The Invisible Man quotes

the snow had piled itself against his shoulders and chest, and added a white crest to the burden he carried. He staggered into the Coach and Horses more dead than alive, and flung his portmanteau down.

“A fire,” he cried, “in the name of human charity! A room and a fire!”

He stamped and shook the snow from off himself in the bar, and followed Mrs. Hall into her guest parlour to strike his bargain.

“You mind your own business, Hall,” said Mrs. Hall, “and I’ll mind mine.”

She was all the more inclined to snap at Hall because the stranger was undoubtedly an unusually strange sort of stranger, and she was by no means assured about him in her own mind.

In the middle of the night she woke up dreaming of huge white heads like turnips, that came trailing after her, at the end of interminable necks, and with vast black eyes.

So it was that on the twenty-ninth day of February, at the beginning of the thaw, this singular person fell out of infinity into Iping village.

Next day his luggage arrived through the slush—and very remarkable luggage it was.

as, for instance, Silas Durgan, who was heard to assert that “if he chooses to show enself at fairs he’d make his fortune in no time,” and being a bit of a theologian, compared the stranger to the man with the one talent.

Yet another view explained the entire matter by regarding the stranger as a harmless lunatic. That had the advantage of accounting for everything straight away.

Between these main groups there were waverers and compromisers. Sussex folk have few superstitions, and it was only after the events of early April that the thought of the supernatural was first whispered in the village.

Between these main groups there were waverers and compromisers.

Sussex folk have few superstitions, and it was only after the events of early April that the thought of the supernatural was first whispered in the village.

Even then it was only credited among the women folk.

The place was empty. They refastened the back door, examined the kitchen, pantry, and scullery thoroughly, and at last went down into the cellar. There was not a soul to be found in the house, search as they would.

Daylight found the vicar and his wife, a quaintly-costumed little couple, still marvelling about on their own ground floor by the unnecessary light of a guttering candle.

He preferred to talk in the passage. Over the way Huxter’s apprentice came out and began taking down the shutters of the tobacco window. He was called over to join the discussion. Mr. Huxter naturally followed over in the course of a few minutes.

The Anglo-Saxon genius for parliamentary government asserted itself; there was a great deal of talk and no decisive action.

“Let’s have the facts first,” insisted Mr. Sandy Wadgers. “Let’s be sure we’d be acting perfectly right in bustin’ that there door open. A door onbust is always open to bustin’, but ye can’t onbust a door once you’ve busted en.”

The Anglo-Saxon genius for parliamentary government asserted itself; there was a great deal of talk and no decisive action. “Let’s have the facts first,” insisted Mr. Sandy Wadgers. “Let’s be sure we’d be acting perfectly right in bustin’ that there door open.

A door onbust is always open to bustin’, but ye can’t onbust a door once you’ve busted en.

”

“It’s no good,” he said, as if sobbing for breath.

It was the strangest thing in the world to hear that voice coming as if out of empty space, but the Sussex peasants are perhaps the most matter-of-fact people under the sun.

Jaffers got up also and produced a pair of handcuffs. Then he stared.

They were the soundest boots he had come across for a long time, but too large for him; whereas the ones he had were, in dry weather, a very comfortable fit, but too thin-soled for damp.

Mr. Thomas Marvel hated roomy shoes, but then he hated damp.

He had never properly thought out which he hated most, and it was a pleasant day, and there was nothing better to do. So he put the four shoes in a graceful group on the turf and looked at them.

whereas the ones he had were, in dry weather, a very comfortable fit, but too thin-soled for damp. Mr. Thomas Marvel hated roomy shoes, but then he hated damp.

He had never properly thought out which he hated most, and it was a pleasant day, and there was nothing better to do.

So he put the four shoes in a graceful group on the turf and looked at them. And seeing them there among the grass and springing agrimony, it suddenly occurred to him that both pairs were exceedingly ugly to see.

