First Men in the Moon
(by H. G. Wells - excerpts)
Chapter 3: The Building of the Sphere" 'Like Jules Verne's apparatus in A Trip to the Moon?'
But Cavor was not a reader of fiction."
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Chapter 4: Inside the Sphere
"It was not like the beginning of a journey; it was like the beginning of a dream."
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Chapter 5: The Journey to the Moon
"'I knew some one who was rather interested in astronomy. It occurred to me that it would be rather odd if - my friend - chanced to be looking through some telescope.' "
" 'It would need the most powerful telescope on earth even now to see us as the minutest speck.' "
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"I fell clumsily upon hands and face, and saw for a moment between my black extended fingers our mother earth - a planet in a downward sky. "
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Chapter 6: The Landing on the Moon
"...those spacious ring-like ranges vaster than any terrestrial mountains, their summits shining in the day, their shadows harsh and deep; the grey, disordered plains, the ridges, hill and craterlets..."
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"Over, clutch, bump, clutch, bump, over
...came a thud and I was half buried under the bale of our possessions..."
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Chapter 7: Sunrise on the Moon
"From the westward the light of the unseen sun fell upon them, reaching to the very foot of the cliff, and showed a disordered escarpment of drab and grayish rock, lined here and there with banks and crevices of snow. "
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"He peered upwards. 'Look!' He said.
'What?' I asked.
" 'In the sky. Already. On the blackness - a little touch of blue. See! The stars seem larger...' "
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Chapter 8: A Lunar Morning
" But we could see enough! One after another all down the sunlit slope these miraculous little brown bodies burst and gaped apart, like seed-pods, like the husks of fruits; opened eager mouths that drank in the heat and light pouring in a cascade from the sun.
Every moment more of these seed-coats ruptured, and even as they did so the swelling pioneers overflowed their rent distended seed-cases and passed into the second stage of growth. With a steady assurance, a swift deliberation, these amazing seeds thrust a rootlet downward to the earth and a queer bundle-like bud into the air. In a little while the whole slope was doted with minute plantlets standing at attention in the blaze of the sun."
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Chapter 9: Prospecting Begins
"I shaded my eyes with my hand. 'It's like the landscape of a dream.' "
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"I hit a huge fungoid bulk that burst all about me, scattering a mass of orange spores in every direction..."
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Chapter 11: The Mooncalf Pastures
"Presently we were arrested again by the proximity of a Selenite, and this time we were able to observe him more exactly. Now we could see that the Selenite covering was indeed clothing, and not a sort of crustacean integument."
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"The stuff was not unlike a terrestrial mushroom, only it was much laxer in texture, and as one swallowed, it warmed the throat. At first we experienced a mere mechanical satisfaction in eating. Then our blood began to run warmer, and we tingled at the lips and fingers, and then new and slightly irrelevant ideas came bubbling up in our minds."
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"Almost immediately we must have come upon the Selenites. There were six of them, and they were marching in single file over a rocky place..."
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"I seem to remember a violent struggle..."
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"My next clear recollection is that we were prisoner at we knew not what depth beneath the Moon's surface..."
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Chapter 12: The Selenite's Face
"The Selenites! My mind hung on that for a space. Then my memories came back to me; the snowy desolation, the thawing of the air, the growth of the plants, our strange hopping and crawling among the rocks and vegetation of the crater."
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"Figure us! We were bound hand and foot, fagged and filthy..."
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Chapter 13: Mr. Cavor Makes Some Suggestions
" 'Yes,', he said, 'Kepler with his sub-volvani was right after all.' "
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Chapter 14: Experiments in Intercourse
"We did not get our impression of that cavern all at once. Our attention was taken up by the movements and attitudes of the Selenites immediately about us..."
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Chapter 15: The Giddy Bridge
"...one of the armed Selenites had stabbed my behind with his goad!"
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"There came another of those beastly suprises of which the moon world is full."
"My mailed hand seemed to go clean through him. He smashed like some sort of sweetmeat with liquid in it. He broke right in. He squelched and splashed. It was like hitting a damp toadstool. The flimsy body went spinning a dozen yards and fell with a flabby impact. I was astonished. I was incredulous that any living thing could be so flimsy."
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"We ran in vast strides."
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Chapter 18: In the Sunlight
"After all", he said, "we must separate."
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"If we see Selenites we will hide from them as well as we can."
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Chapter 21: Mr. Bedford at Littlestone
"The sphere hit the water with a huge splash: it must have sent it fathoms high."
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"The night was dark and overcast. Two yellow pin-points far away showed the passing of a ship..."
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Chapter 24: The Natural History of the Selenites
"And oddest of all, two or three of these weird inhabitants of a subterranean world, a world sheltered by innumerable miles of rock from sun or rain, carried umbrellas in their tentaculate hands! - real terrestrial-looking umbrellas!"
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"The light came from a tumultuous growth of livid fungoid shapes - some indeed singularly like our terrestrial mushrooms, but standing as high or higher than a man."
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Chapter 25: The Grand Lunar
"But at last I came under a huge archway and beheld the summit of these steps, and upon it the Grand Lunar exalted on his throne."
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The encyclopaedic galaxy of the learned that had accompanied me to the entrance of the last hall appeared two steps above me and left and right of me in readiness for the Grand Lunar's need..."
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Chapter 25: The Last Message Cavor sent to Earth
" 'I was mad to let the Grand Lunar know - "
