<f201r.P.10;W> no one would have believed in the last years of the -
<f201r.P.11;W> nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly -
<f201r.P.12;W> and closely by intelligences greater than mans and yet as -
<f201r.P.13;W> mortal as his own that as men busied themselves about their -
<f201r.P.14;W> various concerns they were scrutinised and studied perhaps -
<f201r.P.15;W> almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise -
<f201r.P.16;W> the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a -
<f201r.P.17;W> drop of water with infinite complacency men went to and -
<f201r.P.18;W> fro over this globe about their little affairs serene in their -
<f201r.P.19;W> assurance of their empire over matter it is possible that the -
<f201r.P.20;W> infusoria under the microscope do the same no one gave -
<f201r.P.21;W> a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human -
<f201r.P.22;W> danger or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life -
<f201r.P.23;W> upon them as impossible or improbable it is curious to recall -
<f201r.P.24;W> some of the mental habits of those departed days at most -
<f201r.P.25;W> terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon mars -
<f201r.P.26;W> perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a mis -
<f201r.P.27;W> sionary enterprise yet across the gulf of space minds that -
<f201r.P.28;W> are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish -
<f201r.P.29;W> intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic regarded this -
<f201r.P.30;W> earth with envious eyes and slowly and surely drew their -
<f201r.P.31;W> plans against us and early in the twentieth century came -
<f201r.P.32;W> the great disillusionment =