The story is written in the past tense, as if he's looking back on those events and has written a full t of what happened. No one would have believed in the last years of the teenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's - yet as mortal as his own. As men busied themselves about their various concerns, they were scrutinized and studied,. perhaps almost as narrowly as a man a microscope might scrutinize the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. That's a great opening to a book, don't you think? The idea is that e people, humans, are complaisant in their position