# The Time Machine (B1 edition)

*H. G. Wells*

## I. Introduction

The Time Traveller (it will be convenient to call him that) was explaining a deep and difficult subject to us. His grey eyes shone and twinkled. His face, which was usually pale, was red and lively. The fire burnt brightly. The electric lamps sat in silver holders shaped like lilies. Their soft light caught the bubbles that flashed and disappeared in our glasses. Our chairs were his own patent design. They seemed to hug us and stroke us, instead of just letting us sit on them. There was that luxurious feeling after dinner, when thoughts run freely and do not need to be exact. He explained it to us in this way, and he marked each point with his thin forefinger. We sat lazily and admired his seriousness about this new paradox (as we thought it). We also admired his endless flow of ideas.

“You must follow me carefully. I shall have to argue against one or two ideas that almost everyone accepts. For example, the geometry that they taught you at school is based on a mistake.”

“Isn’t that rather a big thing to expect us to begin with?” said Filby. He was a man with red hair who loved to argue.

“I do not mean to ask you to accept anything without good reason. You will soon agree to as much as I need from you. Of course you know that a mathematical line, a line with a thickness of *nil*, has no real existence. They taught you that? A mathematical plane does not really exist either. These things exist only as ideas in the mind.”

“That is all right,” said the Psychologist.

“A cube has only length, breadth and thickness. So a cube cannot have a real existence either.”

“There I object,” said Filby. “Of course a solid body can exist. All real things—”

“So most people think. But wait a moment. Can an *instantaneous* cube exist?”

“Don’t follow you,” said Filby.

“Can a cube really exist if it does not last for any time at all?”

Filby became thoughtful. “Clearly,” the Time Traveller went on, “any real body must stretch in *four* directions. It must have Length, Breadth, Thickness, and—Duration. But we tend to forget this fact, because of a natural weakness of the flesh. I will explain that to you in a moment. There are really four dimensions. Three of them we call the three planes of Space, and the fourth is Time. However, we tend to make an unreal difference between the first three dimensions and the last one. This is because our consciousness moves along Time in one direction, stopping and starting. It moves from the beginning to the end of our lives.”

“That,” said a very young man, who was trying hard to relight his cigar over the lamp, “that . . . very clear indeed.”

“Now, it is very strange that so many people overlook this,” the Time Traveller continued, a little more cheerfully. “Really, this is what the Fourth Dimension means. But some people who talk about the Fourth Dimension do not know that they mean it. It is only another way of looking at Time. *Time is no different from the three dimensions of Space, except that our consciousness moves along it.* But some foolish people have got hold of the wrong side of that idea. You have all heard what they say about this Fourth Dimension?”

“*I* have not,” said the Provincial Mayor.

“It is simply this. Our mathematicians say that Space has three dimensions. We can call them Length, Breadth and Thickness. Space can always be described by three planes, and each plane is at right angles to the others. But some philosophical people have been asking why there are *three* dimensions in particular. Why not another direction, at right angles to the other three? They have even tried to build a Four-Dimensional geometry. Professor Simon Newcomb was explaining this to the New York Mathematical Society only a month or so ago. You know how we can draw a three-dimensional solid on a flat surface. And a flat surface has only two dimensions. In the same way, they think that models of three dimensions could show a thing of four. They would only need to master the perspective of it. See?”

“I think so,” said the Provincial Mayor quietly. He frowned and seemed to go deep into his own thoughts. His lips moved like the lips of someone who repeats magic words. “Yes, I think I see it now,” he said after some time. His face brightened, but only for a moment.

“Well, I do not mind telling you that I have been working on this geometry of Four Dimensions for some time. Some of my results are curious. For example, here is a picture of a man at eight years old. Here is another at fifteen, another at seventeen, another at twenty-three, and so on. All these are clearly sections, as it were, of his Four-Dimensioned being. They are Three-Dimensional pictures of it. And his Four-Dimensioned being is a fixed thing that can never change.”

The Time Traveller paused, so that we could take this in. “Scientific people,” he went on, “know very well that Time is only a kind of Space. Here is a popular scientific diagram, a weather record. This line that I follow with my finger shows the movement of the barometer. Yesterday it was this high. Last night it fell. Then this morning it rose again, and went gently upward to here. Surely the mercury did not trace this line in any of the usual dimensions of Space? But it certainly traced a line. So we must decide that the line was along the Time-Dimension.”

The Medical Man was staring hard at a coal in the fire. “But if Time is only a fourth dimension of Space,” he said, “why is it seen as something different? And why has it always been seen that way? And why can’t we move about in Time, as we move about in the other dimensions of Space?”

The Time Traveller smiled. “Are you so sure that we can move freely in Space? We can go right and left, and backward and forward, freely enough. Men have always done so. I agree that we move freely in two dimensions. But what about up and down? Gravitation limits us there.”

“Not exactly,” said the Medical Man. “There are balloons.”

“But before the balloons, man had no freedom to move up and down. He could only jump now and then, or go up and down the uneven ground.”

“Still they could move a little up and down,” said the Medical Man.

“Easier, far easier down than up.”

“And you cannot move at all in Time. You cannot get away from the present moment.”

“My dear sir, that is just where you are wrong. That is just where the whole world has gone wrong. We are always getting away from the present moment. Our minds have no body and no dimensions. They are passing along the Time-Dimension at a steady speed, from the cradle to the grave. In the same way, we would travel *down* if we began our lives fifty miles above the earth’s surface.”

“But the great difficulty is this,” the Psychologist interrupted. “You *can* move about in all directions of Space, but you cannot move about in Time.”

“That is the seed of my great discovery. But you are wrong to say that we cannot move about in Time. For example, if I remember something very clearly, I go back to the moment when it happened. I become absent-minded, as you say. I jump back for a moment. Of course, we have no way of staying back for any length of Time. In the same way, a savage or an animal cannot stay six feet above the ground. But a civilised man is better off than the savage here. He can go up against gravitation in a balloon. So why should he not hope to control his drift along the Time-Dimension one day? He might stop it, or make it faster. He might even turn round and travel the other way.”

“Oh, *this*,” began Filby, “is all—”

“Why not?” said the Time Traveller.

“It’s against reason,” said Filby.

“What reason?” said the Time Traveller.

“You can show black is white by argument,” said Filby, “but you will never convince me.”

“Possibly not,” said the Time Traveller. “But now you begin to see the purpose of my studies in the geometry of Four Dimensions. Long ago I had a vague idea of a machine—”

“To travel through Time!” cried the Very Young Man.

“One that will travel in any direction of Space and Time, just as the driver decides.”

Filby was content just to laugh.

“But I have experimental verification,” said the Time Traveller.

“It would be very useful for the historian,” the Psychologist suggested. “You could travel back and check the accepted story of the Battle of Hastings, for example!”

“Don’t you think you would attract attention?” said the Medical Man. “Our ancestors had no patience with anachronisms.”

“You could learn your Greek from the lips of Homer and Plato themselves,” the Very Young Man thought.

“In that case they would certainly fail you in the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

“Then there is the future,” said the Very Young Man. “Just think! You could invest all your money and leave it to grow with interest. Then you could hurry on ahead!”

“And find a society,” said I, “built on a strictly communistic basis.”

“Of all the wild, crazy theories!” began the Psychologist.

“Yes, that is how it seemed to me, and so I never talked about it until—”

“Experimental verification!” I cried. “You are going to verify *that*?”

“The experiment!” cried Filby, whose brain was getting tired.

“Let’s see your experiment anyway,” said the Psychologist, “though it’s all humbug, you know.”

The Time Traveller smiled round at us. Then, still smiling a little, he walked slowly out of the room with his hands deep in his trouser pockets. We heard his slippers shuffling down the long passage to his laboratory.

The Psychologist looked at us. “I wonder what he’s got?”

“Some sleight-of-hand trick or other,” said the Medical Man. Then Filby tried to tell us about a conjuror he had seen at Burslem. But before he had even finished the beginning, the Time Traveller came back, and Filby’s story collapsed.

### Glossary

- **paradox**: an idea that seems impossible or seems to say two opposite things, but may be true.
- **dimension**: one of the directions in which something can be measured, like length or breadth.
- **instantaneous**: lasting no time at all; happening in a single moment.
- **consciousness**: the part of you that is awake, thinks and notices things.
- **barometer**: an instrument that measures the pressure of the air; it helps to tell the weather.
- **gravitation**: the force that pulls things down towards the earth.
- **experimental verification**: proof that comes from a test or experiment.
- **anachronisms**: people or things that appear in the wrong time in history.
- **Little-go**: an old name for the first exam at Cambridge University.
- **communistic**: describing a society where everything is shared and nobody owns private property.
- **humbug**: nonsense, or a trick to fool people.
- **sleight-of-hand trick**: a trick done with quick, clever hand movements to fool people.

## II. The Machine

The thing in the Time Traveller’s hand was a shining metal framework. It was hardly larger than a small clock, and it was very finely made. There was ivory in it, and some clear substance like crystal. And now I must be exact. Unless we accept his explanation, what follows is impossible to explain. He took one of the small eight-sided tables that stood about the room. He set it in front of the fire, with two of its legs on the hearthrug. He placed the machine on this table. Then he pulled up a chair and sat down. The only other thing on the table was a small lamp with a shade. Its bright light fell on the model. There were also perhaps a dozen candles about the room. Two were in brass candlesticks on the mantel, and several were in holders on the walls. So the room was very brightly lit. I sat in a low arm-chair nearest the fire. I pulled it forward, so that I was almost between the Time Traveller and the fireplace. Filby sat behind him and looked over his shoulder. The Medical Man and the Provincial Mayor watched him from the side, on the right. The Psychologist watched from the left. The Very Young Man stood behind the Psychologist. We were all very alert. I cannot believe that anyone could play a trick on us in these conditions, however clever or skilful it was.

The Time Traveller looked at us, and then at the machine. “Well?” said the Psychologist.

“This little thing,” said the Time Traveller, “is only a model.” He rested his elbows on the table and pressed his hands together above the machine. “It is my plan for a machine to travel through time. You will notice that it looks strangely crooked. And there is an odd twinkling look about this bar, as if it was in some way unreal.” He pointed to the part with his finger. “Also, here is one little white lever, and here is another.”

The Medical Man got up out of his chair and looked closely at the thing. “It’s beautifully made,” he said.

“It took two years to make,” replied the Time Traveller. Then we all did the same as the Medical Man and looked closely. After that, he said, “Now I want you to understand this clearly. When this lever is pressed over, it sends the machine gliding into the future. This other one reverses the motion. This saddle is the seat of a time traveller. Soon I am going to press the lever, and off the machine will go. It will vanish, pass into future Time, and disappear. Have a good look at the thing. Look at the table too, and make sure that there is no trickery. I don’t want to waste this model, and then be told I’m a quack.”

There was a pause of perhaps a minute. The Psychologist seemed about to speak to me, but he changed his mind. Then the Time Traveller put out his finger towards the lever. “No,” he said suddenly. “Lend me your hand.” He turned to the Psychologist and took his hand in his own. He told him to put out his forefinger. So it was the Psychologist himself who sent the model Time Machine on its endless journey. We all saw the lever turn. I am absolutely certain there was no trickery. There was a breath of wind, and the lamp flame jumped. One of the candles on the mantel was blown out. The little machine suddenly swung round and became unclear. For a second perhaps, it was seen as a ghost, a swirl of faintly shining brass and ivory. And then it was gone—vanished! Apart from the lamp, the table was bare.

Everyone was silent for a minute. Then Filby said he was damned.

The Psychologist woke up from his shock and suddenly looked under the table. At that, the Time Traveller laughed cheerfully. “Well?” he said, copying the Psychologist. Then he got up and went to the tobacco jar on the mantel. With his back to us, he began to fill his pipe.

We stared at each other. “Look here,” said the Medical Man, “are you serious about this? Do you really believe that that machine has travelled into time?”

“Certainly,” said the Time Traveller. He bent down to light a spill at the fire. Then he lit his pipe and turned to look at the Psychologist’s face. (The Psychologist wanted to show that he was not upset or confused. So he took a cigar and tried to light it without cutting the end.) “What is more, I have a big machine nearly finished in there”—he pointed to the laboratory—“and when that is put together, I mean to make a journey myself.”

“You mean to say that that machine has travelled into the future?” said Filby.

“Into the future or the past—I don’t know for certain which.”

After a while the Psychologist had an idea. “It must have gone into the past, if it has gone anywhere,” he said.

“Why?” said the Time Traveller.

“Because I suppose that it has not moved in space. If it travelled into the future, it would still be here all this time. It must have travelled through this time.”

“But,” said I, “if it travelled into the past, we would have seen it when we first came into this room. And last Thursday when we were here, and the Thursday before that, and so on!”

“Serious objections,” said the Provincial Mayor, turning towards the Time Traveller. He did not seem to take either side.

“Not a bit,” said the Time Traveller. Then he said to the Psychologist, “You think. *You* can explain that. It’s presentation below the threshold, you know, diluted presentation.”

“Of course,” said the Psychologist, and he calmed our doubts. “That’s a simple point in psychology. I should have thought of it. It’s plain enough, and it helps the paradox beautifully. We cannot see this machine or notice it. In the same way, we cannot see the spoke of a spinning wheel, or a bullet flying through the air. Suppose it is travelling through time fifty times or a hundred times faster than we are. Suppose it gets through a minute while we get through a second. Then the impression it makes on us will of course be very weak. It will be only one-fiftieth or one-hundredth of the impression it would make if it were not travelling in time. That’s plain enough.” He passed his hand through the space where the machine had been. “You see?” he said, laughing.

We sat and stared at the empty table for a minute or so. Then the Time Traveller asked us what we thought of it all.

“It sounds believable enough tonight,” said the Medical Man, “but wait until tomorrow. Wait for the common sense of the morning.”

“Would you like to see the Time Machine itself?” asked the Time Traveller. With that, he took the lamp in his hand and led the way down the long, draughty corridor to his laboratory. I remember it all clearly. I remember the flickering light, and the dark shape of his strange, broad head. I remember the dance of the shadows, and how we all followed him, puzzled and not believing. And there in the laboratory we saw a larger copy of the little machine which had vanished before our eyes. Some parts were of nickel, and some parts were of ivory. Other parts had certainly been cut out of rock crystal with a file or a saw. The thing was mostly complete. But some twisted crystal bars lay unfinished on the bench, beside some sheets of drawings. I picked one up to have a better look at it. It seemed to be quartz.

“Look here,” said the Medical Man, “are you perfectly serious? Or is this a trick—like that ghost you showed us last Christmas?”

“On that machine,” said the Time Traveller, holding the lamp up high, “I intend to explore time. Is that plain? I was never more serious in my life.”

None of us quite knew how to take it.

I caught Filby’s eye over the Medical Man’s shoulder, and he winked at me solemnly.

### Glossary

- **framework**: the main parts that hold a thing together, like the bones of a body.
- **ivory**: the hard white material from an elephant’s tusks.
- **hearthrug**: a small carpet in front of a fireplace.
- **mantel**: the shelf above a fireplace.
- **lever**: a bar or handle that you push or pull to make a machine work.
- **quack**: a person who pretends to have knowledge or skills; a fraud.
- **spill**: a thin strip of wood or paper used for lighting a pipe from a fire.
- **presentation below the threshold**: a scientific way of saying that something is too weak or too fast for our senses to notice.
- **draughty**: with cold air blowing through.
- **quartz**: a hard, clear mineral that looks like glass.

## III. The Time Traveller Returns

I think that at that time none of us quite believed in the Time Machine. The fact is, the Time Traveller was one of those men who are too clever to be believed. You never felt that you could see all of him. You always suspected that he was hiding something clever behind his clear, open manner. Suppose Filby had shown the model and explained it in the Time Traveller’s words. Then we would have doubted *him* far less. We would have understood his reasons, because a pork-butcher could understand Filby. But the Time Traveller had more than a touch of whim in his character, and we did not trust him. Things that would have made a less clever man famous seemed like tricks in his hands. It is a mistake to do things too easily. Serious people took him seriously, but they never felt quite sure how he would behave. Somehow they knew that it was risky to trust their good name to him. It was like filling a children’s room with china as thin as eggshell. So I don’t think any of us said very much about time travelling between that Thursday and the next. But no doubt its strange possibilities were in most of our minds. It seemed believable, and yet in practice it seemed impossible. And it suggested curious possibilities of anachronism and of complete confusion. For my own part, my mind was especially busy with the trick of the model. I remember discussing it with the Medical Man, whom I met on Friday at the Linnæan. He said he had seen a similar thing at Tübingen. He thought the blowing-out of the candle was very important. But he could not explain how the trick was done.

The next Thursday I went again to Richmond. I suppose I was one of the Time Traveller’s most regular guests. I arrived late, and I found four or five men already in his drawing-room. The Medical Man was standing in front of the fire with a sheet of paper in one hand and his watch in the other. I looked round for the Time Traveller, and—“It’s half-past seven now,” said the Medical Man. “I suppose we’d better have dinner?”

“Where’s——?” said I, and I named our host.

“You’ve just come? It’s rather odd. He has been kept away, and he can’t help it. He asks me in this note to start dinner at seven if he’s not back. Says he’ll explain when he comes.”

“It seems a pity to let the dinner spoil,” said the Editor of a well-known daily paper. And so the Doctor rang the bell.

The Psychologist was the only person, apart from the Doctor and me, who had been at the previous dinner. The other men were Blank, the Editor I have just mentioned, and a certain journalist. There was also another man, quiet and shy, with a beard. I didn’t know him, and as far as I noticed, he never opened his mouth all evening. At the dinner-table people wondered why the Time Traveller was away. Half as a joke, I suggested time travelling. The Editor wanted that explained to him. The Psychologist offered a dull, wooden account of the “ingenious paradox and trick” we had seen a week before. He was in the middle of his explanation when the door from the corridor opened slowly and without a sound. I was facing the door, and I saw it first. “Hallo!” I said. “At last!” The door opened wider, and the Time Traveller stood before us. I gave a cry of surprise. “Good heavens! man, what’s the matter?” cried the Medical Man, who saw him next. And everyone at the table turned towards the door.

