Review of Reviews, 1/11/06. 



in the Days of the Gotnet. 



023 



as I peered from the train that was rattling me along 

 to Monkshampton, I perceived and was puzzled by 

 a coppery-red light that mingled with all the shadows 

 that were cast by it. 



It turned our ugly English industrial towns to 

 phantom cities. Everywhere the local authorities dis- 

 continued street lighting — one could read small print 

 in the glare — and sti, at Monkshampton, 1 went 

 about through pale, white, unfamiliar streets, whose 

 electric globes had shadows on the path. Lit win- 

 dows here and there burnt ruddy orange, like holes 

 cut in some dream-curtain that hung before a fur- 

 nace. A policeman with noiseless feet showed me 

 an inn woven of moonshine, which a green-faced 

 man opened to us, and there 1 abode the night. And 

 the next morning, it opened with a mighty clatter, 

 and was a dirty little beerhouse that stank of beer, 

 and there was a fat and grimy landlord with red 

 spots upon his neck, and much noisy traffic going by 



I came out, after I had paid my bill, into a street 

 that echoed to the bawlings of two news-vendors 

 and to the noisy yappings of a dog they had raised 

 to emulation. They were shouting: "Great British 

 disaster in the North Sea. A battleship lost with all 

 hands !" 



T bought a paper, and w'ent on to the railway sta- 

 tion reading such details as \vere given of this tri- 

 umph of the old civilisation, of the blowing up of 

 this great iron ship, full of guns and explosives and 

 the most costly and beautiful machinery of which 

 that time was capable, together with nine hundred 

 able-bodied men, all of them qbove the average, by 

 a contact-mine towed by a German submarine. 1 

 read myself into a fever of warlike emotion, Not 

 only did I forget the meteor, but for a time I for- 

 got even the purpose that took me on to the railway 

 station. I boughnny ticket and was onward to .Shap- 

 hamburv. 



So the hot day came to its own again, and people 

 forgot the niglit. 



Each night, there shone upon us more and more 

 insistently, beauty, wonder, the promise of the deeps, 

 and we were hushed, and marvelled for a space. 

 And at the first gray sounds of dawn again, at the 

 shooting of bolts and noise of milk carts, we for- 

 got : and the dustv. habitual day came yawning and 

 stretching back again. The stains of coal smoke 

 crept across the heavens, and we rose to the soiled, 

 disorderly routine of life. 



"Thus life has always been." we said; "thus it 

 will alwavs be." 



The glory of those nights was almost uni\-ersallv 

 regarded as spectacular merely. It signified noth- 

 ing to us. So far as western Europe went, it was 

 onlv a small and ignorant section of the lower classes 

 who regarded the comet as a portent of the end of 

 the world. .Abroad, where there were peasantries, it 

 was different, but in England the peasantrv had al- 

 ready disappeared. Everyone read. The news- 

 paper, in the quiet davs before our swift quarrel 



with Germany rushed to its climax, had absolutely 

 dispelled all possibilities of a panic in this matter. 

 The very tramps upon the highroads, the children 

 in the nursery, had learned, that at the utmost the 

 whole of that shining cloud could weigh but a few 

 score tons. This fact had been shown quite con- 

 clusively by the enormous deflections that had, at 

 last, swung it round squarely at our world. It had 

 passed near three of the smallest asteroids without 

 producing the minutest perceptible deflection in their 

 course; while, on its own part, it had described a 

 course through nearly three degrees. When it struck 

 our earth there was to be a magnificent spectacle, no 

 doubt, for those who w-ere on the right side of our 

 planet to see, but beyond that nothing. It was 

 doubtful whether we were on the right side. The 

 meteor would loom larger and larger in the sky, but 

 with the umbra of our earth eating its heart of 

 brightness out, and at last it would be the whole 

 sky, a sky of luminous, green clouds, with a white 

 brightness about the horizon, west and east. Then 

 a pause— a pause of not very exactly defined dura- 

 tion — and then, no doubt, a' great blaze of shoot- 

 ing stars. They might be of some unwonted colour, 

 because of the unknown element that line in the 

 green revealed. For a little while, the zenith would 

 spout shooting stars. Some, it was hoped, would 

 reach the earth and be available for analysis. 



Tiiat, science said, would be all. The green 

 clouds would whirl and vanish, and there might 

 be thunderstorms. But, through the attenuated 

 wisps of comet-shine, the old skv, the old stars, 

 would reappear, and all would be as it had been 

 before. And since this wms to happen between one 

 and eleven in the morning of the approaching Tues- 

 day—I slept at JMonkshampton on Saturday night — 

 it would be only partially visible, if visible at all, 

 on our side of the earth. ' Perhaps, if it came late, 

 one would see no more than a shooting star low down 

 in the sky. All this we had with the utmost assur- 

 ances of science. Still, it did not prevent the last 

 rights being the most beautiful and memorable of 

 hcman experiences. 



The nights had become very warm, and when, 

 next day, I had ranged Shaphambury in vain, I 

 was greatly tormented, as that unparalleled glorv 

 of the night returned, to think that under its splen- 

 did benediction young Verrall and Nettie made love 

 to each other. 



T walked backward and forward, backward and 

 forward, along the sea front, peering into the faces 

 of the young couples who promenaded, with my 

 hand in niv pocket ready, and a curious ache in my 

 he.nrt that had no kindred with rage. Until at last 

 all tho pronienaders had gone home to bed, and I was 

 alone with the star. 



My train from Wyvern to Shaphambury that 

 morning was a whole hour late ; they said it was on 

 account of the movement of troops to meet a possible 

 rairl from the Elbe. 



