Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

The World Set Free by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
page 25 of 227 (11%)

'And then,' he said. . . .

'Then that perpetual struggle for existence, that perpetual struggle to
live on the bare surplus of Nature's energies will cease to be the lot
of Man. Man will step from the pinnacle of this civilisation to the
beginning of the next. I have no eloquence, ladies and gentlemen, to
express the vision of man's material destiny that opens out before me. I
see the desert continents transformed, the poles no longer wildernesses
of ice, the whole world once more Eden. I see the power of man reach out
among the stars....'

He stopped abruptly with a catching of the breath that many an actor or
orator might have envied.

The lecture was over, the audience hung silent for a few seconds,
sighed, became audible, stirred, fluttered, prepared for dispersal. More
light was turned on and what had been a dim mass of figures became a
bright confusion of movement. Some of the people signalled to friends,
some crowded down towards the platform to examine the lecturer's
apparatus and make notes of his diagrams. But the chuckle-headed lad
with the scrub hair wanted no such detailed frittering away of the
thoughts that had inspired him. He wanted to be alone with them; he
elbowed his way out almost fiercely, he made himself as angular and
bony as a cow, fearing lest some one should speak to him, lest some one
should invade his glowing sphere of enthusiasm.

He went through the streets with a rapt face, like a saint who sees
visions. He had arms disproportionately long, and ridiculous big feet.

DigitalOcean Referral Badge