“I’ve chosen you,” said the voice. “You are the only man except some of those fools down there, who knows there is such a thing as an invisible man. You have to be my helper. Help me—and I will do great things for you.

An invisible man is a man of power.

” He stopped for a moment to sneeze violently.

And of these witnesses Mr. Wadgers was presently missing, having retired impregnably behind the bolts and bars of his own house, and Jaffers was lying stunned in the parlour of the Coach and Horses.

Great and strange ideas transcending experience often have less effect upon men and women than smaller, more tangible considerations.

Iping was gay with bunting, and everybody was in gala dress. Whit Monday had been looked forward to for a month or more.

Directly he saw Huxter he gave a sort of gasp, and turning sharply to the left, began to run. “Stop, thief!” cried Huxter, and set off after him.

Mr. Huxter’s sensations were vivid but brief.

He saw the man just before him and spurting briskly for the church corner and the hill road. He saw the village flags and festivities beyond, and a face or so turned towards him. He bawled, “Stop!” again.

It passed in shouts, it passed by instinct down the hill. They were shouting in the street before Marvel was halfway there. They were bolting into houses and slamming the doors behind them, with the news. He heard it and made one last desperate spurt.

Fear came striding by, rushed ahead of him, and in a moment had seized the town.

“The invisible man is coming! The invisible man!”

“Is there such a thing as an invisible animal? … In the sea, yes. Thousands—millions. All the larvae, all the little nauplii and tornarias, all the microscopic things, the jellyfish.

In the sea there are more things invisible than visible!

I never thought of that before. And in the ponds too! All those little pond life things—specks of colourless translucent jelly! But in air? No!

… linen fibre, wool fibre, woody fibre, and bone, Kemp, flesh, Kemp, hair, Kemp, nails and nerves, Kemp, in fact the whole fabric of a man except the red of his blood and the black pigment of hair, are all made up of transparent, colourless tissue.

So little suffices to make us visible one to the other.

For the most part the fibres of a living creature are no more opaque than water.”

It was late at night—in the daytime one was bothered with the gaping, silly students—and I worked then sometimes till dawn. It came suddenly, splendid and complete in my mind. I was alone; the laboratory was still, with the tall lights burning brightly and silently.

In all my great moments I have been alone.

‘One could make an animal—a tissue—transparent! One could make it invisible! All except the pigments—I could be invisible!’ I said, suddenly realising what it meant to be an albino with such knowledge. It was overwhelming.

“

To do such a thing would be to transcend magic.

And I beheld, unclouded by doubt, a magnificent vision of all that invisibility might mean to a man—the mystery, the power, the freedom. Drawbacks I saw none. You have only to think!

After a time I crawled home, took some food and a strong dose of strychnine, and went to sleep in my clothes on my unmade bed.

Strychnine is a grand tonic, Kemp, to take the flabbiness out of a man.

”

“My mood, I say, was one of exaltation.

I felt as a seeing man might do, with padded feet and noiseless clothes, in a city of the blind.

I experienced a wild impulse to jest, to startle people, to clap men on the back, fling people’s hats astray, and generally revel in my extraordinary advantage.

And not only trembling, but shivering. It was a bright day in January and I was stark naked and the thin slime of mud that covered the road was freezing.

Foolish as it seems to me now, I had not reckoned that, transparent or not, I was still amenable to the weather and all its consequences.

“Then suddenly a bright idea came into my head. I ran round and got into the cab.

Before I made this mad experiment I had dreamt of a thousand advantages. That afternoon it seemed all disappointment. I went over the heads of the things a man reckons desirable.

No doubt invisibility made it possible to get them, but it made it impossible to enjoy them when they are got.

Ambition—what is the good of pride of place when you cannot appear there? What is the good of the love of woman when her name must needs be Delilah? I have no taste for politics, for the blackguardisms of fame, for philanthropy, for sport.

No doubt invisibility made it possible to get them, but it made it impossible to enjoy them when they are got. Ambition—what is the good of pride of place when you cannot appear there?

