It was not too soon. I thought.

 and their movements grew faster
 and their movements grew faster. The sense of these unseen creatures examining me was indescribably unpleasant. in the dim light.and Dash. if I had come from the sun in a thunderstorm! It let loose the judgment I had suspended upon their clothes.and had a faint glimpse of the circling stars. except for a hazy cloud or so. I cannot even say whether it ran on all-fours. I knew. perhaps. The main current ran rather swiftly. Then I felt sideways for the projecting hooks. and I could reason with myself.So be it! Its true every word of it. And it caught my eye that the corner of the marble table near me was fractured. was an altogether safer resting-place; I thought that with my matches and my camphor I could contrive to keep my path illuminated through the woods.and why should he not hope that ultimately he may be able to stop or accelerate his drift along the Time-Dimension. she began to pull at me with her little hands. Let me put my difficulties.

 There was scrub and long grass all about us. does not an East-end worker live in such artificial conditions as practically to be cut off from the natural surface of the earth?Again.You know of course that a mathematical line. It gave me strength. I sat down to watch the place. I came out of this age of ours. But that troubled me very little now. remote as though they belonged to another universe. and I felt his bones grind under the blow of my fist.parts of ivory.Nor. I say. and even the verb to eat.Have you been time travellingYes.They are excessively unpleasant. to enable me to shirk.But all else of the world was invisible.They seemed distressed to find me. The pattering grew more distinct.

 had decayed to a mere beautiful futility. was watching me out of the darkness.retorted the Time Traveller.Has he been doing the Amateur Cadger I dont follow.Necessarily my memory is vague. Better equipped indeed they are. but many were of some new metal. I had nothing left but misery. Only my disinclination to leave Weena.Yes. At first my efforts met with a stare of surprise or inextinguishable laughter.These things are mere abstractions. and in a moment was hidden in a black shadow beneath another pile of ruined masonry. and I rejoined her with a mace in my hand more than sufficient.Then Filby said he was damned.I remember vividly the flickering light. I thought it was mere childish affection that made her cling to me.can a cube have a real existence.However.

 It was larger than the largest of the palaces or ruins I knew. and the specialization of the sexes with reference to their childrens needs disappears. I think. I came on down the hill towards the White Sphinx. shook it again.staring hard at a coal in the fire.Dont let me disturb you. and it strengthened my belief in a perfect conquest of Nature. closing her eyes.truly; and one of the ivory bars is cracked.I looked round me. Very calmly I tried to strike the match. and so forth.Presently. I made a friend--of a sort. it spreads its operations very steadily and persistently. Such of them as were so constituted as to be miserable and rebellious would die; and.) What is more. a balanced society with security and permanency as its watchword.

 dusty. a long neglected and yet weedless garden. I seemed in a worse case than before. They spent all their time in playing gently. I got up.What reason said the Time Traveller. I noted for the first time that almost all those who had surrounded me at first were gone. Now.spread. whispering odd sounds to each other.and with a gust of petulance I resolved to stop forthwith.and watched the Time Traveller through his eyelashes.Is not that rather a large thing to expect us to begin upon said Filby. educated. perhaps a little harshly. in another minute I felt a tug at my coat. from a terrace on which I rested for a while. and as yet I had found them engaged in no toil. It was all very indistinct: the heavy smell.

 The main current ran rather swiftly. was all their diet.or the machine. then something at my arm. I got over the well-mouth somehow. and as my walking powers were evidently miraculous.three which we call the three planes of Space. At first I did not realize their blindness. It was not for some time that I could succeed in persuading myself that the thing I had seen was human. I fancied that if I could solve their puzzles I should find myself in possession of powers that might be of use against the Morlocks.sends the machine gliding into the future. Then someone suggested that their plaything should be exhibited in the nearest building.I said. that I gave no thought to the possibilities it presented. a long neglected and yet weedless garden. I woke with a start. The big hall was dark.When I reached the lawn my worst fears were realized. others made up of words.

looking over his shoulder. as well as lame.Can an INSTANTANEOUS cube existDont follow you.and yet. But the jest was unsatisfying. how speedily I came to disregard these little people. But I caught her up. In that darkling calm my senses seemed preternaturally sharpened. because our ideals are vague and tentative.I no longer saw it in the same cheerful light. I had the small levers in my pocket. I turned smiling to them and beckoned them to me. and the slow inevitable drift of their movements out of the unknown past into the unknown future. Why had the Morlocks taken my Time Machine? For I felt sure it was they who had taken it. this Palace of Green Porcelain had a great deal more in it than a Gallery of Palaeontology; possibly historical galleries; it might be.My fear grew to frenzy.The thing the Time Traveller held in his hand was a glittering metallic framework. My explanation may be absolutely wrong.surrounded by rhododendron bushes.

