The War of the Wenuses

The War of the Wenuses, by C. L.
Graves and

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Title: The War of the Wenuses
Author: C. L. Graves and E. V. Lucas
Release Date: January 13, 2005 [eBook #14678]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE WAR OF THE WENUSES

by
C. L. GRAVES AND E. V. LUCAS
Reprint of the 1898 ed. published by J. W. Arrowsmith Bristol, Eng.

[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF THE INVISIBLE AUTHOR. (From a
Negative by THE SPECTROSCOPIC Co.)]

THE WAR OF THE WENUSES
Translated from the Artesian of H. G. Pozzuoli
Author of The Treadmill, The Isthmus of Dr. Day, The Vanishing Lady,
etc., etc.
by
C. L. GRAVES AND E. V. LUCAS

"Not novels and poetry swipes, but ideas, science, books" The
Artilleryman

[Illustration: Arrowsmith colophon]

TO
H. G. WELLS
THIS OUTRAGE ON A FASCINATING AND CONVINCING
ROMANCE

CONTENTS
BOOK I.--The Coming of the Wenuses.
Chapter
I.
"JUST BEFORE THE BATTLE, MOTHER"
II. THE FALLING STAR
III. THE CRINOLINE EXPANDS
IV. HOW I REACHED HOME

BOOK II.--London Under the Wenuses.
I. THE DEATH OF THE EXAMINER
II. THE MAN AT UXBRIDGE ROAD
III. THE TEA-TRAY IN WESTBOURNE GROVE
IV. WRECKAGE
V. BUBBLES
APPENDIX A
APPENDIX B

BOOK I.
The Coming of the Wenuses.

The Coming of the Wenuses.
* * * * *

I.
"JUST BEFORE THE BATTLE, MOTHER."
No one would have believed in the first years of the twentieth century
that men and modistes on this planet were being watched by
intelligences greater than woman's and yet as ambitious as her own.
With infinite complacency maids and matrons went to and fro over
London, serene in the assurance of their empire over man. It is possible
that the mysticetus does the same. Not one of them gave a thought to
Wenus as a source of danger, or thought of it only to dismiss the idea of
active rivalry upon it as impossible or improbable. Yet across the gulf
of space astral women, with eyes that are to the eyes of English women
as diamonds are to boot-buttons, astral women, with hearts vast and
warm and sympathetic, were regarding Butterick's with envy, Peter
Robinson's with jealousy, and Whiteley's with insatiable yearning, and
slowly and surely maturing their plans for a grand inter-stellar
campaign.
The pale pink planet Wenus, as I need hardly inform the sober reader,
revolves round the sun at a mean distance of [character: Venus sigil]
vermillion miles. More than that, as has been proved by the recent
observations of Puits of Paris, its orbit is steadily but surely advancing
sunward. That is to say, it is rapidly becoming too hot for clothes to be
worn at all; and this, to the Wenuses, was so alarming a prospect that
the immediate problem of life became the discovery of new quarters
notable for a gentler climate and more copious fashions. The last stage
of struggle-for-dress, which is to us still remote, had embellished their
charms, heightened their heels and enlarged their hearts. Moreover, the
population of Wenus consisted exclusively of Invisible Men--and the
Wenuses were about tired of it. Let us, however, not judge them too

harshly. Remember what ruthless havoc our own species has wrought,
not only on animals such as the Moa and the Maori, but upon its own
inferior races such as the Wanishing Lady and the Dodo Bensonii.
The Wenuses seem to have calculated their descent with quite
un-feminine accuracy. Had our instruments permitted it, we might have
witnessed their preparations. Similarly pigs, had they wings, might fly.
Men like Quellen of Dresden watched the pale pink planet--it is odd, by
the way, that for countless centuries Wenus has been the star of
Eve--evening by evening growing alternately paler and pinker than a
literary agent, but failed to interpret the extraordinary phenomena,
resembling a series of powder puffs, which he observed issuing from
the cardiac penumbra on the night of April 1st, 1902. At the same time
a great light was remarked by Idos of Yokohama and Pegadiadis of
Athens.
The storm burst upon us six weeks later, about the time of the summer
sales. As Wenus approached opposition, Dr. Jelli of Guava set the
wires of the astronomical exchange palpitating with the intelligence of
a huge explosion of laughing gas moving