He was in a terrible state. His coat was dusty and dirty, with green smears down the sleeves. His hair was untidy, and it seemed to me greyer. Perhaps this was dust and dirt, or perhaps its colour had really faded. His face was deathly pale. There was a brown cut on his chin, half-healed. His face looked tired and drawn, as if he had suffered terribly. For a moment he stopped in the doorway, as if the light dazzled him. Then he came into the room. He walked with just the kind of limp that I have seen in tramps with sore feet. We stared at him in silence and waited for him to speak.

He said not a word. He came painfully to the table and made a sign towards the wine. The Editor filled a glass of champagne and pushed it towards him. He drank it all, and it seemed to do him good. He looked round the table, and the ghost of his old smile flickered across his face. “What on earth have you been up to, man?” said the Doctor. The Time Traveller did not seem to hear. “Don’t let me disturb you,” he said. His words came slowly and unsteadily. “I’m all right.” He stopped and held out his glass for more. He drank it in one go. “That’s good,” he said. His eyes grew brighter, and a little colour came into his cheeks. He looked over our faces with a kind of dull approval. Then he looked round the warm and comfortable room. He spoke again, still feeling his way among his words, as it were. “I’m going to wash and dress, and then I’ll come down and explain things.... Save me some of that mutton. I’m starving for a bit of meat.”

He looked across at the Editor, who did not often visit, and said he hoped he was well. The Editor began a question. “Tell you presently,” said the Time Traveller. “I’m—funny! Be all right in a minute.”

He put down his glass and walked towards the staircase door. Again I noticed his limp and the soft padding sound of his steps. I stood up in my place, and I saw his feet as he went out. He had nothing on them except a pair of torn, blood-stained socks. Then the door closed behind him. I half wanted to follow him. But then I remembered how much he hated any fuss about himself. For a minute, perhaps, my thoughts wandered. Then I heard the Editor say, “Remarkable Behaviour of an Eminent Scientist.” As usual, he was thinking in newspaper headlines. This brought my attention back to the bright dinner-table.

“What’s the game?” said the Journalist. “Has he been doing the Amateur Cadger? I don’t follow.” I met the Psychologist’s eye, and I saw my own explanation in his face. I thought of the Time Traveller limping painfully upstairs. I don’t think anyone else had noticed his limp.

The Medical Man was the first to recover completely from this surprise. He rang the bell for a hot plate. (The Time Traveller hated to have servants waiting at dinner.) At that, the Editor turned back to his knife and fork with a grunt, and the Silent Man did the same. Dinner went on. For a little while the talk was full of exclamations, with silent gaps of wonder. Then the Editor’s curiosity grew very strong. “Does our friend add to his small income by sweeping a street crossing? Or does he have his Nebuchadnezzar phases?” he asked. “I’m sure it’s this business of the Time Machine,” I said. Then I continued the Psychologist’s account of our last meeting. The new guests openly did not believe it. The Editor raised objections. “What *was* this time travelling? A man couldn’t cover himself with dust by rolling in a paradox, could he?” Then, as he took in the idea, he began to make fun of it. Hadn’t they any clothes-brushes in the Future? The Journalist too refused to believe it at any price. He joined the Editor in the easy work of laughing at the whole thing. They were both the new kind of journalist: very cheerful young men with no respect for anything. “Our Special Correspondent in the Day after Tomorrow reports,” the Journalist was saying, or rather shouting, when the Time Traveller came back. He was dressed in ordinary evening clothes. Only his tired, worn look remained of the change that had shocked me.

“I say,” said the Editor, laughing loudly, “these chaps here say you have been travelling into the middle of next week! Tell us all about little Rosebery, will you? What will you take for the lot?”

Without a word, the Time Traveller came to the place that was kept for him. He smiled quietly, in his old way. “Where’s my mutton?” he said. “What a treat it is to stick a fork into meat again!”

“Story!” cried the Editor.

“Story be damned!” said the Time Traveller. “I want something to eat. I won’t say a word until I get some peptone into my arteries. Thanks. And the salt.”

“One word,” said I. “Have you been time travelling?”

“Yes,” said the Time Traveller, with his mouth full, nodding his head.

“I’d give a shilling a line for a word-for-word report,” said the Editor. The Time Traveller pushed his glass towards the Silent Man and rang it with his fingernail. The Silent Man had been staring at his face. He jumped violently and poured him some wine. The rest of the dinner was uncomfortable. For my own part, sudden questions kept rising to my lips, and I dare say it was the same with the others. The Journalist tried to ease the tension by telling funny stories about Hettie Potter. The Time Traveller gave all his attention to his dinner, and he ate with the appetite of a tramp. The Medical Man smoked a cigarette and watched the Time Traveller through his eyelashes. The Silent Man seemed even more clumsy than usual. Out of pure nervousness, he drank champagne steadily and with determination. At last the Time Traveller pushed his plate away and looked round at us. “I suppose I must apologise,” he said. “I was simply starving. I’ve had a most amazing time.” He reached out his hand for a cigar and cut the end. “But come into the smoking-room. It’s too long a story to tell over greasy plates.” He rang the bell as he passed, and he led the way into the room next door.

“You have told Blank, and Dash, and Chose about the machine?” he said to me. He was leaning back in his easy-chair, and he was naming the three new guests.

“But the thing’s a mere paradox,” said the Editor.

“I can’t argue tonight. I don’t mind telling you the story, but I can’t argue. I will,” he went on, “tell you the story of what has happened to me, if you like. But you must not interrupt me. I want to tell it. Badly. Most of it will sound like lying. So be it! It’s true—every word of it, all the same. I was in my laboratory at four o’clock, and since then … I’ve lived eight days … such days as no human being ever lived before! I’m nearly worn out, but I shan’t sleep till I’ve told this thing to you. Then I shall go to bed. But no interruptions! Is it agreed?”

“Agreed,” said the Editor, and the rest of us repeated, “Agreed.” And with that, the Time Traveller began his story, as I have written it down here. At first he sat back in his chair and spoke like a tired man. Later he became more lively. As I write it down, I feel very strongly that pen and ink are not good enough to show its quality. Above all, I feel that I myself am not good enough. You will read it carefully enough, I suppose. But you cannot see the speaker’s white, sincere face in the bright circle of the little lamp. You cannot hear the sound of his voice. You cannot know how his face changed with the turns of his story! Most of us listeners were in shadow, because the candles in the smoking-room had not been lit. Only the Journalist’s face and the Silent Man’s legs from the knees down were in the light. At first we looked at each other now and then. After a time we stopped doing that, and we looked only at the Time Traveller’s face.

### Glossary

- **whim**: a sudden wish or idea that is not based on reason; a playful, unusual way of acting.
- **pork-butcher**: a man who sells pork in a shop; here, a simple, ordinary person.
- **anachronism**: a person or thing that is in the wrong time in history.
- **tramp**: a poor person with no home who walks from place to place.
- **mutton**: meat from a sheep.
- **the Amateur Cadger**: someone who is only pretending to be a beggar.
- **Nebuchadnezzar phases**: times of madness, like the king in the Bible who went mad and ate grass.
- **little Rosebery**: Lord Rosebery, a British politician of the time; the Editor is asking for political news from the future.
- **peptone**: a substance made from digested meat; he means food in his blood.
- **shilling**: an old British coin.
- **smoking-room**: a room in a house where men sat to smoke after dinner.

## IV. Time Travelling

“Last Thursday I told some of you about the principles of the Time Machine. I showed you the actual thing itself, unfinished in the workshop. There it is now. It is a little worn from travel, it’s true. One of the ivory bars is cracked, and a brass rail is bent. But the rest of it is sound enough. I expected to finish it on Friday. On Friday the putting together was nearly done, but then I found a problem. One of the nickel bars was exactly one inch too short, and I had to get it made again. So the thing was not complete until this morning. It was at ten o’clock today that the first of all Time Machines began its career. I gave it a last tap and tried all the screws again. I put one more drop of oil on the quartz rod, and I sat down in the saddle. I suppose a suicide holding a pistol to his head feels the same wonder about what will come next. That is how I felt then. I took the starting lever in one hand and the stopping lever in the other. I pressed the first, and almost immediately the second. I seemed to sway, and I had a nightmare feeling of falling. I looked round, and I saw the laboratory exactly as before. Had anything happened? For a moment I suspected that my mind had tricked me. Then I noticed the clock. A moment before, as it seemed, it had stood at a minute or so past ten. Now it was nearly half-past three!

“I took a breath, set my teeth, and gripped the starting lever with both hands. I went off with a dull, heavy sound. The laboratory became misty and went dark. Mrs. Watchett came in and walked towards the garden door. She did not seem to see me. I suppose it took her a minute or so to cross the room. But to me she seemed to shoot across it like a rocket. I pressed the lever over as far as it would go. The night came like the turning out of a lamp, and in another moment came tomorrow. The laboratory grew faint and misty, then fainter and fainter still. Tomorrow night came black, then day again, night again, day again, faster and faster. A murmur filled my ears, going round and round, and a strange, dull confusion came down on my mind.

“I am afraid I cannot describe the strange feelings of time travelling. They are extremely unpleasant. There is a feeling exactly like the one you have on a switchback. It is a helpless, headlong motion! I had the same horrible feeling, too, that a crash would come at any moment. As I went faster, night followed day like the flapping of a black wing. Soon the dim shape of the laboratory seemed to fall away from me. I saw the sun hopping quickly across the sky. It leapt across the sky every minute, and every minute marked a day. I supposed the laboratory had been destroyed and I was now in the open air. I had a dim impression of scaffolding. But I was already going too fast to notice any moving things. The slowest snail that ever crawled dashed by too fast for me. The twinkling changes of darkness and light were extremely painful to the eye. Then, in the short moments of darkness, I saw the moon. She was spinning quickly through her quarters, from new to full. I also had a faint view of the circling stars. I went on, still gaining speed. Soon the beating of night and day became one continuous greyness. The sky took on a wonderful deep blue, a splendid glowing colour like that of early twilight. The jumping sun became a streak of fire, a brilliant arch in space. The moon became a fainter, wavering band. I could see nothing of the stars, except now and then a brighter circle flickering in the blue.

“The landscape was misty and unclear. I was still on the hillside where this house now stands. The shoulder of the hill rose above me, grey and dim. I saw trees growing and changing like puffs of vapour, now brown, now green. They grew, spread, shivered, and passed away. I saw huge buildings rise up, faint and beautiful, and pass like dreams. The whole surface of the earth seemed changed. It was melting and flowing under my eyes. The little hands on the dials that showed my speed raced round faster and faster. Soon I noticed that the band of the sun swung up and down, from solstice to solstice, in a minute or less. So my speed was over a year a minute. Minute by minute, the white snow flashed across the world and vanished. And then came the bright, short green of spring.

“The unpleasant feelings of the start were less sharp now. At last they turned into a kind of hysterical excitement. I did notice a clumsy swaying of the machine, and I could not explain it. But my mind was too confused to pay attention to it. A kind of madness was growing in me, and I threw myself into the future. At first I hardly thought of stopping. I hardly thought of anything except these new feelings. But soon a new set of impressions grew up in my mind. There was a certain curiosity, and with it a certain fear. At last they took complete control of me. Soon I would look closely at the dim world that raced and wavered before my eyes. It was hard to see it clearly. What strange developments of humanity might I find there? What wonderful advances on our simple, early civilisation! I saw great and splendid buildings rising around me. They were more massive than any buildings of our own time. And yet they seemed to be built of faint light and mist. I saw a richer green flow up the hillside and stay there, with no winter in between. Even through the veil of my confusion, the earth seemed very beautiful. And so my mind came round to the business of stopping.

“The special danger was this: I might find some substance in the space which I, or the machine, filled. While I travelled through time at a high speed, this hardly mattered. I was, so to speak, thinned out. I was slipping like a vapour through the gaps in the things in my way! But coming to a stop meant something else. It meant pushing myself hard, molecule by molecule, into whatever was in my way. My atoms would come into very close contact with the atoms of the obstacle. Then there might be a deep chemical reaction, possibly a great explosion. It would blow me and my machine out of all possible dimensions, into the Unknown. This possibility had come to me again and again while I was making the machine. But then I had cheerfully accepted it as a risk that could not be avoided. It was one of the risks a man has to take! Now the risk was really here, and I no longer saw it in the same cheerful light. The fact is that, without my noticing, my nerves had become completely upset. It was the total strangeness of everything, and the shaking and swaying of the machine, which made me feel sick. Above all, it was the long feeling of falling. I told myself that I could never stop. Then, in a sudden fit of bad temper, I decided to stop at once. Like an impatient fool, I pulled the lever over hard. At once the thing went reeling over, and I was thrown headlong through the air.

“There was the sound of a clap of thunder in my ears. I may have been stunned for a moment. A cruel hail was falling noisily all round me. I was sitting on soft turf in front of the overturned machine. Everything still seemed grey. But soon I noticed that the confusion in my ears was gone. I looked round me. I seemed to be on a little lawn in a garden, with rhododendron bushes all round it. I noticed that their pale purple and deep purple flowers were dropping in a shower under the beating of the hailstones. The hail bounced and danced and hung in a little cloud over the machine. It drove along the ground like smoke. In a moment I was wet to the skin. ‘Fine hospitality,’ said I, ‘to a man who has travelled countless years to see you.’

“Soon I thought what a fool I was to get wet. I stood up and looked round me. Beyond the rhododendrons, through the misty rain, I could just see a huge figure. It seemed to be carved in some white stone. But the rest of the world was invisible.

“My feelings would be hard to describe. As the columns of hail grew thinner, I saw the white figure more clearly. It was very large, because a silver birch-tree touched its shoulder. It was of white marble, in shape something like a winged sphinx. But its wings were not held upright at its sides. They were spread out, so that it seemed to hover. The pedestal seemed to me to be of bronze, and it was thick with verdigris. The face happened to be towards me. The sightless eyes seemed to watch me, and there was the faint shadow of a smile on the lips. It was very weather-worn, and that gave it an unpleasant look of disease. I stood looking at it for a little while—half a minute, perhaps, or half an hour. It seemed to come nearer and to move away, as the hail in front of it grew thicker or thinner. At last I tore my eyes from it for a moment. I saw that the curtain of hail had worn thin. The sky was getting lighter, with the promise of the sun.

“I looked up again at the crouching white shape. Suddenly I understood how reckless my journey had been. What might appear when that misty curtain was completely gone? What might have happened to men? What if cruelty had grown into a common passion? What if, in all this time, the race had lost its manliness? Perhaps it had become something inhuman, unsympathetic, and overwhelmingly powerful. To them I might seem some savage animal from the old world. And because we looked alike, I would seem even more dreadful and disgusting to them. I would be a foul creature, to be killed at once.

“Already I saw other huge shapes. There were great buildings with detailed parapets and tall columns. A wooded hillside seemed to creep in towards me through the weakening storm. A panic fear seized me. I turned wildly to the Time Machine and tried hard to adjust it again. As I did so, the rays of the sun struck through the thunderstorm. The grey rain was swept aside and vanished like the trailing clothes of a ghost. Above me was the intense blue of the summer sky. A few faint brown pieces of cloud whirled away into nothing. The great buildings round me stood out clear and sharp. They shone with the wet of the thunderstorm. Their lines were picked out in white by the hailstones that had not melted and lay piled along them. I felt naked in a strange world. I felt as a bird may feel in the clear air. It knows that the hawk is flying above and will swoop down. My fear grew to a frenzy. I took a moment to breathe and set my teeth. Then once more I fought fiercely with the machine, with wrist and knee. It gave way under my desperate attack and turned over. It hit my chin violently. I stood there with one hand on the saddle and the other on the lever. I was breathing heavily, ready to climb on again.

“But now that I could escape quickly, my courage came back. I looked at this world of the far future with more curiosity and less fear. High up in the wall of the nearer house there was a round opening. In it I saw a group of figures dressed in rich, soft robes. They had seen me, and their faces were turned towards me.

“Then I heard voices coming towards me. Through the bushes by the White Sphinx I saw the heads and shoulders of men who were running. One of them came out onto a path. It led straight to the little lawn where I stood with my machine. He was a slight creature, perhaps four feet high. He wore a purple tunic with a leather belt at the waist. On his feet were sandals or buskins; I could not clearly see which. His legs were bare to the knees, and his head was bare. When I noticed that, I noticed for the first time how warm the air was.

“He seemed to me a very beautiful and graceful creature, but frail beyond words. His flushed face reminded me of the more beautiful kind of consumptive. It had that ‘hectic beauty’ that we used to hear so much about: the bright, feverish look of people who are ill. When I saw him, I suddenly felt confident again. I took my hands off the machine.

### Glossary

- **switchback**: a roller coaster at a fair.
- **scaffolding**: a frame of poles and boards put up around a building while it is being built.
- **vapour**: a mass of tiny drops of water or gas in the air, like steam or mist.
- **solstice**: the longest or the shortest day of the year, when the sun is highest or lowest in the sky.
- **hysterical**: wild and out of control, because of strong feelings.
- **hail, hailstones**: small balls of ice that fall from the sky like rain.
- **rhododendron**: a garden bush with large purple or pink flowers.
- **sphinx**: a statue of a creature with a human head and a lion’s body (this one has wings).
- **pedestal**: the base that a statue stands on.
- **verdigris**: the green layer that forms on old bronze or copper.
- **buskins**: soft, high boots that reach up the leg.
- **consumptive**: a person with tuberculosis, an illness of the lungs; such people often looked flushed and delicate.

## V. In the Golden Age

“In another moment we were standing face to face, I and this delicate creature from the future. He came straight up to me and laughed into my eyes. I noticed at once that he showed no sign of fear at all. Then he turned to the two others who were following him. He spoke to them in a strange language that was very sweet and soft and flowing.

“Others were coming, and soon a little group of perhaps eight or ten of these lovely creatures stood around me. One of them spoke to me. Strangely enough, the idea came into my head that my voice was too harsh and deep for them. So I shook my head. Then I pointed to my ears and shook it again. He came a step forward, stopped for a moment, and then touched my hand. Then I felt other soft little tentacles on my back and shoulders. They wanted to make sure that I was real. There was nothing frightening in this at all. In fact, there was something in these pretty little people that made me trust them. They had a graceful gentleness and the easy manner of children. Besides, they looked so frail that I felt I could throw the whole dozen of them about like ninepins. But then I saw their little pink hands feeling at the Time Machine. I made a sudden movement to warn them. Luckily, I then remembered a danger that I had forgotten until now, and it was not too late. I reached over the bars of the machine and unscrewed the little levers that would start it. I put these in my pocket. Then I turned again to see how I could communicate with them.

