he account of the invading Martians, so little passion does the book
contain. The vision, however, is clear enough and there is more
invention than in many of the other romances. The picture of the
Martians themselves develops in one direction the theory of human
evolution expressed in _The Man of the Year Million_. The expansion
of the brain case, and the apotheosis of pure intellect, devoid, so
far as we can judge, of any emotional expression, are the steadily
biological deductions that we should expect from the Wells of this
period. The fighting machines of these incomprehensible entities, the
heat ray and the black smoke, are all excellent conceptions; and the
narrative is splendidly graphic. But only in the scenes with the
curate, when the narrator is stirred to passionate anger, and in his
later passages with the sapper, do we catch any glimpses of the
novelist intrigued with the intimate affairs of humanity. Even the
narrator's brother, in his account of the escape with two women in a
pony-carriage, has become infected with that sense of detachment. The
two women are strongly differentiated but leave little impression of
personality.

The fact that I have made this comment on lack of passion in
describing one of these earlier romances is indicative of a particular
difference between Mr Wells' method in this sort and the method of the
lesser writer of fantasias. The latter, whatever his idea, and it may
be a brilliant idea, is always intent on elaborating the wonder of his
theme by direct description. Mr Wells is far more subtle and more
effective. He takes an average individual, identifies him with the
world as we know it, and then proceeds gradually to bring his marvel
within the range of this individual's apprehension. We see the
improbable, not too definitely, through the eyes of one who is
prepared with the same incredulity as the reader of the story, and as
a result the strange phenomenon, whether fallen angel, invisible man,
converted beast or invading Martian, takes all the shape of reality.
That this shape is convincing is due to the brilliance of Mr Wells'
imagination and his power of graphic expression; the lesser writer
might adopt the method and fail utterly to attain the effect; but it
is this conception of the means to reach the intelligence and senses
of the average reader that chiefly distinguishes these romances from
those of such writers as Jules Verne. Our approach to the wonderful is
so gradu