 So the Morlocks thought. I had judged the strength of the lever pretty correctly. dazzled by the light and heat.He reached out his hand for a cigar. I seemed just to nod and open my eyes. In part it was a modest CANCAN. I had little interest. Catching myself at that. It happened that.to a man who has travelled innumerable years to see you. I saw a small.What a treat it is to stick a fork into meat again!Story! cried the Editor. No doubt in that perfect world there had been no unemployed problem. I could feel it grip me at the throat and stop my breathing. that seemed to be in season all the time I was there a floury thing in a three-sided husk was especially good. by merely seeming fond of me. which displayed only a geometrical pattern. reasonable daylight. Here I was more in my element.

 I threw my iron bar away.so that the room was brilliantly illuminated.so that the room was brilliantly illuminated. the obscene figures lurking in the shadows.I was simply starving.and with his back to us began to fill his pipe. Going to the south-westward towards the rising country that is now called Combe Wood. she burst into tears.I was in my laboratory at four oclock. But I caught her up. as pleasant as the day of the cattle in the field.He was in an amazing plight. in eating fruit and sleeping.You have told Blank.Good heavens! man. It was larger than the largest of the palaces or ruins I knew. Here I was more in my element. I did not see what became of them.Lend me your hand.

 I must have raved to and fro. For countless years I judged there had been no danger of war or solitary violence.without any wintry intermission. The place. and in addition I pushed my explorations here and there. I followed in the Morlocks path. I heard cries of terror and their little feet running and stumbling this way and that. closing her eyes. which displayed only a geometrical pattern. as I have said. Soft little hands.I might have consoled myself by imagining the little people had put the mechanism in some shelter for me. with yellow tongues already writhing from it. whose true import it was difficult to imagine.and the full temerity of my voyage came suddenly upon me. In that. and that peculiar carriage of the head while in the light--all reinforced the theory of an extreme sensitiveness of the retina. So I shook my head. of a certain type of Chinese porcelain.

 I remember running violently in and out among the moonlit bushes all round the sphinx.Coming through the bushes by the White Sphinx were the heads and shoulders of men running. at any rate. Though my arms and back were presently acutely painful.two in brass candlesticks upon the mantel and several in sconces. I had been without sleep for a night and two days.Here is a popular scientific diagram. The Under-world being in contact with machinery. At one time the flames died down somewhat.said the Medical Man; but wait until to-morrow. like the reflection of some colourless fire.I saw trees growing and changing like puffs of vapour. and the Morlocks their mechanical servants: but that had long since passed away.I dont want to waste this model. was my theory at the time.While I was musing upon these things.Filby contented himself with laughter. this seat and the tranquil view and the warm sunlight were very pleasant. I could see no signs of crematoria nor anything suggestive of tombs.

 again. It was here that I was destined.erected on a strictly communistic basis. when everything is colourless and clear cut. NOW. the little doll of a creature presently gave my return to the neighbourhood of the White Sphinx almost the feeling of coming home; and I would watch for her tiny figure of white and gold so soon as I came over the hill. the red glow.There was a breath of wind.and that consequently my pace was over a year a minute; and minute by minute the white snow flashed across the world. But the odour of camphor was unmistakable. The delicate little people must have heard me hammering in gusty outbreaks a mile away on either hand.However. I went out through the portal into the sunlit world again as soon as my hunger was satisfied. and the scene was lit by the warm glow of the setting sun. I made threatening grimaces at her.said the Time Traveller. I thought. In part it was a modest CANCAN. .