“Then I looked more closely at their faces. I saw some more strange things about their pretty looks, which were like Dresden china. Their hair was curly on all of them, and it stopped sharply at the neck and cheek. There was not the smallest sign of hair on the face, and their ears were very, very small. Their mouths were small, with bright red, rather thin lips, and their little chins were pointed. Their eyes were large and gentle. And—perhaps this was only my own vanity—I even thought that they were less interested in me than I had expected.

“They made no effort to communicate with me. They simply stood round me, smiling and making soft cooing sounds to each other. So I began the conversation. I pointed to the Time Machine and to myself. Then I stopped for a moment, because I did not know how to show the idea of Time. So I pointed to the sun. At once a strange, pretty little figure in purple and white checks copied my gesture. Then, to my great surprise, he imitated the sound of thunder.

“For a moment I was shocked, although the meaning of his gesture was clear enough. A sudden question had come into my mind: were these creatures fools? You may hardly understand how it affected me. You see, I had always expected that the people of the year 802,000 or so would be incredibly far ahead of us. I expected them to be ahead in knowledge, in art, in everything. And then one of them suddenly asked me a question like a child. It showed that his mind was at the level of one of our five-year-old children. In fact, he asked me if I had come from the sun in a thunderstorm! Until then I had held back my opinion about their clothes, their frail light arms and legs and their delicate faces. Now that opinion came out freely. A great feeling of disappointment rushed through my mind. For a moment I felt that I had built the Time Machine for nothing.

“I nodded and pointed to the sun. Then I made such a realistic thunderclap that it startled them. They all stepped back a pace or so and bowed. Then one of them came towards me, laughing. He was carrying a chain of beautiful flowers that were completely new to me, and he put it round my neck. The others welcomed the idea with musical applause. Soon they were all running here and there for flowers. Laughing, they threw them at me until I was almost buried in blossoms. You have never seen anything like it. So you can hardly imagine how delicate and wonderful these flowers were. Countless years of careful growing had created them. Then someone suggested that they should show their new plaything in the nearest building. So they led me past the sphinx of white marble. It seemed to have watched me all this time with a smile at my surprise. We went towards a huge grey building of finely carved stone. As I went with them, I remembered something. I had been so sure that the people of the future would be very serious and very intelligent. That memory came into my mind, and I could not help laughing at it.

“The building had a huge entrance, and everything about it was enormous. Naturally, I was most interested in the growing crowd of little people. I was also interested in the big open doors in front of me, which were dark and mysterious. Over their heads I could see the world around me. My general impression was of a wild mass of beautiful bushes and flowers. It was like a garden that no one had looked after for a long time, and yet it had no weeds. I saw a number of tall stems of strange white flowers. Their waxy petals measured perhaps a foot across. They grew here and there, as if wild, among the many-coloured bushes. But, as I say, I did not look at them closely at this time. The Time Machine was left alone on the grass among the rhododendrons.

“The arch over the doorway was richly carved. Naturally I did not look at the carving very carefully. But as I passed through, I thought I saw signs of old Phœnician decorations. I noticed that they were very badly broken and worn by the weather. Several more people in bright clothes met me in the doorway, and so we went in. I was dressed in dirty nineteenth-century clothes, and I looked quite ridiculous with garlands of flowers round my neck. All around me was a moving crowd of bright, soft-coloured robes and shining white arms and legs. There was a musical whirl of laughter and laughing voices.

“The big doorway opened into a great hall of the same large size, with brown hangings. The roof was in shadow. Some parts of the windows had coloured glass and some had no glass at all, and they let in a soft light. The floor was made of huge blocks of some very hard white metal. They were not plates or thin slabs, but real blocks. I thought that generations of people had walked to and fro over them. They were so worn that there were deep channels along the paths that people used most. Across the hall stood a great many tables made of slabs of polished stone. They were perhaps a foot high, and there were heaps of fruit on them. I recognised some of the fruits as a kind of huge raspberry and orange. But most of them were strange to me.

“Between the tables lay a great number of cushions. The people who had brought me sat down on these, and they made signs for me to do the same. With a pretty lack of ceremony, they began to eat the fruit with their hands. They threw the peel, stalks and so on into round openings in the sides of the tables. I was happy to do the same, because I felt thirsty and hungry. As I ate, I looked round the hall at my ease.

“Perhaps the thing that struck me most was how run-down it looked. The stained-glass windows had only a geometrical pattern, and they were broken in many places. The curtains that hung across the lower end of the hall were thick with dust. I also noticed that the corner of the marble table near me was broken. But the general effect was still extremely rich and beautiful to look at. There were perhaps two hundred people eating in the hall. Most of them sat as near to me as they could, and they watched me with interest. Their little eyes shone over the fruit they were eating. They were all dressed in the same soft but strong silky material.

“Fruit, by the way, was all they ate. These people of the distant future were strict vegetarians. While I was with them, I had to live on fruit too, although my body sometimes longed for meat. In fact, I found out later that horses, cattle, sheep and dogs had followed the Ichthyosaurus into extinction. But the fruits were delicious. One in particular seemed to be in season the whole time I was there. It was a floury thing in a three-sided husk, and it was especially good. I made it my main food. At first I was puzzled by all these strange fruits, and by the strange flowers I saw. But later I began to understand what they meant.

“However, I am telling you about my fruit dinner in the distant future now. As soon as I was a little less hungry, I decided to make a serious attempt to learn the language of these new people of mine. Clearly that was the next thing to do. The fruits seemed a convenient thing to begin with. I held one of them up and began to make questioning sounds and gestures. It was quite difficult to make them understand what I meant. At first they only stared at me in surprise, or laughed and could not stop. But soon a fair-haired little creature seemed to understand what I wanted and repeated a name. Then they had to chatter and explain the whole business to each other at great length. I made my first attempts to say the delicate little sounds of their language. These attempts amused them enormously. Their laughter was real, though not very polite. However, I felt like a schoolmaster among children, and I kept on trying. Soon I knew at least twenty nouns. Then I got to words for ‘this’ and ‘that’, and I even learnt the verb ‘to eat.’ But it was slow work. The little people soon got tired and wanted to get away from my questions. So I had little choice. I decided to let them give their lessons in small doses, whenever they felt like it. And I soon found that the doses were very small indeed. I never met people who were lazier or got tired more easily.

### Glossary

- **tentacles**: long, soft arms, like the arms of an octopus
- **ninepins**: wooden pins that people knock down with a ball in a game
- **Dresden china**: very fine and delicate porcelain figures from Dresden in Germany
- **cooing**: making soft, gentle sounds, like a dove
- **thunderclap**: the sudden loud noise of thunder
- **garland**: a ring or chain of flowers that you wear round your neck or head
- **Phœnician**: from the Phoenicians, an ancient people who lived by the Mediterranean Sea
- **husk**: the dry outer cover of some fruits and seeds
- **Ichthyosaurus**: a large sea reptile that lived millions of years ago and is now extinct
- **in small doses**: a little at a time

## VI. The Sunset of Mankind

“I soon discovered a strange thing about my little hosts, and that was their lack of interest. They would come to me with eager cries of surprise, like children. But, like children, they would soon stop examining me. Then they would wander away after some other toy. When the dinner and my first attempts at conversation were over, I noticed something for the first time. Almost all the people who had surrounded me at first were gone. It is strange, too, how quickly I began to ignore these little people. As soon as my hunger was satisfied, I went out through the doorway into the sunlit world again. I kept meeting more of these men of the future. They would follow me a little way, and chatter and laugh about me. They would smile and make friendly gestures. Then they would leave me alone again to do as I liked.

“The calm of evening lay over the world as I came out of the great hall. The scene was lit by the warm glow of the setting sun. At first things were very confusing. Everything was completely different from the world I had known—even the flowers. The big building I had left stood on the slope of a broad river valley. But the Thames had moved perhaps a mile from where it is now. I decided to climb to the top of a hill crest, perhaps a mile and a half away. From there I could get a wider view of this planet of ours in the year 802,701 A.D. I should explain that this was the date that the little dials of my machine showed.

“As I walked, I watched for every impression that could possibly help me. I wanted to explain why the world was in this state of ruined splendour—for it really was ruined. A little way up the hill, for example, there was a great heap of granite, held together by masses of aluminium. It was a huge maze of steep walls and fallen heaps. Among them grew thick masses of very beautiful plants shaped like pagodas. They were possibly nettles. But their leaves were wonderfully coloured with brown, and they could not sting. It was clearly what was left of some huge building. I could not tell what it had been built for. It was here that I was to have a very strange experience later. It was the first sign of a still stranger discovery. But I will speak of that in its proper place.

“I rested for a while on a terrace. Looking round, I had a sudden thought: there were no small houses to be seen. It seemed that the single house, and possibly even the household, had disappeared. Here and there among the greenery were buildings like palaces. But the house and the cottage, which are so typical of our own English countryside, had disappeared.

“‘Communism,’ I said to myself.

“And right after that came another thought. I looked at the half-dozen little figures that were following me. Then, in a flash, I saw that they all wore the same kind of clothes. They all had the same soft face without hair, and the same round, girlish arms and legs. It may seem strange that I had not noticed this before. But everything was so strange. Now I saw the fact clearly enough. In our time, men and women differ in their clothes, and in their look and manner. But in all these ways the people of the future were alike. And to my eyes the children seemed to be only small copies of their parents. I judged then that the children of that time grew up very early, in body at least. Later I found plenty of proof that I was right.

“I saw the ease and security in which these people lived. So I felt that this close likeness of the sexes was, after all, what one would expect. For the strength of a man and the softness of a woman are only needed in an age of fighting and physical force. The same is true of the family and of the division of work between people. Suppose the population is balanced and large. Then having many children becomes a bad thing for the State, not a blessing. Where violence is rare and children are safe, there is less need for a strong family. In fact, there is no need for it at all. And so the special roles of men and women in caring for children disappear. We see some beginnings of this even in our own time, and in this future age it was complete. This, I must remind you, was my guess at the time. Later I learnt how far it fell short of the truth.

“While I was thinking about these things, I noticed a pretty little structure, like a well under a cupola. For a moment I thought how odd it was that wells still existed. Then I went back to my thoughts. There were no large buildings near the top of the hill. My walking powers were clearly miraculous, so soon I was left alone for the first time. With a strange feeling of freedom and adventure, I pushed on up to the crest.

“There I found a seat made of some yellow metal that I did not know. In places it was eaten away by a kind of pinkish rust, and it was half covered in soft moss. Its arm-rests were made in the shape of griffins’ heads. I sat down on it. I looked at the broad view of our old world in the sunset of that long day. It was as sweet and beautiful a view as I have ever seen. The sun had already gone below the horizon. The west was flaming gold, with some flat bars of purple and deep red across it. Below was the valley of the Thames, where the river lay like a band of polished steel. I have already spoken of the great palaces among the many shades of green. Some were in ruins and some were still lived in. Here and there a white or silver figure rose in the wild garden of the earth. Here and there was the sharp upright line of a cupola or an obelisk. There were no hedges and no signs that anyone owned the land. There was no sign of farming. The whole earth had become a garden.

“As I watched, I began to explain to myself the things I had seen. My explanation, as it formed in my mind that evening, was something like this. (Later I found that I had got only half the truth—or had seen only one side of the truth.)

“It seemed to me that I had found humanity in decline. The red sunset made me think of the sunset of mankind. For the first time I began to realise a strange result of the social effort that we are making today. And yet, when you think about it, it is a logical enough result. Strength comes from need. Security gives an advantage to weakness. People had worked to improve the conditions of life. That is the true process of civilisation, which makes life more and more secure. This work had gone on steadily until it reached its peak. One victory of a united humanity over Nature had followed another. Things that are only dreams today had become real plans. People had started them on purpose and carried them out. And the harvest was what I saw!

“After all, sanitation and farming today are still at a very early stage. The science of our time has attacked only a small part of human disease. But even so, it spreads its work very steadily and patiently. Our farming and gardening destroy a weed just here and there. They grow perhaps twenty or so healthy plants. They leave most of the others to fight it out among themselves. We improve our favourite plants and animals slowly, by selective breeding—and how few they are! Now it is a new and better peach, now a grape without seeds. Now it is a sweeter and larger flower, now a more useful breed of cattle. We improve them slowly, because our ideals are unclear and uncertain. Our knowledge is also very limited. And Nature, too, is shy and slow in our clumsy hands. Some day all this will be better organised, and then still better. That is the general direction things are moving in, in spite of small movements the other way. The whole world will be intelligent, educated and working together. Things will move faster and faster towards the conquest of Nature. In the end, wisely and carefully, we shall readjust the balance of animal and plant life to suit our human needs.

“This adjustment, I say, must have been done, and done well. It had been done for all Time, in the space of Time across which my machine had jumped. The air was free from gnats, and the earth was free from weeds and fungi. Everywhere there were fruits and sweet, delightful flowers. Brilliant butterflies flew here and there. The ideal of preventive medicine had been reached. Diseases had been wiped out. In all my stay I saw no sign of any infectious disease. And I shall have to tell you later about rotting and decay. Even these processes had been deeply affected by these changes.

“There had been social victories, too. I saw mankind living in splendid shelters and wearing wonderful clothes. So far I had not seen them doing any hard work. There were no signs of struggle, neither social nor economic. The shop, the advertisement, traffic—all the trade which makes up the body of our world—was gone. On that golden evening it was natural for me to jump at the idea of a social paradise. I guessed that the problem of a growing population had been solved. The population had stopped growing.

“But when conditions change like this, living things must always adapt to the change. Biological science may be a mass of errors. If it is not, what is the cause of human intelligence and energy? Hardship and freedom. Under these conditions the active, the strong and the clever survive. The weaker ones are pushed aside and lose. These conditions reward loyal partnership between able men. They also reward self-control, patience and the power to decide. And then there is the family, with the feelings that grow inside it. There is fierce jealousy, tenderness for children and the devotion of parents. All these were justified and supported by the dangers that always threatened the young. *Now*, where are these dangers? A feeling is growing, and it will grow stronger. It is a feeling against jealousy between husband and wife, against fierce motherhood, and against passion of all kinds. People see these as unnecessary things now, and they make us uncomfortable. They are savage things left over from the past. They spoil a refined and pleasant life.

“I thought of how slight the people were and of their lack of intelligence. I thought of those big ruins everywhere. All this strengthened my belief in a perfect conquest of Nature. For after the battle comes Quiet. Humanity had been strong, energetic and intelligent. It had used all its great energy to change the conditions in which it lived. And now came the reaction to the changed conditions.

“In the new conditions of perfect comfort and security, that restless energy would become weakness. With us, it is strength. Even in our own time, some tendencies and desires that were once necessary for survival constantly cause failure. Physical courage and the love of battle, for example, are no great help to a civilised man. They may even get in his way. And in a state of physical balance and security, power would be out of place. This is true of power of the mind as well as of the body. For countless years, I judged, there had been no danger of war or of single acts of violence. There had been no danger from wild beasts. There had been no wasting disease that needed a strong body, and no need for hard work. In such a life, the people we would call weak are as well equipped as the strong. In fact, they are no longer weak. They are even better equipped, because the strong would be troubled by an energy that had no outlet. No doubt the great beauty of the buildings I saw came from the last bursts of mankind’s energy. That energy now had no purpose. It had one last burst before it settled down into perfect harmony with the conditions of life. The buildings were the grand final gesture of that victory which began the last great peace. This has always been the fate of energy in security. It turns to art and to sensual pleasure, and then come weakness and decay.

“Even this artistic drive would die away in the end. In the Time I saw, it had almost died already. They decorated themselves with flowers, and they danced and sang in the sunlight. That much was left of the artistic spirit, and no more. Even that would fade in the end into a contented doing of nothing. We are kept sharp on the grindstone of pain and necessity. And it seemed to me that here that hateful grindstone was broken at last!

“I stood there in the gathering dark. I thought that with this simple explanation I had solved the problem of the world. I had mastered the whole secret of these delightful people. Perhaps the methods they had invented to stop the population from growing had worked too well. So their numbers had gone down instead of staying the same. That would explain the empty ruins. My explanation was very simple, and it seemed likely enough—as most wrong theories do!

### Glossary

- **pagodas**: tall towers in China and Japan, with many roofs one above the other
- **nettles**: wild plants with leaves that sting your skin when you touch them
- **Communism**: here, a society where everything is shared and nobody owns private property
- **griffins**: animals in old stories with the head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion
- **obelisk**: a tall, thin stone column with four sides and a pointed top
- **sanitation**: systems that keep places clean and healthy, such as clean water and drains
- **selective breeding**: choosing the best plants or animals to produce young ones, to make them better
- **gnats**: very small flying insects that bite
- **preventive medicine**: medicine that stops people from getting ill in the first place
- **grindstone**: a round stone that turns and is used to make knives and tools sharp

## VII. A Sudden Shock

“I stood there, thinking about this too perfect victory of man. Then the full moon came up in the north-east, out of a flood of silver light. It was yellow and gibbous. The bright little figures below stopped moving about. An owl flew silently past, and I shivered in the cold of the night. I decided to go down and find a place to sleep.

“I looked for the building I knew. Then my eye moved along to the figure of the White Sphinx on its bronze pedestal. It was growing clearer as the light of the rising moon grew brighter. I could see the silver birch against it. There was the tangle of rhododendron bushes, black in the pale light, and there was the little lawn. I looked at the lawn again. A strange doubt suddenly chilled my calm, comfortable mood. ‘No,’ I said firmly to myself, ‘that was not the lawn.’

“But it *was* the lawn. For the white leprous face of the sphinx was turned towards it. Can you imagine what I felt when I became sure of this? No, you cannot. The Time Machine was gone!

“At once the possibility hit me like a whip across the face. I might lose my own age. I might be left helpless in this strange new world. Just the thought of it was a real physical feeling. I could feel it grip me by the throat and stop my breathing. In another moment I was wild with fear. I was running down the slope with great, leaping steps. Once I fell headlong and cut my face. I did not waste time stopping the blood. I jumped up and ran on, with warm blood trickling down my cheek and chin. All the time I ran, I was saying to myself: ‘They have moved it a little. They have pushed it under the bushes, out of the way.’ But still I ran with all my strength. Sometimes very great fear brings a kind of certainty. With that certainty, I knew all the time that my comforting words were foolish. I knew by instinct that the machine had been taken out of my reach. My breathing hurt. I suppose I covered the whole distance from the hill crest to the little lawn, perhaps two miles, in ten minutes. And I am not a young man. As I ran, I cursed aloud at my foolish confidence in leaving the machine. I wasted good breath doing it. I cried out, and no one answered. Not a creature seemed to be moving in that moonlit world.

