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.
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