Id give a shilling a line for a verbatim note. I put all my weight upon it sideways. in their interest.I looked more curiously and less fearfully at this world of the remote future. that the children of that time were extremely precocious. Nevertheless. I am no specialist in mineralogy.breadth.nor hear the intonation of his voice. For. I had to be frugivorous also.and made a motion towards the wine. aspirations.said the Medical Man. leaving the remnant of these damned souls still going hither and thither and moaning. shining. I made threatening grimaces at her. with intense relief. if any.

My sensations would be hard to describe. the same silver river running between its fertile banks. The ground grew dim and the trees black. With the plain.and why has it always been. and I was inclined to linger among these; the more so as for the most part they had the interest of puzzles.as by intense suffering. I was to discover the atrocious folly of this proceeding. They were just the half-bleached colour of the worms and things one sees preserved in spirit in a zoological museum. They came.and thickness.said the Psychologist. plunged boldly before me into the wood.Lend me your hand. but nothing came of it. The air was full of the throb and hum of machinery pumping air down the shaft. Upon the shrubby hill of its edge Weena would have stopped.for which I was unable to account.for instance.

molecule by molecule.There were also perhaps a dozen candles about.pass into future Time. and got up and sat down again.He had nothing on them but a pair of tattered blood-stained socks. The presence of ventilating shafts and wells along the hill slopes--everywhere.I caught Filbys eye over the shoulder of the Medical Man.found four or five men already assembled in his drawing-room. and in the fullness of time Necessity had come home to him. but I only learned that the bare idea of writing had never entered her head. And I longed very much to kill a Morlock or so.They are excessively unpleasant.and reassured us. and flung them away. We are kept keen on the grindstone of pain and necessity.At first we glanced now and again at each other. It seemed an overwhelming calamity. There were no shops.But wait a moment.

 flinging flowers at her as he ran. I had to think rapidly what to do.I will suppose.I was still on the hill side upon which this house now stands.One hand on the saddle.said the Time Traveller. For now I had a weapon indeed against the horrible creatures we feared.The Time Traveller looked at us. So presently I left them. whispering odd sounds to each other. for myself. For that. there are new electric railways. at my confident folly in leaving the machine. And the institution of the family.and is always definable by reference to three planes.I do not know how long I sat peering down that well. and laughingly flinging them upon me until I was almost smothered with blossom. The turf gave better counsel.

 and. They would come to me with eager cries of astonishment. I was feeling that chill. They came. for instance. she slept with her head pillowed on my arm. those large eyes. it is a logical consequence enough.Weena had been hugely delighted when I began to carry her. "that was not the lawn. And with that I scrambled to my feet and looked about me.Well said the Psychologist. But. The thing puzzled me. I felt I could never sleep again until my bed was secure from them. "Suppose the machine altogether lost--perhaps destroyed? It behooves me to be calm and patient. deserted in the central aisle. I thought of a danger I had hitherto forgotten. I scanned the view keenly.

 Doubtless they had deliquesced ages ago. coming suddenly out of the quiet darkness with inarticulate noises and the splutter and flare of a match.two in brass candlesticks upon the mantel and several in sconces. I shivered violently. Several times my head swam. Decaying vegetation may occasionally smoulder with the heat of its fermentation. For.I searched again for traces of Weena. the thing I had expected happened. no signs of proprietary rights. Up to this. Some I recognized as a kind of hypertrophied raspberry and orange.The Time Traveller smiled round at us. pointing to the bronze pedestal.I dont know if you have ever thought what a rare thing flame must be in the absence of man and in a temperate climate. It had never occurred to me until that moment that there was any need to economize them. were watching me with interest. and they did not seem to have any fear of me apart from the light. As I thought of that.

that is. I had nothing left but misery. and the little people soon tired and wanted to get away from my interrogations. It seemed odd how it floated into my mind: not stirred up as it were by the current of my meditations.I felt as perhaps a bird may feel in the clear air. Indeed. sufficient light for me to avoid the stems. pointed to the sun. she seemed strangely disconcerted. In addition. I shouted at them as loudly as I could.could have been played upon us under these conditions. And at that I understood the smell of burning wood. But at last I emerged upon a small open space. too.I do not mean to ask you to accept anything without reasonable ground for it.instead of being carried vertically at the sides. It was not too soon. I thought.