“When I reached the lawn, my worst fears came true. There was no trace of the machine. I felt faint and cold as I looked at the empty space among the black tangle of bushes. I ran round it furiously, as if the machine might be hidden in a corner. Then I stopped suddenly, with my hands clutching my hair. Above me the sphinx towered on its bronze pedestal, white, shining and leprous in the light of the rising moon. It seemed to smile at my despair, mocking me.

“I might have comforted myself with an idea. Perhaps the little people had put the machine in some shelter for me. But I felt sure that they were too weak in body and mind for that. That is what frightened me. I felt there was some power that I had not suspected until now. This power had made my invention disappear. Yet I felt sure of one thing. The machine could not have moved in time, unless some other age had made an exact copy of it. The levers are fixed in a special way—I will show you the method later. When they are removed, no one can interfere with the machine in that way. It had moved, and was hidden, only in space. But then, where could it be?

“I think I must have gone a little mad. I remember running wildly in and out among the moonlit bushes all round the sphinx. I startled some white animal there. In the dim light I took it for a small deer. I also remember that, late that night, I beat the bushes with my fist. I did it until the broken twigs had cut my knuckles and they were bleeding. Then, sobbing and raving in my pain of mind, I went down to the great building of stone. The big hall was dark, silent and empty. I slipped on the uneven floor and fell over one of the malachite tables. I almost broke my shin. I lit a match and went on past the dusty curtains that I have told you about.

“There I found a second great hall covered with cushions. Perhaps twenty or so of the little people were sleeping on them. I have no doubt they found my second appearance strange enough. I came suddenly out of the quiet darkness, making wild noises without words. I was holding a match, which spluttered and flared. For they had forgotten about matches. ‘Where is my Time Machine?’ I began. I was shouting like an angry child. I took hold of them and shook them together. It must have seemed very strange to them. Some laughed, but most of them looked badly frightened. As they stood round me, it came into my head that I was being very foolish. In that situation, it was the most foolish thing I could possibly do. I was trying to wake the feeling of fear in them again. For, judging by their behaviour in the daytime, I thought they must have forgotten fear.

“Suddenly I threw down the match. I knocked one of the people over as I went. Then I stumbled across the big dining-hall again and out into the moonlight. I heard cries of terror. I heard their little feet running and stumbling this way and that. I do not remember everything I did as the moon climbed up the sky. I suppose it was the unexpected nature of my loss that drove me mad. I felt hopelessly cut off from my own kind—a strange animal in an unknown world. I must have run wildly up and down, screaming and calling on God and Fate. I remember a horrible tiredness as the long night of despair went slowly by. I remember looking in this impossible place and that. I remember feeling my way among moonlit ruins and touching strange creatures in the black shadows. At last I remember lying on the ground near the sphinx and weeping. I was completely miserable. Even my anger at my foolishness in leaving the machine had drained away with my strength. I had nothing left but misery. Then I slept. When I woke again it was full day. A couple of sparrows were hopping round me on the grass, within reach of my arm.

“I sat up in the freshness of the morning. I tried to remember how I had got there. Why did I have such a deep feeling of being abandoned, and of despair? Then things became clear in my mind. In the plain, reasonable daylight I could look at my situation honestly. I saw how wild and foolish my madness of the night had been, and I could reason with myself. ‘Suppose the worst?’ I said. ‘Suppose the machine is completely lost—perhaps destroyed? Then I must be calm and patient. I must learn the ways of the people. I must get a clear idea of how I lost it. I must find out how to get materials and tools. Then in the end, perhaps, I may make another.’ That would be my only hope. It was a poor hope, perhaps, but better than despair. And, after all, it was a beautiful and curious world.

“But probably the machine had only been taken away. Still, I must be calm and patient. I must find its hiding-place and get it back by force or by cleverness. And with that I got to my feet and looked about me. I wondered where I could bathe. I felt tired, stiff and dirty from my journey. The freshness of the morning made me want to feel fresh too. My emotion was used up. In fact, as I went about my business, I was surprised at how excited I had been the night before. I made a careful examination of the ground around the little lawn. I wasted some time asking useless questions of the little people who came by. I asked them with gestures, as well as I could. None of them understood my gestures. Some simply stared without any feeling. Some thought it was a joke and laughed at me. It was the hardest thing in the world to keep my hands off their pretty laughing faces. It was a foolish impulse. But the devil that is born of fear and blind anger was still not under control. It was still eager to take advantage of my confusion. The grass gave me better advice. I found a groove torn in it. It was about halfway between the pedestal of the sphinx and the marks of my feet. Those were the marks I had made when I arrived and struggled with the overturned machine. There were other signs around that something had been moved. There were strange narrow footprints too, like the ones I imagined a sloth might make. This made me look more closely at the pedestal. It was made of bronze, as I think I have said. It was not just a plain block. It was richly decorated, with deep panels in frames on each side. I went and knocked on these. The pedestal was hollow. I examined the panels carefully and found that they were separate from the frames. There were no handles or keyholes. But perhaps the panels were doors, as I supposed, and they opened from the inside. One thing was clear enough to me. It did not take much thought to work out that my Time Machine was inside that pedestal. But how it got there was a different problem.

“I saw the heads of two people in orange clothes coming towards me. They came through the bushes and under some apple-trees covered in blossom. I turned to them with a smile and waved them over to me. They came. Then I pointed to the bronze pedestal and tried to show them that I wanted to open it. But at my first gesture towards it, they behaved very strangely. I don’t know how to describe their expression to you. Imagine that you made a very rude and improper gesture to a delicate, sensitive woman. That is how she would look. They went off as if they had received the worst possible insult. Next I tried a sweet-looking little chap in white, with exactly the same result. Somehow his manner made me feel ashamed of myself. But, as you know, I wanted the Time Machine, so I tried him once more. He turned away, like the others, and I lost my temper. In three long steps I was after him. I took hold of the loose part of his robe round his neck. Then I began to drag him towards the sphinx. But I saw the horror and disgust in his face, and suddenly I let him go.

“But I was not beaten yet. I banged on the bronze panels with my fist. I thought I heard something move inside. To be exact, I thought I heard a sound like a chuckle. But I must have been mistaken. Then I fetched a big pebble from the river. I came back and hammered with it until I had flattened a coil in the decorations. The verdigris came off in powdery flakes. I hammered in sudden bursts. The delicate little people must have heard me a mile away on either side. But nothing came of it. I saw a crowd of them on the slopes, looking at me secretly. At last, hot and tired, I sat down to watch the place. But I was too restless to watch for long. I am too Occidental for a long, patient watch. I could work at a problem for years. But to wait and do nothing for twenty-four hours—that is another matter.

“After a time I got up and began walking aimlessly through the bushes towards the hill again. ‘Patience,’ I said to myself. ‘If you want your machine again, you must leave that sphinx alone. If they mean to take your machine away, it is no good damaging their bronze panels. And if they don’t, you will get it back as soon as you can ask for it. It is hopeless to sit among all those unknown things in front of a puzzle like that. That road leads to monomania. Face this world. Learn its ways and watch it. Be careful not to guess its meaning too quickly. In the end you will find clues to it all.’ Then suddenly I saw the funny side of the situation. I thought of the years I had spent in study and hard work to get into the future age. And now I was desperately anxious to get out of it. I had made for myself the most complicated and most hopeless trap that any man ever invented. The joke was on me, but I could not help myself. I laughed aloud.

“As I went through the big palace, it seemed to me that the little people were avoiding me. It may have been my imagination. Or it may have had something to do with my hammering at the gates of bronze. Yet I felt fairly sure that they were avoiding me. But I was careful to show no worry, and I did not run after them. In a day or two things were back to normal. I made what progress I could in the language. I also pushed my explorations here and there. Perhaps I missed some fine point. Or perhaps their language was extremely simple. It was made almost only of nouns for real, solid things, and verbs. There seemed to be few abstract words, if any, and they rarely used figurative language. Their sentences were usually simple and of two words. I could not express or understand anything but the simplest statements. I decided to put the thought of my Time Machine into a corner of my memory, as far as possible. The mystery of the bronze doors under the sphinx went there too. I would wait until my growing knowledge led me back to them in a natural way. Yet a certain feeling, as you may understand, kept me tied to a circle of a few miles round the place where I had arrived.

### Glossary

- **gibbous**: (of the moon) more than half full but not completely round
- **leprous**: looking white, spotted and diseased, like the skin of a person with leprosy
- **malachite**: a green stone with a beautiful pattern, used for tables and decorations
- **shin**: the front part of your leg below the knee
- **chuckle**: a quiet, low laugh
- **sloth**: a slow animal that lives in trees and has long claws
- **verdigris**: the green layer that forms on old bronze or copper
- **Occidental**: Western; from Europe or America
- **monomania**: a kind of madness where a person thinks about only one thing
- **abstract**: about ideas and feelings, not about things you can see or touch

## VIII. Explanation

“As far as I could see, the whole world showed the same rich growth as the Thames valley. From every hill I climbed, I saw the same great number of splendid buildings. They were endlessly different in material and style. I saw the same thick groups of evergreen bushes, the same trees heavy with blossom, and the same tree ferns. Here and there water shone like silver. Beyond it the land rose into soft blue hills, which faded into the calm of the sky. Soon a special feature caught my attention. There were certain round wells, and several of them seemed very deep to me. One lay by the path up the hill that I had followed on my first walk. Like the others, it had a rim of bronze, strangely worked, and a little cupola protected it from the rain. I sat by the side of these wells and looked down into the dark shafts. I could see no gleam of water. Even a lighted match gave no reflection. But in all of them I heard a certain sound: a thud—thud—thud, like the beating of some big engine. From the way my matches flared, I discovered that a steady current of air went down the shafts. I also threw a scrap of paper into the opening of one. It did not flutter slowly down. Instead, it was at once sucked quickly out of sight.

“After a time I also connected these wells with tall towers that stood here and there on the slopes. Above them there was often a flicker in the air. It was just like the flicker you see on a hot day above a beach burnt by the sun. I put these things together. They strongly suggested a large system of underground ventilation. But it was difficult to imagine its true purpose. At first I wanted to connect it with the drains and sanitation of these people. That was an obvious conclusion, but it was completely wrong.

“And here I must admit something. During my time in this real future, I learnt very little about drains and bells, ways of transport and similar conveniences. I have read some of those books about Utopias and future times. In them there is a great deal of detail about buildings, social arrangements and so on. Such details are easy enough to get when the whole world exists only in your imagination. But a real traveller among the real things I found there cannot get them at all. Imagine the tale of London that a negro, fresh from Central Africa, would take back to his tribe! What would he know of railway companies and social movements? What would he know of telephone and telegraph wires, of the Parcels Delivery Company, of postal orders and the like? And yet we, at least, would be quite willing to explain these things to him! Even of the things he did know, how much could he make his friend at home understand or believe? Then think how narrow the gap is between a negro and a white man of our own times. And think how wide the gap was between me and these people of the Golden Age! I sensed many things that I could not see, and they added to my comfort. But apart from a general impression of automatic organisation, I am afraid I can tell you very little about the difference.

“Take the matter of burial, for example. I could see no signs of crematoria, and nothing that looked like tombs. But it came to my mind that there might be cemeteries (or crematoria) somewhere beyond the area I had explored. This, again, was a question I asked myself on purpose. At first my curiosity found no answer at all on this point. The thing puzzled me. And it led me to notice something else, which puzzled me even more. There were no old or weak people among them at all.

“I must confess that I did not stay happy with my first theories for long. I had believed in an automatic civilisation and a humanity in decay. Yet I could think of no other theory. Let me explain my difficulties. The several big palaces I had explored were only places to live. They had great dining-halls and sleeping rooms. I could find no machinery and no tools of any kind. Yet these people wore pleasant cloth that must need replacing from time to time. And their sandals had no decoration, but they were fairly complex pieces of metalwork. Somehow such things must be made. But the little people showed no sign at all of a wish to create things. There were no shops and no workshops, and no sign of goods brought in from elsewhere. They spent all their time playing gently, bathing in the river and flirting in a half-playful way. They ate fruit and they slept. I could not see how things were kept going.

“Then there was the Time Machine. Something, I did not know what, had taken it into the hollow pedestal of the White Sphinx. *Why?* I could not imagine it, however hard I tried. There were also those wells without water, and those flickering pillars. I felt I was missing a clue. I felt—how shall I put it? Suppose you found an inscription. Here and there it had sentences in excellent plain English. But between them were other sentences, made of words and even letters that were completely unknown to you. Well, on the third day of my visit, that was how the world of 802,701 looked to me!

“That day I also made a friend—of a sort. I was watching some of the little people bathing in a shallow part of the river. Then one of them got cramp and began to drift downstream. The main current was rather fast, but not too strong for even an average swimmer. So you will understand how strangely these creatures were lacking in something. None of them made the smallest attempt to save the weakly crying little thing. She was drowning before their eyes. When I realised this, I quickly took off my clothes. I waded into the water at a point lower down, caught the poor little mite, and pulled her safely to land. I rubbed her arms and legs a little, and she soon recovered. I was glad to see she was all right before I left her. By then I had such a low opinion of her kind that I expected no thanks from her. In that, however, I was wrong.

“This happened in the morning. In the afternoon I was returning to my centre after a walk of exploration. Then I met my little woman, as I believe it was. She welcomed me with cries of delight and gave me a big garland of flowers. It was clearly made for me and me alone. The thing touched my imagination. Very possibly I had been feeling lonely. At any rate I did my best to show how much I liked the gift. Soon we were sitting together in a little stone arbour, having a conversation made mostly of smiles. The creature's friendliness affected me exactly as a child's would have done. We passed flowers to each other, and she kissed my hands. I did the same to hers. Then I tried to talk, and I found that her name was Weena. I don't know what it meant, but somehow it seemed right for her. That was the beginning of a strange friendship. It lasted a week, and it ended—as I will tell you!

“She was exactly like a child. She wanted to be with me always. She tried to follow me everywhere. On my next trip out and about, it hurt my heart to tire her out. At last I had to leave her, exhausted and calling after me rather sadly. But I had to solve the problems of this world. I had not come into the future, I told myself, to carry on a little flirtation. Yet she was very unhappy when I left her. Sometimes she protested wildly when we parted. Altogether, I think her devotion gave me as much trouble as comfort. And yet she was, somehow, a very great comfort. I thought it was only childish affection that made her cling to me. Until it was too late, I did not clearly know how much I hurt her when I left her. And until it was too late, I did not clearly understand what she was to me. She only seemed fond of me, and she showed in her weak, useless way that she cared for me. But that was enough. Soon, because of this little doll of a creature, my return to the White Sphinx felt almost like coming home. As soon as I came over the hill, I would watch for her tiny figure of white and gold.

“It was also from her that I learnt that fear had not yet left the world. She was fearless enough in the daylight, and she trusted me in the oddest way. Once, in a foolish moment, I made threatening faces at her, and she simply laughed at them. But she dreaded the dark, she dreaded shadows, and she dreaded black things. To her, darkness was the one thing to be afraid of. It was an unusually strong feeling, and it made me think and watch. Among other things, I then discovered that these little people gathered in the great houses after dark. They slept there in big crowds. If you came in among them without a light, they fell into a wild panic. After dark I never found one of them outdoors, or one sleeping alone indoors. Yet I was still such a blockhead that I missed the lesson of that fear. Weena was upset, but I still insisted on sleeping away from these sleeping crowds.

“It troubled her greatly. But in the end her odd affection for me won. On five of our nights together, including the very last night of all, she slept with her head on my arm. But my story slips away from me when I speak of her. It must have been the night before her rescue that I woke up about dawn. I had been restless. I had a very unpleasant dream that I was drowned. Sea anemones were feeling over my face with their soft palps. I woke with a start. I had a strange feeling that some greyish animal had just rushed out of the room. I tried to sleep again, but I felt restless and uncomfortable. It was that dim grey hour when things are just creeping out of the darkness. Everything is colourless and sharp, and yet unreal. I got up and went down into the great hall, and then out onto the flagstones in front of the palace. I thought I would make the best of it and watch the sunrise.

“The moon was setting. The dying moonlight and the first pale light of dawn were mixed in a ghastly half-light. The bushes were inky black, the ground a dark grey, and the sky colourless and cheerless. And up the hill I thought I could see ghosts. Three separate times, as I searched the slope with my eyes, I saw white figures. Twice I thought I saw a single white, ape-like creature running rather fast up the hill. And once, near the ruins, I saw three of them together carrying some dark body. They moved quickly. I did not see what became of them. They seemed to vanish among the bushes. The dawn was still unclear, you must understand. I had that cold, uncertain, early-morning feeling that you may know. I doubted my eyes.

“The eastern sky grew brighter, and the daylight came. Its bright colours returned to the world once more. Then I searched the view carefully. But I saw no trace of my white figures. They were only creatures of the half-light. ‘They must have been ghosts,’ I said. ‘I wonder what age they came from.’ A strange idea of Grant Allen's had come into my head, and it amused me. He argued that if each generation dies and leaves ghosts, the world will finally get overcrowded with them. By that theory there would be countless ghosts 800,000 years from now. So it was no great wonder to see four at once. But the joke did not satisfy me. I was thinking about these figures all morning, until Weena's rescue drove them out of my head. In some unclear way I connected them with the white animal. I had startled it during my first wild search for the Time Machine. But Weena was a pleasant change from them. All the same, they would soon take hold of my mind in a far more deadly way.

“I think I have told you how much hotter the weather of this Golden Age was than ours. I cannot explain it. Perhaps the sun was hotter, or the earth was nearer to the sun. People usually believe that the sun will go on cooling steadily in the future. But some people do not know the ideas of men like the younger Darwin. They forget that the planets must in the end fall back, one by one, into the sun they came from. Each time this disaster happens, the sun will blaze with new energy. Perhaps some inner planet had met this fate. Whatever the reason, the fact remains: the sun was much hotter than the sun we know.