What is the good of the love of woman when her name must needs be Delilah?

I have no taste for politics, for the blackguardisms of fame, for philanthropy, for sport. What was I to do? And for this I had become a wrapped-up mystery, a swathed and bandaged caricature of a man!”

“

By heaven, Kemp, you don’t know what rage is!

… To have worked for years, to have planned and plotted, and then to get some fumbling purblind idiot messing across your course! … Every conceivable sort of silly creature that has ever been created has been sent to cross me.

“By heaven, Kemp, you don’t know what rage is! … To have worked for years, to have planned and plotted, and then to get some fumbling purblind idiot messing across your course! …

Every conceivable sort of silly creature that has ever been created has been sent to cross me.

“If I have much more of it, I shall go wild—I shall start mowing ’em.

“I made a mistake, Kemp, a huge mistake, in carrying this thing through alone. I have wasted strength, time, opportunities.

Alone⁠—it is wonderful how little a man can do alone! To rob a little, to hurt a little, and there is the end.

“What I want, Kemp, is a goalkeeper, a helper, and a hiding place, an arrangement whereby I can sleep and eat and rest in peace, and unsuspected. I must have a confederate. With a confederate, with food and rest—a thousand things are possible.

It means little advantage for eavesdropping and so forth—one makes sounds. It’s of little help—a little help perhaps—in housebreaking and so forth. Once you’ve caught me you could easily imprison me. But on the other hand I am hard to catch.

This invisibility, in fact, is only good in two cases: It’s useful in getting away, it’s useful in approaching. It’s particularly useful, therefore, in killing.

I can walk round a man, whatever weapon he has, choose my point, strike as I like. Dodge as I like. Escape as I like.”

After the murder of Mr. Wicksteed, he would seem to have struck across the country towards the downland. There is a story of a voice heard about sunset by a couple of men in a field near Fern Bottom.

It was wailing and laughing, sobbing and groaning, and ever and again it shouted. It must have been queer hearing.

It drove up across the middle of a clover field and died away towards the hills.

But I have had food in spite of you, I have slept in spite of you, and the game is only beginning. The game is only beginning. There is nothing for it, but to start the terror. This announces the first day of the terror.

Port Burdock is no longer under the Queen, tell your Colonel of Police, and the rest of them; it is under me⁠—the terror!

This is day one of year one of the new epoch—the Epoch of the Invisible Man. I am Invisible Man the First. To begin with the rule will be easy.

There is nothing for it, but to start the terror. This announces the first day of the terror. Port Burdock is no longer under the Queen, tell your Colonel of Police, and the rest of them; it is under me—the terror!

This is day one of year one of the new epoch⁠—the Epoch of the Invisible Man.

I am Invisible Man the First. To begin with the rule will be easy. The first day there will be one execution for the sake of example—a man named Kemp. Death starts for him today.

The dining room window was wide open, and neither housemaid nor Kemp was to be seen.

The second policeman’s opinion of Kemp was terse and vivid.

… ran with wide strides, and wherever a patch of rough ground intervened, wherever there came a patch of raw flints, or a bit of broken glass shone dazzling, he crossed it and left the bare invisible feet that followed to take what line they would.

For the first time in his life Kemp discovered that the hill-road was indescribably vast and desolate, and that the beginnings of the town far below at the hill foot were strangely remote.

Never had there been a slower or more painful method of progression than running. All the gaunt villas, sleeping in the afternoon sun, looked locked and barred; no doubt they were locked and barred—by his own orders.

For the first time in his life Kemp discovered that the hill-road was indescribably vast and desolate, and that the beginnings of the town far below at the hill foot were strangely remote.

Never had there been a slower or more painful method of progression than running.

All the gaunt villas, sleeping in the afternoon sun, looked locked and barred; no doubt they were locked and barred—by his own orders. But at any rate they might have kept a lookout for an eventuality like this!