The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells [1898]
But who shall dwell in these worlds if they be
inhabited?…Are we or they Lords of the
World?…And how are all things made for man?—
KEPLER (quoted in The Anatomy of Melancholy)

BOOK ONE: THE COMING OF THE MARTIANS
CHAPTER ONE: THE EVE OF THE WAR, excerpt

No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. And early in the twentieth century came the great disillusionment.

Yet so vain is man, and so blinded by his vanity, that no writer, up to the very end of the nineteenth century, expressed any idea that intelligent life might have developed there far, or indeed at all, beyond its earthly level. Nor was it generally understood that since Mars is older than our earth, with scarcely a quarter of the superficial area and remoter from the sun, it necessarily follows that it is not only more distant from time's beginning but nearer its end.

The secular cooling that must someday overtake our planet has already gone far indeed with our neighbour. Its physical condition is still largely a mystery, but we know now that even in its equatorial region the midday temperature barely approaches that of our coldest winter. Its air is much more attenuated than ours, its oceans have shrunk until they cover but a third of its surface, and as its slow seasons change huge snowcaps gather and melt about either pole and periodically inundate its temperate zones. That last stage of exhaustion, which to us is still incredibly remote, has become a present-day problem for the inhabitants of Mars. The immediate pressure of necessity has brightened their intellects, enlarged their powers, and hardened their hearts. And looking across space with instruments, and intelligences such as we have scarcely dreamed of, they see, at its nearest distance only 35,000,000 of miles sunward of them, a morning star of hope, our own warmer planet, green with vegetation and grey with water, with a cloudy atmosphere eloquent of fertility, with glimpses through its drifting cloud wisps of broad stretches of populous country and narrow, navy-crowded seas.

And we men, the creatures who inhabit this earth, must be to them at least as alien and lowly as are the monkeys and lemurs to us. The intellectual side of man already admits that life is an incessant struggle for existence, and it would seem that this too is the belief of the minds upon Mars. Their world is far gone in its cooling and this world is still crowded with life, but crowded only with what they regard as inferior animals. To carry warfare sunward is, indeed, their only escape from the destruction that, generation after generation, creeps upon them.

In three to five complete sentences, explain why the inhabitants of Mars are interested in Earth. Use information from the text to support your answer.

Monsters of the deep the ocean is full of mysteries and amazing creatures. since the first sailors left their home shores and set off for adventure, stories have been told of the strange and wondrous beasts encountered on the open ocean. with only glimpses and imagination-enhanced stories to go on, humans have made many an interesting creature into a monster. the truth is, the ocean's scariest creatures inhabit such extreme depths that humans are rarely, if ever, threatened by them. that does not mean they are not the stuff of nightmares. consider, if you will, the following frightful fiends. atlantic hagfish part eel, part sea snake, this sea serpent may have inspired many stories. lacking the scales that most fish have, the hagfish secretes the most amazing slime to protect itself. this slime may be used to suffocate predators. the slime includes small fibers that make it almost impossible to remove. but the hagfish's truly horrific nature lies in what it does to its prey, not its predators. with an excellent sense of smell that compensates for almost total blindness, the hagfish will locate and latch on to a victim. with a circle of razor sharp teeth, the hagfish bores a hole into the side of its now-doomed prey. once the hole is complete, the hagfish just welcomes itself inside for a meal of fish innards. it essentially eats its prey from the inside out. like other deep-sea monsters, however, hagfish are seldom a nuisance to humans. they live most of their lives at depths of up to 5,600 feet. in fact, they prefer a soft sea bottom so they can quickly bury themselves to hide from threats. gulper eel another, more hideous, fiend of the deep is the gulper eel. this creepy critter is part eel and part giant pouch. like a pelican's enormous pouch-shaped mouth, the mouth of the gulper eel can open quite wide to gulp prey. it has a long tail tipped with a glowing organ that is used to lure in prey. in part to its tail, the gulper can reach up to six feet in length. because its tail is so thin, it is not able to pursue prey with any speed, but it can scoop up hundreds of small crustaceans or shrimp in one bite. often swimming through these prey groups with its mouth wide open, its large jaws allow it to feed on squid and other creatures much larger than itself. gulper eels have only been studied because they sometimes get caught in the nets of fishermen. the depths they inhabit make it quite difficult for scientists to study them. they can go as deep as 6,000 feet, well beyond the abilities of humans to pursue them. vampire squid perhaps the most frightening of the deep-sea monsters is also the smallest. the vampire squid reaches lengths of only six inches. it is also one of the most ancient of the deep-sea monsters. scientists believe it to be the last surviving member of its order. to see the vampire squid is to wonder how many kinds of sea creatures have been mashed into this one odd-looking spook. part squid, part octopus, and part fish, the vampire squid has features of all of these. first, it has large fins at the top of its head that look like ears. flapping like dumbo, the squid uses these fins to get around. it also has tentacles and a large bulbous head like an octopus. its arms, however, are connected by webbing that allows it to form a cloak around itself when frightened. like the octopus, it can change its colors, even making its cloak so dark that it appears invisible. remarkably, it has the largest eyes compared to its body size of any creature on earth. despite its mere six-inch length, its eyes are as big as those of a large dog. with its glowing orbs of eyes and its disappearing tricks, it's no wonder it's named after one of the most feared creatures of legends and folklore: the vampire. these creatures make one wonder not just about the odd members of the deep-sea community, but also what mysterious things inhabit the regions never visited by humans. what may be lurking in the deepest, darkest corners of the deep blue seas? one thing we know for certain, much like the outrageous monsters we conjure in our worst nightmares, the deep ocean is an equally imaginative source of shock, awe, and outright fright. what are the key differences between the atlantic hagfish and the gulper eel? use details and quotations from the text to support your answer.

What do critics say about art happenings and flash mobs

The wind skittered playfully along the pathway, drawing leaves and bits of flowers along with it. which word gives the passage a cheerful mood?