“Well, one very hot morning—my fourth, I think—this strange thing happened. I was looking for shelter from the heat and the glare. I found it in a huge ruin near the great house where I slept and ate. As I climbed among the heaps of stone, I found a narrow gallery. Fallen masses of stone blocked its end and side windows. After the brightness outside, it seemed completely dark to me at first. I felt my way in with my hands. The change from light to blackness made spots of colour swim before my eyes. Suddenly I stopped, unable to move. A pair of eyes was watching me out of the darkness. They shone because they reflected the daylight from outside.

“The old natural fear of wild beasts came over me. I made fists with my hands and stared hard into the glaring eyeballs. I was afraid to turn round. Then I thought of the complete safety that humanity seemed to live in. And then I remembered that strange terror of the dark. I partly overcame my fear. I stepped forward and spoke. I will admit that my voice was harsh and badly controlled. I put out my hand and touched something soft. At once the eyes moved quickly to one side, and something white ran past me. I turned round with my heart in my mouth. I saw a strange little ape-like figure running across the sunny space behind me. It held its head down in a peculiar way. It ran into a block of granite and staggered to one side. In a moment it was hidden in a black shadow under another pile of fallen stone.

“My impression of it is, of course, not complete. But I know it was a dull white, and it had strange large greyish-red eyes. There was also flaxen hair on its head and down its back. But, as I say, it moved too fast for me to see it clearly. I cannot even say whether it ran on all fours, or only held its forearms very low. After a moment I followed it into the second heap of ruins. At first I could not find it. But after a time, in the deep darkness, I came to one of those round openings that looked like wells. I have told you about them. A fallen pillar half covered it. A sudden thought came to me. Could this Thing have vanished down the shaft? I lit a match and looked down. I saw a small, white, moving creature with large bright eyes. It watched me steadily as it moved down and away from me. It made me shudder. It was so like a human spider! It was climbing down the wall. Now for the first time I saw a number of metal foot and hand rests. They formed a kind of ladder down the shaft. Then the match burnt my fingers and fell out of my hand. It went out as it dropped. When I had lit another, the little monster had disappeared.

“I do not know how long I sat looking down that well. For some time I could not persuade myself that the thing I had seen was human. But slowly the truth came to me. Man had not remained one species. He had divided into two different animals. My graceful children of the Upper World were not the only descendants of our generation. This bleached, obscene Thing of the night, which had flashed before me, was also heir to all the ages.

“I thought of the flickering pillars and of my theory of underground ventilation. I began to suspect their true purpose. And what, I wondered, was this Lemur doing in my picture of a perfectly balanced society? How was it connected with the lazy calm of the beautiful Overworlders? And what was hidden down there, at the bottom of that shaft? I sat on the edge of the well. I told myself that, at any rate, there was nothing to fear. I told myself that I must go down there to solve my problems. And yet I was absolutely afraid to go! As I hesitated, two of the beautiful upperworld people came running past in their romantic play. They crossed from the daylight into the shadow. The male was chasing the female and throwing flowers at her as he ran.

“They seemed upset to find me there, with my arm against the fallen pillar, looking down the well. It seemed that it was bad manners to notice these openings. I pointed to this one and tried to ask a question about it in their language. Then they were even more clearly upset, and they turned away. But my matches interested them, and I struck some to amuse them. I asked them again about the well, and again I failed. So soon I left them. I meant to go back to Weena and see what I could learn from her. But my mind was already in revolution. My guesses and impressions were slipping and sliding into a new order. Now I had a clue to the meaning of the wells, the ventilating towers and the mystery of the ghosts. I even had a hint about the meaning of the bronze doors and the fate of the Time Machine! And very vaguely an idea came to me about the economic problem that had puzzled me.

“Here was the new view. Clearly, this second species of Man lived under the ground. Three facts in particular made me think this. They suggested that it rarely came above ground because of a long habit of living underground. First, there was the bleached look. It is common in most animals that live mainly in the dark, for example the white fish of the Kentucky caves. Then there were those large eyes that reflected light. These are common in creatures of the night—think of the owl and the cat. And last of all there was its clear confusion in the sunshine. It ran away towards dark shadow in a hasty but clumsy way. And it held its head in that peculiar way in the light. All this supported the theory that its retina was extremely sensitive.

“Beneath my feet, then, the earth must be full of huge tunnels. These tunnels were the home of the New Race. There were ventilating shafts and wells along the hill slopes—in fact everywhere except along the river valley. This showed how far the tunnels spread. So what was more natural than this idea? The work needed for the comfort of the daylight race was done in this artificial Underworld. The idea was so believable that I accepted it at once. Then I went on to think about *how* the human species had split. I dare say you can already guess the shape of my theory. But I myself very soon felt that it fell far short of the truth.

“At first I started from the problems of our own age. Then it seemed as clear as daylight to me what the key to the whole situation was. Today there is a difference between the Capitalist and the Labourer. It is only a social difference, and only for a time. The key was that this difference had slowly grown wider and wider. No doubt this will seem very strange to you—and wildly unbelievable! And yet even now there are things that point that way. People tend to use underground space for the less beautiful purposes of civilisation. There is the Metropolitan Railway in London, for example. There are new electric railways, subways, and underground workrooms and restaurants, and their number is growing. Clearly, I thought, this tendency had grown until Industry had slowly lost its birthright in the sky. I mean that it had gone deeper and deeper into larger and larger underground factories. It had spent more and more of its time there, until in the end—! Even now, an East-end worker lives in very artificial conditions. Is he not almost cut off from the natural surface of the earth?

“Again, the rich already tend to keep themselves apart. No doubt this comes from their more and more refined education. It also comes from the growing gap between them and the rough violence of the poor. It is already leading them to close off large parts of the land for their own use. Around London, for example, perhaps half of the prettier country is shut off against strangers. And this growing gap has other causes too. Higher education takes a long time and costs a lot of money. The rich also have more chances and more temptations to live refined lives. So there will be less and less exchange between class and class. Today a poor person can still rise by marrying into a higher class. This slows down the splitting of our species into social layers. But such marriages will happen less and less often. So in the end, above ground you must have the Haves. They pursue pleasure and comfort and beauty. And below ground you must have the Have-nots, the Workers. They keep becoming more adapted to the conditions of their work. Once they were down there, they would no doubt have to pay rent for the ventilation of their caverns. And it would not be a small rent. If they refused to pay, they would starve, or they would suffocate because they owed money. Those who were naturally unhappy and rebellious would die. In the end the balance would become permanent. The survivors would become as well adapted to life underground as the Overworld people were to theirs. And they would be as happy in their own way. It seemed to me that the refined beauty and the pale, colourless look followed quite naturally from this.

“The great triumph of Humanity that I had dreamt of took a different shape in my mind. It had not been the triumph of moral education and general co-operation that I had imagined. Instead, I saw a real aristocracy. It was armed with a perfected science, and it carried the industrial system of today to its logical end. Its triumph had not only been a triumph over Nature. It had been a triumph over Nature and over the fellow-man. This, I must warn you, was my theory at the time. I had no handy cicerone like the ones in the Utopian books. My explanation may be completely wrong. I still think it is the most believable one. But even if it is true, this balanced civilisation must have passed its highest point long ago. It had now fallen far into decay. The too-perfect security of the Overworlders had led them slowly downwards. They had become smaller, weaker and less intelligent. That I could see clearly enough already. I did not yet suspect what had happened to the Undergrounders. But I had seen the Morlocks—that, by the way, was the name of these creatures. From what I had seen, I could imagine that the human type had changed in them even more deeply. The change was far greater than among the ‘Eloi’, the beautiful race that I already knew.

“Then troubling doubts came. Why had the Morlocks taken my Time Machine? For I felt sure that they were the ones who had taken it. And if the Eloi were the masters, why could they not give the machine back to me? And why were they so terribly afraid of the dark? As I have said, I began to question Weena about this Underworld. But here again I was disappointed. At first she would not understand my questions. Then she refused to answer them. She shivered, as if she could not bear the subject. And when I pressed her, perhaps a little harshly, she burst into tears. They were the only tears, except my own, that I ever saw in that Golden Age. When I saw them, I stopped worrying about the Morlocks at once. I only wanted to drive these signs of her human inheritance from Weena's eyes. And very soon she was smiling and clapping her hands, while I solemnly burnt a match.

### Glossary

- **crematoria**: buildings where the bodies of dead people are burnt
- **inscription**: words cut or written on stone or metal
- **mite**: a small child or small creature that you feel sorry for
- **arbour**: a small, shady shelter in a garden
- **blockhead**: a very stupid person
- **sea anemones**: soft sea animals that hold on to rocks and have many short arms
- **flaxen**: pale yellow, like the colour of dry straw
- **with my heart in my mouth**: feeling very frightened and nervous
- **retina**: the part at the back of the eye that is sensitive to light
- **birthright**: something that belongs to you from the time you are born
- **cicerone**: a guide who explains things to visitors
- **inheritance**: something you get from the people who lived before you

## IX. The Morlocks

“It may seem strange to you, but two days passed before I followed up my new clue. I mean in the way that was clearly the right one. I felt a peculiar wish to shrink away from those pale bodies. They were just the half-bleached colour of the worms and things that you see kept in spirit in a zoological museum. And they were horribly cold to the touch. Probably this feeling came mostly from the Eloi. I was now beginning to understand their disgust for the Morlocks, and it affected me too.

“The next night I did not sleep well. Probably my health was a little upset. I felt heavy with confusion and doubt. Once or twice I had a feeling of intense fear, and I could see no clear reason for it. I remember creeping silently into the great hall where the little people were sleeping in the moonlight. That night Weena was among them. Being near them made me feel safer. Even then it came to my mind that in a few days the moon must pass through its last quarter. Then the nights would grow dark, and these unpleasant creatures from below might appear more often. I mean these whitened Lemurs, this new vermin that had replaced the old. On both these days I had the restless feeling of a man who is avoiding a duty that he cannot escape. I felt sure that I could only get back the Time Machine in one way. I had to go boldly down into these underground mysteries. Yet I could not face the mystery. If only I had had a companion, it would have been different. But I was so horribly alone. Even the thought of climbing down into the darkness of the well filled me with horror. I don't know if you will understand my feeling, but I never felt quite safe at my back.

“It was perhaps this restlessness and this feeling of danger that drove me farther and farther on my exploring trips. I went south-west towards the rising country that is now called Combe Wood. Far off, in the direction of nineteenth-century Banstead, I saw a vast green building. It was different in character from any I had seen before. It was larger than the largest of the palaces or ruins I knew. Its front had an Oriental look. It had the shine and the pale green colour of a certain type of Chinese porcelain, a kind of bluish-green. This difference in its look suggested a difference in its use, and I wanted to push on and explore it. But the day was growing late. I had come upon the place after a long and tiring round. So I decided to leave the adventure for the next day, and I returned to the welcome and the caresses of little Weena. But next morning I saw clearly enough what my curiosity about the Palace of Green Porcelain really was. It was a way of fooling myself. It let me avoid for one more day an experience that I dreaded. I decided to make the descent without wasting any more time. Early in the morning I started out towards a well near the ruins of granite and aluminium.

“Little Weena ran with me. She danced beside me to the well. But when she saw me lean over the opening and look down, she seemed strangely upset. ‘Good-bye, little Weena,’ I said, and I kissed her. Then I put her down and began to feel over the parapet for the climbing hooks. I did it rather quickly, I must confess, because I was afraid my courage might leak away! At first she watched me in amazement. Then she gave a most pitiful cry. She ran to me and began to pull at me with her little hands. I think her opposition rather gave me the nerve to go on. I shook her off, perhaps a little roughly. In another moment I was in the throat of the well. I saw her face over the parapet, full of agony, and I smiled to reassure her. Then I had to look down at the unsteady hooks that I was holding on to.

“I had to climb down a shaft of perhaps two hundred yards. I went down by means of metal bars that stuck out from the sides of the well. These bars were made for a creature much smaller and lighter than me. So I soon became cramped and tired by the climb. And not only tired! One of the bars suddenly bent under my weight and almost swung me off into the blackness below. For a moment I hung by one hand. After that I did not dare to rest again. Soon my arms and back were very painful. Still, I went on climbing down the steep wall as fast as possible. I looked up and saw the opening, a small blue disc. A star was visible in it, and little Weena's head showed as a round black shape. The thudding sound of a machine below grew louder and more oppressive. Everything except that little disc above was completely dark. When I looked up again, Weena had disappeared.

“I was in great discomfort, almost agony. I had some thought of trying to go back up the shaft and leaving the Underworld alone. But even while I was thinking about it, I went on climbing down. At last, with great relief, I dimly saw a narrow opening in the wall, a foot to my right. I swung myself in. It was the entrance to a narrow horizontal tunnel, and I could lie down and rest in it. It was not too soon. My arms ached, my back was cramped, and I was trembling from the long terror of falling. Besides this, the unbroken darkness had hurt my eyes. The air was full of the throb and hum of machinery pumping air down the shaft.

“I do not know how long I lay there. A soft hand touching my face woke me. I jumped up in the darkness and grabbed my matches. I quickly struck one. I saw three bent white creatures, like the one I had seen above ground in the ruin. They were quickly moving back away from the light. They lived in what seemed to me complete darkness. So their eyes were unusually large and sensitive, just like the eyes of fishes from the deepest sea. And they reflected the light in the same way. I have no doubt that they could see me in that lightless darkness. They did not seem to be afraid of me at all, except for the light. But as soon as I struck a match to see them, they fled at once. They vanished into dark gutters and tunnels, and from there their eyes stared at me in the strangest way.

“I tried to call to them. But their language was apparently different from the language of the Overworld people. So I was left to my own efforts, with no help. Even then the thought of running away before exploring was in my mind. But I said to myself, ‘You are in for it now.’ I felt my way along the tunnel, and the noise of machinery grew louder. Soon the walls opened out around me, and I came to a large open space. I struck another match. I saw that I had entered a vast arched cavern. It stretched away into complete darkness beyond the reach of my light. I saw only as much of it as one can see while a match burns.

“Of course my memory of it is vague. Great shapes like big machines rose out of the dim light. They threw strange, ugly black shadows, and dim Morlocks, like ghosts, hid in them from the glare. The place, by the way, was very stuffy and airless. There was a faint smell of freshly spilt blood in the air. Some way down the middle of the cavern stood a little table of white metal. A meal seemed to be laid on it. The Morlocks, at any rate, were carnivorous! Even at the time, I remember, I wondered what large animal could have survived to supply the red joint I saw. It was all very unclear: the heavy smell, the big shapes without meaning, the obscene figures hiding in the shadows. They were only waiting for the darkness so that they could come at me again! Then the match burnt down. It stung my fingers and fell, a wriggling red spot in the blackness.

“Since then I have thought how badly prepared I was for such an experience. When I started with the Time Machine, I had made a foolish assumption. I had believed that the men of the Future would certainly be far ahead of us in all their tools and machines. I had come without weapons, without medicine and without anything to smoke. At times I missed tobacco terribly! I had not even brought enough matches. If only I had thought of a Kodak! I could have caught that view of the Underworld in a second and studied it later at my ease. But as it was, I stood there with only the weapons and powers that Nature had given me. These were my hands, my feet and my teeth, and four safety-matches that I still had.

“I was afraid to push my way in among all this machinery in the dark. And it was only with my last light that I discovered my matches were running low. Until that moment I had never thought that I needed to save them. I had wasted almost half the box in amazing the Overworlders, because fire was something new to them. Now, as I say, I had four left. While I stood in the dark, a hand touched mine. Long thin fingers came feeling over my face, and I noticed a peculiar unpleasant smell. I thought I heard the breathing of a crowd of those dreadful little beings around me. I felt the box of matches gently taken out of my hand. Other hands behind me were pulling at my clothes. The feeling of these unseen creatures examining me was more unpleasant than I can describe. Suddenly, in the darkness, I realised very clearly how little I knew about their ways of thinking and acting. I shouted at them as loudly as I could. They jumped away, and then I could feel them coming towards me again. They grabbed at me more boldly and whispered strange sounds to each other. I shivered violently and shouted again, in a rather harsh, broken voice. This time they were not so seriously alarmed. They made a strange laughing noise as they came back at me. I will confess that I was horribly frightened. I decided to strike another match and escape under the protection of its light. I did so. I made the flicker last longer with a scrap of paper from my pocket, and I got safely back to the narrow tunnel. But I had hardly entered it when my light was blown out. In the blackness I could hear the Morlocks hurrying after me. They rustled like wind among leaves, and they pattered like the rain.

“In a moment several hands grabbed me. There was no doubt that they were trying to pull me back. I struck another light and waved it in their dazzled faces. You can hardly imagine how sickeningly inhuman they looked! They had pale faces without chins, and great pinkish-grey eyes without lids. They stared in their blindness and confusion. But I did not stay to look, I promise you. I moved back again. When my second match had ended, I struck my third. It had almost burnt out when I reached the opening into the shaft. I lay down on the edge, because the throb of the great pump below made me giddy. Then I felt sideways for the hooks that stuck out. As I did so, my feet were grabbed from behind, and I was pulled violently backwards. I lit my last match … and it went out at once. But now I had my hand on the climbing bars. I kicked violently and freed myself from the hands of the Morlocks. Soon I was climbing quickly up the shaft. They stayed below, looking and blinking up at me. All except one little wretch, who followed me for some way. He almost got my boot as a trophy.

“That climb seemed endless to me. In the last twenty or thirty feet a deadly sickness came over me. I had the greatest difficulty in holding on. The last few yards were a terrible struggle against this faintness. Several times my head went round, and I had all the feelings of falling. At last, however, I somehow got over the mouth of the well. I staggered out of the ruin into the blinding sunlight and fell flat on my face. Even the soil smelt sweet and clean. Then I remember Weena kissing my hands and ears, and the voices of other Eloi. Then, for a time, I was unconscious.

