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.
-H. G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, 1898

What is the tone of the passage?
A. cheerful
B. academic
C. panic-stricken
D. Resentful