volcanoes upon Mars. The seriocomic periodical _Punch_, I remember,
made a happy use of it in the political cartoon. And, all
unsuspected, those missiles the Martians had fired at us drew
earthward, rushing now at a pace of many miles a second through the
empty gulf of space, hour by hour and day by day, nearer and nearer.
It seems to me now almost incredibly wonderful that, with that swift
fate hanging over us, men could go about their petty concerns as they
did. I remember how jubilant Markham was at securing a new photograph
of the planet for the illustrated paper he edited in those days.
People in these latter times scarcely realise the abundance and
enterprise of our nineteenth-century papers. For my own part, I was
much occupied in learning to ride the bicycle, and busy upon a series
of papers discussing the probable developments of moral ideas as
civilisation progressed.

One night (the first missile then could scarcely have been
10,000,000 miles away) I went for a walk with my wife. It was
starlight and I explained the Signs of the Zodiac to her, and pointed
out Mars, a bright dot of light creeping zenithward, towards which so
many telescopes were pointed. It was a warm night. Coming home, a
party of excursionists from Chertsey or Isleworth passed us singing
and playing music. There were lights in the upper windows of the
houses as the people went to bed. From the railway station in the
distance came the sound of shunting trains, ringing and rumbling,
softened almost into melody by the distance. My wife pointed out to
me the brightness of the red, green, and yellow signal lights hanging
in a framework against the sky. It seemed so safe and tranquil.