### Glossary

- **Lemurs**: night animals with big eyes; here a name for the Morlocks
- **vermin**: small, dirty animals, like rats, that people hate
- **caresses**: soft, loving touches
- **parapet**: a low wall around the edge of something, here the top of the well
- **the throat of the well**: the narrow top part of the well, just below the opening
- **You are in for it now**: you cannot escape this now; you must go through with it
- **joint**: a large piece of meat for cooking
- **wretch**: an unpleasant or unlucky person or creature
- **trophy**: something you take to show that you have won
- **giddy**: feeling that everything is turning round and you might fall

## X. When Night Came

“Now my situation seemed even worse than before. Until then I had always felt a strong hope that I would escape in the end. Only the night when I lost the Time Machine had been different. But these new discoveries shook that hope badly. Until then I had thought that only two things stood in my way. One was the childish simplicity of the little people. The other was some unknown forces, and I only had to understand them to beat them. But now there was something completely new: the sickening nature of the Morlocks. There was something inhuman and evil about them. I hated them by instinct. Before, I had felt like a man who has fallen into a pit. I had only thought about the pit and how to get out of it. Now I felt like an animal in a trap, and I knew its enemy would come for it soon.

“The enemy I feared may surprise you. It was the darkness of the new moon. Weena had put this idea into my head. She had said some things about the Dark Nights which I did not understand at first. Now it was not so difficult to guess what the coming Dark Nights might mean. The moon was getting smaller, and each night the time of darkness was longer. And now I understood, at least a little, why the little people of the Upperworld were afraid of the dark. I wondered vaguely what terrible evil the Morlocks did under the new moon. I felt quite sure now that my second theory was completely wrong. The people of the Upperworld might once have been the favoured aristocracy, and the Morlocks their mechanical servants. But that time had passed long ago. Man had developed into two species. These two were slowly moving towards a completely new relationship, or perhaps they had already reached it. The Eloi, like the Carlovignan kings, had decayed until they were only beautiful and useless. They still owned the earth, but only because the Morlocks allowed it. This was because the Morlocks had lived underground for countless generations. In the end they could not bear the daylight on the surface. I guessed that the Morlocks made the Eloi’s clothes and looked after their daily needs. Perhaps they did this because an old habit of service had survived. They did it as a horse standing still paws the ground with its foot. Or as a man enjoys killing animals for sport. Old needs that were gone long ago had left their mark on the body. But clearly the old order was already partly reversed. The Nemesis of the delicate ones was coming quickly. Ages ago, thousands of generations ago, man had pushed his brother man out of the ease and the sunshine. And now that brother was coming back—changed! The Eloi had already begun to learn an old lesson again. They were getting to know Fear once more. And suddenly I remembered the meat I had seen in the Underworld. It was strange how it came into my mind. My thoughts had not led me to it. It came almost like a question from outside. I tried to remember its shape. I had a vague feeling of something familiar, but at the time I could not tell what it was.

“The little people were helpless before their mysterious Fear. But I was made differently. I came from our own age, this ripe, strong time of the human race. In our age Fear does not paralyse people, and mystery is no longer terrible. I, at least, would defend myself. I decided at once to make weapons and a strong, safe place where I could sleep. With that refuge as a base, I could face this strange world with some of my old confidence. I had lost it when I realised what creatures I lay open to, night after night. I felt I could never sleep again until my bed was safe from them. I shook with horror when I thought how they must already have examined me.

“During the afternoon I wandered along the valley of the Thames. But I found nothing that seemed impossible to reach. All the buildings and trees looked easy to climb for the Morlocks. Judging by their wells, they had to be very skilful climbers. Then I remembered the tall pinnacles of the Palace of Green Porcelain and the shining gleam of its walls. In the evening I lifted Weena onto my shoulder like a child. Then I went up the hills towards the south-west. I had thought the distance was seven or eight miles, but it must have been nearer eighteen. I had first seen the place on a damp afternoon, when distances seem shorter than they are. Also, the heel of one of my shoes was loose, and a nail was coming through the sole. They were comfortable old shoes that I wore indoors. So I was lame. It was already long after sunset when I came in sight of the palace. It stood black against the pale yellow sky.

“Weena had been very happy when I began to carry her. But after a while she wanted me to put her down. She ran along beside me, and now and then she darted off to one side or the other. She picked flowers and stuck them in my pockets. My pockets had always puzzled Weena. But in the end she had decided that they were a strange kind of vase for flowers. At least, that is how she used them. And that reminds me! When I was changing my jacket I found…”

*The Time Traveller stopped, put his hand into his pocket, and silently placed two withered flowers on the little table. They looked a little like very large white mallows. Then he went on with his story.*

“The quiet of evening crept over the world. We went on over the hill crest towards Wimbledon. Weena grew tired and wanted to go back to the house of grey stone. But I showed her the distant pinnacles of the Palace of Green Porcelain. I managed to make her understand that we were looking for a refuge there from her Fear. You know that great pause that comes over things before dusk? Even the breeze stops in the trees. For me there is always a feeling of waiting in that evening stillness. The sky was clear, far away and empty. There were only a few flat bars low down in the sunset. Well, that night the feeling of waiting took on the colour of my fears. In that darkening calm my senses seemed sharper than was natural. I imagined I could even feel that the ground under my feet was hollow. I could almost see through it to the Morlocks on their ant-hill. They were going here and there and waiting for the dark. In my excitement I imagined that they would see my invasion of their burrows as a declaration of war. And why had they taken my Time Machine?

“So we went on in the quiet, and the twilight deepened into night. The clear blue of the distance faded, and one star after another came out. The ground grew dim and the trees grew black. Weena became more frightened and more tired. I took her in my arms, talked to her and stroked her gently. Then, as the darkness grew deeper, she put her arms round my neck. She closed her eyes and pressed her face tightly against my shoulder. So we went down a long slope into a valley. There, in the dim light, I almost walked into a little river. I waded through it and went up the other side of the valley. I passed a number of sleeping houses and a statue—a Faun, or some figure like that, *minus* the head. There were acacias here too. So far I had seen nothing of the Morlocks. But it was still early in the night. The darker hours before the old moon rose were still to come.

“From the top of the next hill I saw a thick wood. It spread wide and black in front of me. I hesitated. I could see no end to it, either to the right or to the left. I felt tired, and my feet especially were very sore. So I stopped, carefully lifted Weena down from my shoulder and sat down on the grass. I could no longer see the Palace of Green Porcelain, and I was not sure of my direction. I looked into the thick wood and thought about what it might hide. Under that dense tangle of branches you could not see the stars. There might be another danger hiding there. I did not want to let my imagination think about it. But even without it, there would still be all the roots to trip over and the tree-trunks to bump into. I was also very tired after the excitements of the day. So I decided not to face the wood. I would spend the night on the open hill.

“I was glad to find that Weena was fast asleep. I carefully wrapped her in my jacket and sat down beside her to wait for the moon to rise. The hillside was quiet and empty. But now and then I heard living things moving in the black wood. Above me the stars shone, because the night was very clear. Their twinkling gave me a sort of friendly comfort. But all the old constellations had gone from the sky. The stars move so slowly that nobody could notice it in a hundred human lifetimes. Long ago that slow movement had arranged them in new, strange groups. But the Milky Way seemed to me the same as in the old days, a torn ribbon of star-dust. To the south, as I judged it, was a very bright red star that was new to me. It was even more splendid than our own green Sirius. And there were all these sparkling points of light. Among them one bright planet shone kindly and steadily, like the face of an old friend.

“Looking at these stars suddenly made my own troubles seem small. All the serious things of life on earth seemed small too. I thought of the stars’ huge distance from us, too great to understand. I thought of their slow drift, which nothing can stop, out of the unknown past into the unknown future. I thought of the great precessional cycle of the earth’s pole. That silent circle had turned only forty times in all the years I had travelled through. And during these few turns, everything had been swept away. All the activity, the traditions and the complex organisations were gone. So were the nations, languages, literatures and hopes, even the memory of Man as I knew him. Instead there were these frail creatures who had forgotten their high ancestors. And there were the white Things that I was so afraid of. Then I thought of the Great Fear between the two species. And for the first time, with a sudden shiver, I understood clearly what the meat I had seen might be. But it was too horrible! I looked at little Weena sleeping beside me. Her face was white and like a star under the stars. At once I pushed the thought away.

“Through that long night I kept my mind off the Morlocks as well as I could. I passed the time by trying to find signs of the old constellations in the new confusion. The sky stayed very clear, except for a misty cloud or two. No doubt I slept a little now and then. Then, as my long watch went on, a faint light came into the eastern sky. It was like the reflection of some colourless fire. The old moon rose, thin and pointed and white. And close behind it the dawn came. It caught up with the moon and flowed over it. At first it was pale, and then it grew pink and warm. No Morlocks had come near us. In fact, I had seen none on the hill that night. In the confidence of the new day it almost seemed that my fear had been unreasonable. I stood up and found that my foot with the loose heel was swollen at the ankle. It hurt under the heel. So I sat down again, took off my shoes and threw them away.

“I woke Weena, and we went down into the wood. Now it was green and pleasant, not black and threatening. We found some fruit for our breakfast. Soon we met others of the dainty little people. They were laughing and dancing in the sunlight, as if there were no such thing as night in nature. And then I thought once more of the meat that I had seen. Now I felt sure of what it was. From the bottom of my heart I pitied this last weak little stream from the great flood of humanity. Clearly, at some time long ago in the decay of mankind, the Morlocks’ food had run short. Perhaps they had lived on rats and other vermin like that. Even now man is far less careful and choosy about his food than he once was. He is far less choosy than any monkey. His dislike of human flesh is not a deep instinct. And so these inhuman sons of men——! I tried to look at the thing in a scientific way. After all, they were less human and further from us than our cannibal ancestors. Those ancestors lived only three or four thousand years ago. And the intelligence that would have made this situation a torment was gone. Why should I worry about it? These Eloi were just fattened cattle. The ant-like Morlocks kept them and hunted them for food. They probably even took care of their breeding. And there was Weena dancing at my side!

“Then I tried to protect myself from the horror that was coming over me. I tried to see it as a hard punishment for human selfishness. Man had been happy to live in ease and pleasure on the work of his fellow-man. He had used Necessity as his motto and his excuse. And when the time came, Necessity had come back to him. I even tried to feel scorn, like Carlyle, for this miserable aristocracy in decay. But I could not keep this attitude. The Eloi had fallen very low in intelligence. But they had kept too much of the human form. So they claimed my sympathy, and I could not help sharing their degradation and their Fear.

“At that time I had only very vague ideas about what I should do. My first idea was to find a safe place of refuge. I also wanted to make whatever weapons of metal or stone I could. That was needed at once. Next, I hoped to get some way of making fire. Then I would have a torch ready as a weapon. I knew that nothing would work better against these Morlocks. Then I wanted to make some device to break open the bronze doors under the White Sphinx. I was thinking of a battering ram. I felt sure of one thing. If I could get through those doors with a bright light in front of me, I would find the Time Machine and escape. I could not imagine that the Morlocks were strong enough to move it far away. I had decided to take Weena with me to our own time. With such plans turning in my mind, I went on towards the building that I had chosen in my imagination as our home.

### Glossary

- **pit**: a deep hole in the ground that is hard to climb out of.
- **Carlovignan kings**: old French kings who were weak and had no real power.
- **Nemesis**: a punishment that comes in the end to someone who deserves it.
- **pinnacles**: tall, thin, pointed parts on the top of a building.
- **lame**: not able to walk well because a foot or leg hurts.
- **Faun**: a statue of a creature from old stories, half man and half goat.
- **constellations**: groups of stars that have names and make shapes in the sky.
- **precessional cycle**: the very slow circle that the earth's axis makes, about once in 26,000 years.
- **vermin**: small animals, like rats, that people think are dirty or harmful.
- **fattened cattle**: cows that are given a lot of food so that they can be killed for meat.
- **battering ram**: a heavy log or bar used to break open doors.

## XI. The Palace of Green Porcelain

“We came near the Palace of Green Porcelain at about noon. I found that it was empty and falling into ruin. Only broken pieces of glass were left in its windows. Great sheets of the green covering had fallen away from the rusted metal frame. The palace stood very high on a grassy hill. Before I went in, I looked towards the north-east. I was surprised to see a large estuary, or even a creek. I judged that Wandsworth and Battersea must once have been there. I thought then about the living things in the sea. What might have happened to them, or might be happening to them? But I never followed up the thought.

“When I examined the material of the Palace, it really was porcelain. Along the front of it I saw an inscription in some unknown kind of letters. I thought, rather foolishly, that Weena might help me to read it. But I only learnt that the idea of writing had never even entered her head. I think she always seemed more human to me than she really was. Perhaps that was because her affection was so human.

“The big doors were open and broken. Inside them we did not find the usual hall. Instead there was a long gallery, lit by many windows along the sides. At first sight it reminded me of a museum. The tiled floor was thick with dust. A remarkable collection of different objects lay under the same grey covering. Then I noticed something standing in the centre of the hall, strange and thin. It was clearly the lower part of a huge skeleton. I knew from its sloping feet that it was some extinct creature like the Megatherium. The skull and the upper bones lay beside it in the thick dust. In one place rain-water had dripped through a hole in the roof. There the bones themselves had been worn away. Further along the gallery was the huge barrel-shaped skeleton of a Brontosaurus. So I was right: it was a museum. I went towards the side and found what looked like sloping shelves. I cleared away the thick dust and found the old familiar glass cases of our own time. But they must have been air-tight, because some of the things inside were quite well preserved.

“Clearly we were standing among the ruins of some South Kensington of a later age! Here, it seemed, was the Palæontological Section. It must have been a very splendid collection of fossils. Decay had been held back for a time. Bacteria and fungi had died out, so decay had lost ninety-nine hundredths of its force. But it could not be stopped. Very slowly, but very surely, it was at work again on all these treasures. Here and there I found signs of the little people. Some rare fossils had been broken to pieces, or threaded in strings on reeds. In some places whole cases had been taken away—by the Morlocks, I judged. The place was very silent. The thick dust made our footsteps quiet. Weena had been rolling a sea urchin down the sloping glass of a case. As I stared about me, she came and very quietly took my hand. She stood beside me.

“At first this ancient monument of an intellectual age surprised me very much. So I did not think about the possibilities it offered. Even my worry about the Time Machine moved a little to the back of my mind.

“Judging by the size of the place, this Palace of Green Porcelain held much more than a Gallery of Palæontology. Perhaps there were historical galleries. There might even be a library! To me, at least in my situation, these would be far more interesting than this show of old geology in decay. As I explored, I found another short gallery. It ran across the first one. It seemed to be for minerals. The sight of a block of sulphur set my mind thinking about gunpowder. But I could find no saltpetre. In fact, I found no nitrates of any kind. No doubt they had melted away in the damp ages ago. Still, I kept thinking about the sulphur, and it started a train of thought. The rest of the things in that gallery were the best preserved of all that I saw. But I had little interest in them. I am no expert in minerals. So I went on down a very ruined aisle, which ran beside the first hall I had entered. This section had probably been for natural history. But everything in it had long ago become impossible to recognise. There were a few shrivelled, blackened remains of what had once been stuffed animals. There were dried-up mummies in jars that had once held spirit. There was a brown dust of dead plants. That was all! I was sorry about that. I would have been glad to trace the slow, patient changes by which living nature had been conquered. Then we came to a gallery of truly enormous size, but it was very badly lit. Its floor ran downward at a slight angle from the end where I came in. White globes hung from the ceiling at intervals. Many of them were cracked and smashed. They suggested that the place had once had artificial light. Here I felt more at home. On both sides of me rose the huge shapes of big machines. They were all badly rusted, and many were broken. But some were still fairly complete. You know I have a certain weakness for machines. I wanted to stay among these for a while. Most of them were like puzzles to me, and this made them even more interesting. I could only make very vague guesses about what they were for. I imagined that if I could solve their puzzles, I would have powers that might be useful against the Morlocks.

“Suddenly Weena came very close to my side. She did it so suddenly that she startled me. Without her, I do not think I would have noticed that the floor of the gallery sloped at all. \[Footnote: It may be, of course, that the floor did not slope. Instead, the museum may have been built into the side of a hill.—ED.\] The end where I had come in was well above the ground. It was lit by a few narrow windows like slits. As you went down the gallery, the ground came up against these windows. At last there was a pit in front of each one, like the ‘area’ of a London house. Only a narrow line of daylight came in at the top. I went slowly along, puzzling over the machines. I was too busy with them to notice that the light was slowly growing weaker. Then Weena’s growing fear made me notice it. I saw that the gallery ran down at last into thick darkness. I hesitated. Then, as I looked round, I saw that there was less dust here, and its surface was less even. Further away, towards the darkness, a number of small narrow footprints seemed to break it. At that, my feeling that the Morlocks were near came back. I felt that I was wasting my time studying these machines just out of interest. I remembered that it was already late in the afternoon. I still had no weapon, no refuge and no way of making a fire. And then, far down in the blackness of the gallery, I heard a strange pattering. I heard the same odd noises that I had heard down the well.

“I took Weena’s hand. Then a sudden idea came to me. I left her and turned to a machine with a lever sticking out of it. The lever was rather like those in a signal-box. I climbed up onto the stand and took hold of the lever with my hands. Then I put all my weight on it sideways. Suddenly Weena, left alone in the middle aisle, began to whimper. I had judged the strength of the lever quite well. After a minute’s strain it snapped. I went back to her with a mace in my hand. I judged that it was more than strong enough for any Morlock skull I might meet. And I wanted very much to kill a Morlock or two. You may think it is very inhuman to want to kill your own descendants! But somehow it was impossible to feel any humanity in the things. Two things stopped me from going straight down the gallery and killing the brutes I heard. I did not want to leave Weena. And I felt sure that my Time Machine might suffer if I began to satisfy my thirst for murder.

“Well, with the mace in one hand and Weena in the other, I left that gallery. I went into another one that was even larger. At first sight it reminded me of a military chapel hung with torn flags. Brown, burnt-looking rags hung from its sides. Soon I recognised them as the decaying remains of books. They had fallen to pieces long ago, and every sign of print had gone from them. But here and there were bent boards and cracked metal clasps, and they told the story clearly enough. If I had been a literary man, I might have made a moral about how useless all ambition is. But the thing that struck me most strongly was the huge waste of work. This dark wilderness of rotting paper showed it. I must admit what I thought of most at the time. It was the *Philosophical Transactions* and my own seventeen papers on physical optics.

“Then we went up a broad staircase. We came to what may once have been a gallery of technical chemistry. Here I had quite a lot of hope of useful discoveries. The roof had fallen in at one end, but the rest of this gallery was well preserved. I went eagerly to every unbroken case. And at last, in one of the really air-tight cases, I found a box of matches. Very eagerly I tried them. They were perfectly good. They were not even damp. I turned to Weena. ‘Dance,’ I cried to her in her own language. For now I really had a weapon against the horrible creatures we feared. And so, in that abandoned museum, on the thick soft carpet of dust, I solemnly danced a kind of mixed dance. Weena was hugely delighted. I whistled *The Land of the Leal* as cheerfully as I could. Part of it was a modest *cancan*, and part was a step dance. Part was a skirt dance, as far as my tail-coat allowed. And part was my own invention. For I am naturally inventive, as you know.

