The First Men in the Moon | Page 3

this "Small
Print!" statement.

[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the net profits
you derive calculated using the method you already use to calculate
your applicable taxes. If you don't derive profits, no royalty is due.
Royalties are payable to "Project Gutenberg
Association/Carnegie-Mellon University" within the 60 days following
each date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) your annual
(or equivalent periodic) tax return.
WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU
DON'T HAVE TO?
The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, scanning
machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty free copyright
licenses, and every other sort of contribution you can think of. Money
should be paid to "Project Gutenberg Association / Carnegie-Mellon
University".
*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN
ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*

This Project Gutenberg Etext was prepared by Barry Haworth.

THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON
by H.G. Wells
Chapter 1

Mr. Bedford Meets Mr. Cavor at Lympne
As I sit down to write here amidst the shadows of vine-leaves under the
blue sky of southern Italy, it comes to me with a certain quality of
astonishment that my participation in these amazing adventures of Mr.
Cavor was, after all, the outcome of the purest accident. It might have

been any one. I fell into these things at a time when I thought myself
removed from the slightest possibility of disturbing experiences. I had
gone to Lympne because I had imagined it the most uneventful place in
the world. "Here, at any rate," said I, "I shall find peace and a chance to
work!"
And this book is the sequel. So utterly at variance is destiny with all the
little plans of men. I may perhaps mention here that very recently I had
come an ugly cropper in certain business enterprises. Sitting now
surrounded by all the circumstances of wealth, there is a luxury in
admitting my extremity. I can admit, even, that to a certain extent my
disasters were conceivably of my own making. It may be there are
directions in which I have some capacity, but the conduct of business
operations is not among these. But in those days I was young, and my
youth among other objectionable forms took that of a pride in my
capacity for affairs. I am young still in years, but the things that have
happened to me have rubbed something of the youth from my mind.
Whether they have brought any wisdom to light below it is a more
doubtful matter.
It is scarcely necessary to go into the details of the speculations that
landed me at Lympne, in Kent. Nowadays even about business
transactions there is a strong spice of adventure. I took risks. In these
things there is invariably a certain amount of give and take, and it fell
to me finally to do the giving. Reluctantly enough. Even when I had got
out of everything, one cantankerous creditor saw fit to be malignant.
Perhaps you have met that flaming sense of outraged virtue, or perhaps
you have only felt it. He ran me hard. It seemed to me, at last, that there
was nothing for it but to write a play, unless I wanted to drudge for my
living as a clerk. I have a certain imagination, and luxurious tastes, and
I meant to make a vigorous fight for it before that fate overtook me. In
addition to my belief in my powers as a business man, I had always in
those days had an idea that I was equal to writing a very good play. It is
not, I believe, a very uncommon persuasion. I knew there is nothing a
man can do outside legitimate business transactions that has such
opulent possibilities, and very probably that biased my opinion. I had,
indeed, got into the habit of regarding this unwritten drama as a

convenient little reserve put by for a rainy day. That rainy day had
come, and I set to work.
I soon discovered that writing a play was a longer business than I had
supposed; at first I had reckoned ten days for it, and it was to have a
pied-a-terre while it was in hand that I came to Lympne. I reckoned
myself lucky in getting that little bungalow. I got it on a three years'
agreement. I put in a few sticks of furniture, and while the play was in
hand I did my own cooking. My cooking would have shocked Mrs.
Bond. And yet, you know, it had flavour. I had a coffee-pot, a
sauce-pan for eggs, and one for potatoes, and a frying-pan for sausages
and bacon - such was the simple apparatus of my comfort. One cannot
always be magnificent, but simplicity is always a possible alternative.
For the rest