"Eh!" he said, with his eyes shining. "I've thought it out, eh?"
"Go on," I said.
"Well, those who mean to escape their catching must get ready. I'm
getting ready. Mind you, it isn't all of us that are made for wild
beasts; and that's what it's got to be. That's why I watched you. I
had my doubts. You're slender. I didn't know that it was you, you
see, or just how you'd been buried. All these--the sort of people
that lived in these houses, and all those damn little clerks that used
to live down that way--they'd be no good. They haven't any spirit in
them--no proud dreams and no proud lusts; and a man who hasn't one or
the other--Lord! What is he but funk and precautions? They just used
to skedaddle off to work--I've seen hundreds of 'em, bit of breakfast
in hand, running wild and shining to catch their little season-ticket
train, for fear they'd get dismissed if they didn't; working at
businesses they were afraid to take the trouble to understand;
skedaddling back for fear they wouldn't be in time for dinner; keeping
indoors after dinner for fear of the back streets, and sleeping with
the wives they married, not because they wanted them, but because they
had a bit of money that would make for safety in their one little
miserable skedaddle through the world. Lives insured and a bit
invested for fear of accidents. And on Sundays--fear of the
hereafter. As if hell was built for rabbits! Well, the Martians will
just be a godsend to these. Nice roomy cages, fattening food, careful
breeding, no worry. After a week or so chasing about the fields and
lands on empty stomachs, they'll come and be caught cheerful. They'll
be quite glad after a bit. They'll wonder what people did before
there were Martians to take care of them. And the bar loafers, and
mashers, and singers--I can imagine them. I can imagine them," he
said, with a sort of sombre gratification. "There'll be any amount of
sentiment and religion loose among them. There's hundreds of things I
saw with my eyes that I've only begun to see clearly these last few
days. There's lots will take things as they are--fat and stupid; and
lots will be worried by a sort of feeling that it's all wrong, and
that they ought to be doing something. Now whenever things are so
that a lot of people feel they ought to be doing something, the weak,
and those who go weak with a lot of complicated thinking, always make
for a sort of do-nothing religion, very pious and superior, and
submit to persecution and the will of the Lord. Very likely you've
seen the same thing. It's energy in a gale of funk, and turned clean
inside out. These cages will be full of psalms and hymns and piety.
And those of a less simple sort will work in a bit of--what is
it?--eroticism."
|