“Now, this box of matches had survived the wear of time for countless years. I still think that was very strange. For me it was also very lucky. But, strangely enough, I found something even more unlikely, and that was camphor. I found it in a sealed jar. By chance, I suppose, the jar had been sealed completely air-tight. At first I thought it was paraffin wax, so I smashed the glass. But the smell of camphor was unmistakable. Everything else had decayed, but by chance this volatile substance had survived. Perhaps it had lasted through many thousands of centuries. It reminded me of a sepia painting I had once seen. It was painted with the ink of a fossil Belemnite. That creature must have died and become a fossil millions of years ago. I was about to throw the camphor away. But then I remembered that it burns easily, with a good bright flame. In fact it makes an excellent candle. So I put it in my pocket. But I found no explosives, and no way of breaking down the bronze doors. So far my iron crowbar was the most useful thing I had found. All the same, I left that gallery in very high spirits.

“I cannot tell you the whole story of that long afternoon. It would take a great effort of memory to remember my explorations in the right order. I remember a long gallery of rusting weapons on stands. I remember how I hesitated between my crowbar and a hatchet or a sword. But I could not carry both. And my bar of iron seemed best for the bronze gates. There were many guns, pistols and rifles. Most of them were masses of rust. But many were made of some new metal and were still in fairly good condition. But any cartridges or powder that were once there had rotted into dust. I saw that one corner was burnt and shattered. Perhaps, I thought, it was from an explosion among the specimens. In another place there was a huge collection of idols. They were Polynesian, Mexican, Grecian, Phœnician—from every country on earth, I should think. And here I gave in to an impulse that I could not resist. There was a steatite monster from South America that I especially liked. I wrote my name on its nose.

“As the evening came on, my interest faded. I went through gallery after gallery. They were dusty, silent and often in ruins. Sometimes the exhibits were just heaps of rust and lignite, and sometimes they were fresher. In one place I suddenly found myself near the model of a tin mine. Then, purely by accident, I found two dynamite cartridges in an air-tight case! I shouted ‘Eureka!’ and smashed the case with joy. Then a doubt came. I hesitated. Then I chose a little side gallery and made my test. I waited five, ten, fifteen minutes for an explosion that never came. I never felt such a disappointment. Of course the things were dummies. I might have guessed that, just because they were there. I really believe that if they had been real, I would have rushed off at once. I would have blown up the Sphinx and the bronze doors. And, as it turned out, I would have blown up my chances of finding the Time Machine too. All of them together would have gone out of existence.

“It was after that, I think, that we came to a little open court inside the palace. It had grass and three fruit-trees. So we rested there and ate. Towards sunset I began to think about our situation. Night was creeping towards us, and I still had not found a hiding-place that the Morlocks could not reach. But that troubled me very little now. I had something that was perhaps the best of all defences against the Morlocks—I had matches! I also had the camphor in my pocket, if a blaze was needed. It seemed to me that the best thing to do was to spend the night in the open. A fire would protect us. In the morning there was the job of getting back the Time Machine. For that, so far, I had only my iron mace. But now, with my growing knowledge, I felt very differently about those bronze doors. Until now I had not tried to force them open. This was mostly because of the mystery on the other side. They had never seemed very strong to me. I hoped that my bar of iron would be good enough for the work.

### Glossary

- **estuary**: the wide part of a river where it meets the sea.
- **inscription**: words cut or written on a building or a stone.
- **South Kensington**: a part of London with famous museums.
- **Megatherium**: a giant ground sloth, an animal that died out long ago.
- **Brontosaurus**: a very large dinosaur with a long neck.
- **saltpetre**: a white substance used to make gunpowder.
- **signal-box**: a small building by a railway where workers move big levers to control the trains.
- **mace**: a heavy metal club used as a weapon.
- **cancan**: a lively dance with high kicks.
- **volatile**: turning easily into a gas, like water into steam.
- **Belemnite**: a sea animal like a squid that died out millions of years ago.
- **steatite**: a soft stone, also called soapstone.
- **Eureka!**: "I have found it!", a cry of joy when you discover something.
- **dummies**: copies that look real but do not work.

## XII. In the Darkness

“We came out of the Palace while part of the sun was still above the horizon. I was determined to reach the White Sphinx early the next morning. Before dark, I planned to push through the woods that had stopped me on our last journey. My plan was to go as far as possible that night. Then I would build a fire and sleep under the protection of its light. So as we went along, I picked up any sticks or dry grass that I saw. Soon my arms were full of this rubbish. With this load we moved more slowly than I had expected, and Weena was tired too. I also began to suffer from sleepiness. So it was full night before we reached the wood. On the hill with bushes at its edge, Weena wanted to stop. She was afraid of the darkness in front of us. But a strange feeling that some disaster was coming drove me on. That feeling should really have been a warning to me. I had been without sleep for a night and two days, and I was feverish and irritable. I felt sleep coming over me, and the Morlocks were coming with it.

“While we hesitated, I saw three crouching figures among the black bushes behind us. They were only just visible against the blackness. There were low bushes and long grass all around us. I did not feel safe from them creeping up on us secretly. I calculated that the forest was a little less than a mile across. If we could get through it to the bare hillside, we would have a much safer place to rest. I thought that my matches and my camphor would let me keep my path lit through the woods. But clearly, if I wanted to wave matches about with my hands, I would have to leave my firewood. So, rather unwillingly, I put it down. And then I had an idea. I would amaze our friends behind us by lighting it. Later I was to discover how terribly foolish this was. But at that moment it seemed a clever move to cover our retreat.

“I don’t know if you have ever thought how rare a thing flame must be without man, in a temperate climate. The sun’s heat is rarely strong enough to burn things, even when dewdrops focus it. In hotter, tropical places that sometimes happens. Lightning may strike and blacken things, but it rarely starts a fire that spreads widely. Rotting plants may sometimes smoulder with the heat of their own decay. But this rarely ends in flame. And in this age of decay, the art of making fire had been forgotten on the earth. The red tongues of flame that went licking up my heap of wood were completely new and strange to Weena.

“She wanted to run to it and play with it. I believe she would have thrown herself into it if I had not held her back. But I picked her up and, in spite of her struggles, I plunged boldly into the wood ahead of me. For a little way, the light of my fire lit the path. Soon I looked back. Through the crowded tree trunks I could see that the fire had spread from my heap of sticks. It had reached some bushes nearby, and a curved line of fire was creeping up the grass of the hill. I laughed at that, and turned again to the dark trees in front of me. It was very black, and Weena held on to me and shook all over. But as my eyes got used to the darkness, there was still enough light to avoid the trunks. Above us it was simply black. Only here and there a gap showed the far-off blue sky. I did not light any of my matches, because I had no free hand. I carried my little one on my left arm, and in my right hand I had my iron bar.

“For some way I heard nothing but the twigs cracking under my feet and the soft rustle of the breeze above. I heard my own breathing too, and the beat of the blood in my ears. Then I seemed to notice a pattering sound behind me. I pushed on grimly. The pattering grew clearer. Then I heard the same strange sounds and voices that I had heard in the Underworld. Clearly there were several Morlocks, and they were closing in on me. In fact, a minute later I felt a tug at my coat, then something at my arm. And Weena shivered violently and then became quite still.

“It was time for a match. But to get one, I had to put her down. I did so. As I felt about in my pocket, a struggle began in the darkness around my knees. Weena made no sound at all, and the Morlocks made the same strange cooing sounds as before. Soft little hands were creeping over my coat and back too, and even touching my neck. Then the match scratched and fizzed. I held it up, flaring. I saw the white backs of the Morlocks as they ran away among the trees. Quickly I took a lump of camphor from my pocket. I got ready to light it as soon as the match began to die. Then I looked at Weena. She was lying with her face to the ground, holding on to my feet, without moving at all. Suddenly frightened, I bent down to her. She hardly seemed to breathe. I lit the block of camphor and threw it on the ground. It split and flared up and drove back the Morlocks and the shadows. As it did so, I knelt down and lifted her. The wood behind us seemed full of the movement and murmur of a great crowd!

“She seemed to have fainted. I put her carefully on my shoulder and stood up to push on. And then I realised something horrible. While I was busy with my matches and Weena, I had turned round several times. Now I had no idea at all in which direction my path lay. For all I knew, I might be facing back towards the Palace of Green Porcelain. I found myself in a cold sweat. I had to think fast about what to do. I decided to build a fire and camp where we were. Weena was still not moving. I put her down at the grassy foot of a tree. Then, as my first lump of camphor began to die, I very quickly started to collect sticks and leaves. Here and there in the darkness around me, the Morlocks’ eyes shone like red jewels.

“The camphor flickered and went out. I lit a match. As I did so, two white figures that had been coming towards Weena ran quickly away. One was so blinded by the light that he came straight at me. I hit him, and I felt his bones crunch under my fist. He gave a cry of dismay and staggered a little way. Then he fell down. I lit another piece of camphor and went on gathering wood for my bonfire. Soon I noticed how dry some of the leaves above me were. No rain had fallen since I arrived on the Time Machine, about a week before. So instead of searching among the trees for fallen twigs, I began jumping up and pulling down branches. Very soon I had a choking, smoky fire of green wood and dry sticks. Now I could save my camphor. Then I turned to where Weena lay beside my iron mace. I did what I could to wake her, but she lay like someone dead. I could not even be sure whether she was breathing or not.

“Now the smoke of the fire blew over towards me, and it must have made me suddenly heavy. Also, the smell of camphor was in the air. My fire would not need more wood for an hour or so. I felt very tired after all my work, and I sat down. The wood was also full of a sleepy murmur that I did not understand. I seemed just to nod my head and open my eyes again. But everything was dark, and the Morlocks had their hands on me. I threw off their clinging fingers and quickly felt in my pocket for the matchbox. And—it was gone! Then they grabbed me and closed in on me again. In a moment I knew what had happened. I had slept, and my fire had gone out. The bitterness of death came over my soul. The forest seemed full of the smell of burning wood. They caught me by the neck, by the hair and by the arms, and pulled me down. In the darkness it was horrible beyond words to feel all these soft creatures piled on top of me. I felt as if I was in a monstrous spider’s web. They were too strong for me, and I went down. I felt little teeth biting at my neck. I rolled over, and as I did so, my hand touched my iron lever. It gave me strength. I struggled up and shook the human rats off me. I held the bar short and pushed it hard where I guessed their faces might be. Under my blows I could feel flesh and bone giving way, soft and juicy. For a moment I was free.

“The strange wild joy that so often seems to come with hard fighting came over me. I knew that both Weena and I were lost. But I decided to make the Morlocks pay for their meat. I stood with my back to a tree and swung the iron bar in front of me. The whole wood was full of their movement and their cries. A minute passed. Their voices seemed to rise higher with excitement, and they moved faster. Yet none of them came within reach. I stood staring angrily into the blackness. Then suddenly I felt hope. What if the Morlocks were afraid? And right after that came a strange thing. The darkness seemed to grow bright. Very dimly I began to see the Morlocks around me. Three of them lay beaten at my feet. Then I saw something that I could hardly believe. The others were running in what seemed an endless stream, from behind me and away through the wood in front. And their backs no longer seemed white, but reddish. I stood there with my mouth open. Then I saw a little red spark drift across a gap of starlight between the branches and vanish. And at that I understood. I understood the smell of burning wood and the red glow. I understood the sleepy murmur, which was now growing into a roar that came in gusts. And I understood why the Morlocks were running away.

“I stepped out from behind my tree and looked back. Through the black pillars of the nearer trees I saw the flames of the burning forest. It was my first fire, coming after me. At that I looked for Weena, but she was gone. Behind me there was hissing and crackling, and an explosive thud as each new tree burst into flame. These left little time to think. I still held my iron bar tightly, and I followed the path the Morlocks had taken. It was a close race. Once, as I ran, the flames moved forward so fast on my right that they got ahead of me. I had to turn off to the left. But at last I came out into a small open space. As I did so, a Morlock came stumbling blindly towards me. He went past me and straight on into the fire!

“And now I was to see the strangest and most horrible thing, I think, of everything I saw in that future age. This whole open space was as bright as day with the light of the fire. In the centre was a hillock, or tumulus, with a burnt hawthorn on top. Beyond this was another arm of the burning forest. Yellow tongues of flame were already twisting out of it. So the space was completely surrounded by a fence of fire. On the hillside were about thirty or forty Morlocks. They were dazzled by the light and heat. In their confusion they stumbled here and there into each other. At first I did not realise that they were blind. As they came near me, I hit them wildly with my bar in a frenzy of fear. I killed one and crippled several more. But then I watched one of them feeling his way under the hawthorn against the red sky. I heard their moans. Then I was sure that they were completely helpless and miserable in the bright light. And I did not hit any more of them.

“Yet every now and then one came straight towards me. It filled me with a trembling horror, and I quickly moved out of his way. At one point the flames died down a little. I was afraid the horrible creatures would soon be able to see me. I was thinking of starting the fight by killing some of them before that happened. But the fire burst out brightly again, and I held back my hand. I walked about the hill among them, avoiding them and looking for some sign of Weena. But Weena was gone.

“At last I sat down on the top of the hillock. I watched this strange, unbelievable crowd of blind things feeling their way here and there. They made strange noises to each other as the bright light of the fire beat on them. The smoke rose in coils and streamed across the sky. Through the rare holes in that red roof of smoke, the little stars shone. They were so far away that they seemed to belong to another universe. Two or three Morlocks stumbled into me. I drove them off with blows of my fists, and I was trembling as I did so.

“For most of that night I was sure it was a nightmare. I bit myself and screamed, because I wanted so badly to wake up. I beat the ground with my hands. I got up and sat down again, and wandered here and there, and sat down again. Then I would start rubbing my eyes and calling on God to let me wake up. Three times I saw Morlocks put their heads down in a kind of agony and rush into the flames. But at last the white light of day came. It rose above the dying red of the fire and the streaming masses of black smoke. It rose above the whitening and blackening tree stumps, and above the smaller and smaller numbers of these dim creatures.

“I searched again for signs of Weena, but there were none. It was clear that they had left her poor little body in the forest. I cannot describe how much this comforted me. Her body had escaped the awful fate that seemed to be waiting for it. When I thought of that, I almost began to kill all the helpless, horrible creatures around me. But I controlled myself. As I have said, the hillock was a kind of island in the forest. From its top I could now see the Palace of Green Porcelain through a haze of smoke. From that I could work out the direction of the White Sphinx. The day was growing clearer. The rest of these damned souls were still moving here and there and moaning. I left them there. I tied some grass around my feet and limped on across smoking ashes. I went among black tree trunks that still glowed and beat with fire inside. I was going towards the hiding-place of the Time Machine. I walked slowly, because I was almost exhausted, and lame as well. I felt the deepest misery about the horrible death of little Weena. It seemed a terrible disaster. Now, in this old familiar room, it feels more like the sorrow of a dream than a real loss. But that morning it left me completely lonely again—terribly alone. I began to think of this house of mine, of this fireside, of some of you. And with those thoughts came a longing that was pain.

“But as I walked over the smoking ashes under the bright morning sky, I made a discovery. There were still some loose matches in my trouser pocket. The box must have leaked before it was lost.

### Glossary

- **irritable**: easily annoyed or made angry
- **temperate climate**: weather that is not very hot and not very cold, like in Britain
- **smoulder**: to burn slowly with smoke but no flame
- **grimly**: in a serious, determined way, without hope or joy
- **cooing**: a soft, low sound, like the sound a pigeon makes
- **tumulus**: a small hill of earth built over a grave long ago
- **hawthorn**: a small tree or bush with sharp thorns
- **frenzy**: a state of wild, uncontrolled feeling or action
- **damned souls**: people (or creatures) who are lost and suffering, as if in hell

## XIII. The Trap of the White Sphinx

“At about eight or nine in the morning I came to the same seat of yellow metal. From there I had looked at the world on the evening of my arrival. I thought of the quick conclusions I had come to that evening. I could not stop myself laughing bitterly at how sure I had been. Here was the same beautiful scene and the same rich green leaves. Here were the same splendid palaces and wonderful ruins. The same silver river ran between its fertile banks. The bright robes of the beautiful people moved here and there among the trees. Some were bathing in exactly the place where I had saved Weena. That suddenly gave me a sharp stab of pain. And the cupolas above the ways to the Underworld rose like dirty marks on the landscape. I understood now what all the beauty of the Overworld people was hiding. Their day was very pleasant, as pleasant as the day of the cattle in the field. Like the cattle, they knew of no enemies and made no plans for any needs. And their end was the same.

“I was sad to think how short the dream of the human mind had been. It had killed itself. It had worked steadily towards comfort and ease. It had wanted a balanced society, and its watchword was security and permanency. It had reached its hopes—only to come to this at last. Once, life and property must have become almost completely safe. The rich man had been sure of his wealth and comfort. The worker had been sure of his life and his work. No doubt in that perfect world there had been no problem of the unemployed. No social question had been left unsolved. And a great quiet had followed.

“There is a law of nature that we forget. A mind that can deal with many different things is nature’s payment for change, danger and trouble. An animal that is in perfect harmony with its surroundings is a perfect machine. Nature never calls on intelligence until habit and instinct are useless. There is no intelligence where there is no change and no need for change. Only animals that have to meet a huge variety of needs and dangers have a share in intelligence.

“So, as I see it, the Upperworld man had slowly drifted towards his weak prettiness. The Underworld had drifted towards mere mechanical work. But that perfect state had lacked one thing, even for a machine’s perfection. It had lacked absolute permanency. As time went on, it seems that the feeding of the Underworld had broken down somehow. I do not know how it was done. Mother Necessity had been kept away for a few thousand years. Now she came back again, and she began below. The Underworld was in contact with machinery. However perfect it is, machinery still needs a little thought outside habit. So the Underworld had probably been forced to keep rather more initiative than the Upperworld. But it had kept less of every other human quality. And when other meat failed them, they turned to what old habit had forbidden until then. That is how I saw it in my last view of the world of 802,701. It may be the most wrong explanation that a human mind could invent. But it is how the thing took shape for me, and I give it to you as that.

