for?"

The artilleryman looked at me for a moment.

"There won't be any more blessed concerts for a million years or so; there won't be any Royal Academy of Arts, and no nice little feeds at restaurants. If it's amusement you're after, I reckon the game is up. If you've any drawing-room

"I saw what was up. Most of the people were hard at it, squealing and exciting themselves. But I'm not so fond of squealing. I've been in sight of death once or twice; I'm not an ornamental soldier, and at the best and worst, death - it's just death. And it's the man that keeps on thinking comes through."

80%

"I saw what was up."

I LOVE how they used this expression in the 1800s and it is still widely used today. Tickles me pink. I'm always finding it in old books.

80%

"This isn't a war," said the artilleryman. "It never was a war, any more than there's a war between man and ants."

80%

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

But I did not foresee; and crime is to foresee and do. And I set this down as I have set all this story down, as it was. There were no witnesses - all these things I might have concealed. But I set it down, and the reader must form his judgment as he will.

Excellent, 78%