“The past days had been full of tiredness, excitement and terror. After them, and in spite of my grief, this seat and the calm view and the warm sunlight were very pleasant. I was very tired and sleepy, and soon my theories turned into dozing. I caught myself doing it, and I took my own hint. I stretched myself out on the grass and had a long and refreshing sleep.

“I woke up a little before sunset. I now felt safe from being caught asleep by the Morlocks. I stretched myself and came on down the hill towards the White Sphinx. I had my crowbar in one hand, and my other hand played with the matches in my pocket.

“And now came a most unexpected thing. As I came near the pedestal of the sphinx, I found that the bronze doors were open. They had slid down into grooves.

“At that I stopped short in front of them. I hesitated to go in.

“Inside was a small room. In the corner of it, on a raised place, was the Time Machine. I had the small levers in my pocket. I had made careful preparations for a siege of the White Sphinx. But after all that, here was a meek surrender. I threw my iron bar away. I was almost sorry not to use it.

“A sudden thought came into my head as I bent down towards the entrance. For once, at least, I understood how the Morlocks’ minds worked. I held back a strong wish to laugh. I stepped through the bronze frame and up to the Time Machine. I was surprised to find that it had been carefully oiled and cleaned. Since then I have suspected that the Morlocks had even partly taken it to pieces. In their dim way, they were trying to understand what it was for.

“I stood and examined it. I found pleasure just in touching the machine. And as I did so, the thing that I had expected happened. The bronze panels suddenly slid up and hit the frame with a clang. I was in the dark—trapped. So the Morlocks thought. At that I laughed quietly and happily to myself.

“I could already hear their murmuring laughter as they came towards me. Very calmly I tried to strike the match. I only had to fix the levers on and then leave like a ghost. But I had forgotten one little thing. The matches were of that horrible kind that light only on the box.

“You can imagine how all my calm vanished. The little brutes were close to me. One touched me. In the dark I swung the levers at them in a wide blow. Then I began to scramble into the saddle of the machine. Then one hand came on me, and then another. I simply had to fight against their fingers, which would not let go of my levers. At the same time I had to feel for the studs that the levers fitted on. They almost got one lever away from me. As it slipped from my hand, I had to butt with my head in the dark to get it back. I could hear the Morlock’s skull ring. I think this last scramble was a nearer thing than the fight in the forest.

“But at last the lever was fixed and pulled over. The clinging hands slipped off me. Soon the darkness fell away from my eyes. I found myself in the same grey light and noise and confusion that I have already described.

### Glossary

- **conclusions**: ideas or opinions that you form after thinking about something
- **fertile**: good for growing many plants
- **watchword**: a word or idea that a group of people follow as their main aim
- **permanency**: the state of lasting for ever without change
- **Mother Necessity**: need, shown as a woman; here, the hard need to find food
- **initiative**: the ability to think and act for yourself, without being told
- **siege**: an attack where you surround a place and try to break into it
- **meek surrender**: giving up quietly, without any fight
- **studs**: small round pieces of metal that stick out, here the places where the levers fit
- **butt**: to hit something hard with your head

## XIV. The Further Vision

“I have already told you about the sickness and confusion that come with time travelling. And this time I was not sitting properly in the saddle. I was sitting sideways, and I was not steady. For a time that I cannot measure, I held on to the machine as it swayed and shook. I paid no attention at all to where I was going. When I made myself look at the dials again, I was amazed to find where I had arrived. One dial records days, and another thousands of days. Another records millions of days, and another thousands of millions. Now, instead of moving the levers back the other way, I had pulled them over to go forward. When I looked at these dials, I found that the thousands hand was sweeping round very fast. It went as fast as the seconds hand of a watch—into the future.

“As I drove on, a strange change slowly came over the look of things. The trembling greyness grew darker. I was still travelling at a huge speed. But the blinking of day and night came back, and it grew clearer and clearer. Usually that meant a slower speed. At first this puzzled me very much. The changes from night to day grew slower and slower. So did the movement of the sun across the sky. At last they seemed to stretch through centuries. In the end a steady twilight lay heavily over the earth. Only now and then a comet broke it, shining brightly across the darkening sky. The band of light that had shown the sun had disappeared long before. This was because the sun had stopped setting. It simply rose and fell in the west, and it grew broader and redder all the time. All sign of the moon had vanished. The stars had been moving in circles, but they moved slower and slower. In the end they became creeping points of light. At last, some time before I stopped, the sun came to a halt on the horizon. It was red and very large. It stood there without moving, a vast dome glowing with a dull heat. Now and then it went dark for a moment. At one time it glowed more brightly again for a little while. But it quickly went back to its dark, angry red heat. From this slowing of its rising and setting, I understood that the work of the tidal drag was done. The earth had come to rest with one face to the sun. It was like the moon in our own time, which always shows the same face to the earth. I remembered my headlong fall before. So I very carefully began to move the levers the other way. The circling hands went slower and slower. At last the thousands hand seemed not to move. The daily hand was no longer just a mist on its dial. It went slower still, until I could see the dim outlines of an empty, lonely beach.

“I stopped very gently and sat on the Time Machine, looking round. The sky was no longer blue. To the north-east it was as black as ink. Out of the blackness the pale white stars shone brightly and steadily. Overhead the sky was a deep Indian red, with no stars. To the south-east it grew brighter, to a glowing scarlet. There lay the huge body of the sun, red and motionless, cut by the horizon. The rocks around me were a harsh reddish colour. At first the only sign of life that I could see was very green plants. They covered every point that stuck out on the south-eastern side of the rocks. It was the same rich green that you see on moss in a forest or on the lichen in caves. Plants like these grow in a twilight that never ends.

“The machine was standing on a beach that went down towards the sea. The sea stretched away to the south-west. It rose to a sharp, bright horizon against the pale sky. There were no breakers and no waves, because not a breath of wind was moving. There was only a slight, oily swell. It rose and fell like gentle breathing, and it showed that the eternal sea was still moving and living. Along the edge, where the water sometimes broke, there was a thick crust of salt. It was pink under the strange, glowing sky. My head felt heavy and pressed, and I noticed that I was breathing very fast. The feeling reminded me of the only time I had climbed a mountain. From that I judged that the air was thinner than it is now.

“Far away up the empty slope I heard a harsh scream. I saw a thing like a huge white butterfly. It flew up into the sky at an angle, beating its wings, and circled. Then it disappeared over some low hillocks beyond. The sound of its voice was so sad and miserable that I shivered. I sat more firmly on the machine. I looked round me again. Quite near me, I saw something that I had taken for a reddish mass of rock. It was moving slowly towards me. Then I saw that it was really a huge, terrible creature like a crab. Can you imagine a crab as large as that table over there? Its many legs were moving slowly and uncertainly. Its big claws were swaying. Its long antennæ were waving and feeling about, like the whips of men who drive carts. And its eyes on their stalks were gleaming at you on each side of its metal-like front. Its back had ridges, and it was covered with ugly round lumps. Here and there it had greenish patches of crust. I could see the many feelers of its complicated mouth flickering and feeling as it moved.

“I stared at this evil-looking creature crawling towards me. Then I felt a tickling on my cheek, as if a fly had landed there. I tried to brush it away with my hand. But in a moment it came back, and almost at once another came by my ear. I hit at this and caught something like a thread. It was pulled quickly out of my hand. With a terrible sick feeling, I turned round. I saw that I had caught the antenna of another monster crab, which stood just behind me. Its evil eyes were twisting about on their stalks. Its mouth was moving all over, hungry for food. And its huge, clumsy claws, covered with green slime from the sea, were coming down on me. In a moment my hand was on the lever. I put a month between myself and these monsters. But I was still on the same beach. As soon as I stopped, I saw them clearly. There seemed to be dozens of them crawling here and there in the dark light. They were among the flat sheets of very bright green.

“I cannot tell you how horribly empty and lifeless the world felt. There was the red sky in the east and the blackness in the north. There was the salt Dead Sea, and the stony beach crawling with these foul, slow-moving monsters. There was the same poisonous-looking green of the lichen-like plants. And there was the thin air that hurt my lungs. All this together had a terrible effect. I moved on a hundred years. There was the same red sun—a little larger, a little duller. There was the same dying sea and the same cold air. The same crowd of crabs and other shellfish was creeping in and out among the green weed and the red rocks. And in the western sky I saw a curved pale line like a huge new moon.

“So I travelled on, in great strides of a thousand years or more, stopping now and then. The mystery of what would happen to the earth pulled me on. With a strange fascination I watched the sun grow larger and duller in the western sky. I watched the life of the old earth slowly disappear. At last I was more than thirty million years in the future. By then the huge red-hot dome of the sun covered nearly a tenth of the darkening sky. Then I stopped once more. The crawling crowd of crabs had disappeared. The red beach seemed lifeless, except for its pale green liverworts and lichens. And now there were white spots on it. A bitter cold attacked me. Now and then a few white flakes came down, turning in the air. To the north-east, snow shone under the starlight of the black sky. I could see a wavy line of pinkish-white hillocks. There were edges of ice along the shore of the sea, and floating pieces of ice farther out. But most of that salt ocean was still not frozen. It looked all bloody under the eternal sunset.

“I looked around me to see if there was any sign of animal life left. A strange fear that I could not explain still kept me in the saddle of the machine. But I saw nothing moving, on land or in the sky or the sea. Only the green slime on the rocks showed that life had not died out. A shallow sandbank had appeared in the sea, and the water had gone back from the beach. I thought I saw some black object flopping about on this bank. But it stopped moving as I looked at it. So I decided that my eyes had tricked me, and that the black object was only a rock. The stars in the sky were very bright. They seemed to me to twinkle very little.

“Suddenly I noticed that the round western edge of the sun had changed. A hollow, like a bay, had appeared in the curve. I watched it grow larger. For a minute, perhaps, I stared in horror at this blackness that was creeping over the day. Then I realised that an eclipse was beginning. Either the moon or the planet Mercury was passing across the face of the sun. Of course, at first I thought it was the moon. But many things make me believe something else. I think I really saw an inner planet passing in front of the sun, very near to the earth.

“The darkness grew quickly. A cold wind began to blow from the east, in stronger and stronger gusts. The white flakes falling through the air grew more and more. From the edge of the sea came a ripple and a whisper. Apart from these lifeless sounds, the world was silent. Silent? It would be hard to tell you how still it was. All the sounds of man were gone. The bleating of sheep, the cries of birds and the hum of insects were gone too. The movement and noise that makes the background of our lives—all that was over. As the darkness grew thicker, there were more and more flakes, turning and dancing in front of my eyes. And the air grew colder and colder. At last the white tops of the distant hills vanished into blackness, quickly, one after the other. The breeze grew into a moaning wind. I saw the black central shadow of the eclipse sweeping towards me. A moment later only the pale stars could be seen. Everything else was dark, without a single ray of light. The sky was completely black.

“A horror of this great darkness came over me. The cold struck deep into my bones, and it hurt me to breathe. These things were too much for me. I shivered, and a terrible sickness took hold of me. Then the edge of the sun appeared in the sky like a red-hot bow. I got off the machine to recover. I felt dizzy, and I could not face the journey back. I stood there, sick and confused. Then I saw the moving thing on the sandbank again, against the red water of the sea. There was no mistake now. It was a moving thing. It was round, perhaps the size of a football, or maybe bigger. Tentacles hung down from it. It looked black against the rolling, blood-red water, and it was hopping about now and then. Then I felt that I was fainting. But I had a terrible fear of lying helpless in that far-off, awful twilight. That fear kept me going while I climbed up onto the saddle.

### Glossary

- **tidal drag**: the slow pull that makes the earth spin more and more slowly
- **comet**: a bright object in space with a long tail of light
- **scarlet**: bright red
- **swell**: the slow rise and fall of the sea when there are no waves
- **antennæ**: the long, thin feelers on the head of a crab or insect (one is an **antenna**)
- **stalks**: thin parts that hold something up, like the stem of a flower
- **liverworts**: small, flat green plants that grow in wet places
- **lichen**: a small, flat plant that grows on rocks, walls and trees (**lichen-like** means like lichen)
- **flakes**: small, thin, light pieces of something, for example of snow
- **sandbank**: a raised area of sand in the sea, close to the surface
- **inner planet**: a planet that is closer to the sun than the earth is, like Mercury
- **bleating**: the sound that sheep make

## XV. The Time Traveller’s Return

“So I came back. I think I lay on the machine without any feeling for a long time. Then the days and nights began to blink again, one after another. The sun became golden again, and the sky became blue. I could breathe more easily. The shapes of the land rose and fell like water. The hands on the dials spun backward. At last I saw the dim shadows of houses again. They were the signs of the weak, decaying humanity. These houses changed and passed too, and others came. Soon the million dial was at zero, and I went more slowly. I began to recognise our own pretty, familiar buildings. The thousands hand ran back to the start. The night and day flapped more and more slowly. Then the old walls of the laboratory came round me. Now I slowed the machine down very gently.

“I saw one little thing that seemed strange to me. I think I told you about Mrs. Watchett. When I set out, before I was going very fast, she walked across the room. To me she seemed to move like a rocket. When I came back, I passed again through that same minute when she crossed the laboratory. But now every movement she made was the exact opposite of before. The door at the lower end opened. She moved quietly up the laboratory, back first. Then she disappeared behind the door where she had first come in. Just before that, I thought I saw Hillyer for a moment. But he passed like a flash.

“Then I stopped the machine. Around me I saw the old familiar laboratory again. My tools and my instruments were just as I had left them. I got off the machine, very shakily, and sat down on my bench. For several minutes I shook violently. Then I became calmer. My old workshop was around me again, exactly as before. Perhaps I had slept there, and the whole thing was a dream.

“And yet, not exactly! The machine had started from the south-east corner of the laboratory. It had stopped again in the north-west corner, against the wall where you saw it. That is the exact distance from my little lawn to the pedestal of the White Sphinx. The Morlocks had carried my machine into that pedestal.

“For a time my brain stopped working. Then I got up and came through the passage to this room. I was limping, because my heel still hurt, and I felt terribly dirty. I saw the *Pall Mall Gazette* on the table by the door. The date was really today. I looked at the clock, and the time was almost eight o’clock. I heard your voices and the noise of plates. I stopped for a moment, because I felt so sick and weak. Then I smelled good, healthy meat, and I opened the door on you. You know the rest. I washed, and ate dinner, and now I am telling you the story.

### Glossary

- **dial**: the round face with moving hands that shows numbers, like a clock
- **decaying**: slowly becoming weaker and falling apart
- **laboratory**: a room where a scientist does experiments and builds things
- **flapped**: moved up and down quickly, like a bird’s wing
- **limping**: walking badly because one foot or leg hurts
- **pedestal**: the base that a statue stands on
- **passage**: a long, narrow way inside a house that leads from one room to another
- **instruments**: tools for doing careful or scientific work

## XVI. After the Story

“I know,” he said, after a pause, “that all this will seem impossible to you. But to me only one thing seems impossible. It is that I am here tonight in this old familiar room. I am looking at your friendly faces and telling you these strange adventures.” He looked at the Medical Man. “No. I cannot expect you to believe it. Take it as a lie, or as a picture of the future. Say I dreamed it in the workshop. Think that I have wondered about the future of our race until I made up this story. When I say it is true, treat that as a simple artist’s trick to make it more interesting. And if you take it as a story, what do you think of it?”

He took up his pipe. He began to tap it nervously on the bars of the fireplace, in his old usual way. For a moment everything was still. Then chairs began to creak, and shoes began to scrape on the carpet. I took my eyes off the Time Traveller’s face and looked round at his listeners. They were in the dark, and little spots of colour swam before their eyes. The Medical Man seemed lost in watching our host. The Editor was looking hard at the end of his cigar, his sixth. The Journalist was feeling in his pocket for his watch. As far as I remember, the others did not move.

The Editor stood up with a sigh. He put his hand on the Time Traveller’s shoulder. “What a pity it is you’re not a writer of stories!” he said.

“You don’t believe it?” asked the Time Traveller.

“Well——” said the Editor.

“I thought not.”

The Time Traveller turned to us. “Where are the matches?” he said. He lit one and spoke over his pipe, puffing at it. “To tell you the truth... I hardly believe it myself..... And yet...”

His eyes fell on the dry white flowers on the little table, as if he was silently asking them a question. Then he turned over the hand that held his pipe. I saw that he was looking at some half-healed scars on his knuckles.

The Medical Man got up, came to the lamp and examined the flowers. “The gynæceum’s odd,” he said. The Psychologist leant forward to see. He held out his hand for one of the flowers.

“I’m hanged if it isn’t a quarter to one,” said the Journalist. “How shall we get home?”

“Plenty of cabs at the station,” said the Psychologist.

“It’s a strange thing,” said the Medical Man. “I really don’t know what family of plants these flowers belong to. May I have them?”

The Time Traveller hesitated. Then he said suddenly, “Certainly not.”

“Where did you really get them?” said the Medical Man.

The Time Traveller put his hand to his head. He spoke like a man who was trying to hold on to an idea that kept escaping him. “Weena put them into my pocket, when I travelled into Time.” He stared round the room. “I’m damned if it isn’t all going. This room and you and the feeling of everyday life are too much for my memory. Did I ever make a Time Machine, or a model of a Time Machine? Or is it all only a dream? People say life is a dream. Sometimes it is a very poor dream. But I can’t stand another dream that doesn’t fit. It’s madness. And where did the dream come from? … I must look at that machine. If there is one!”

He quickly picked up the lamp. He carried it, flaring red, through the door into the corridor. We followed him. There in the flickering light of the lamp was the machine. It was really there. It was low, ugly and crooked. It was made of brass, ebony, ivory and clear, shining quartz. It was solid when I touched it, because I put out my hand and felt its rail. There were brown spots and marks on the ivory. There were bits of grass and moss on the lower parts. One rail was bent out of shape.

The Time Traveller put the lamp down on the bench. He ran his hand along the damaged rail. “It’s all right now,” he said. “The story I told you was true. I’m sorry I brought you out here in the cold.” He picked up the lamp. In complete silence, we went back to the smoking-room.

He came into the hall with us and helped the Editor put on his coat. The Medical Man looked into his face. A little unsure, he told him that he was suffering from overwork. At this the Time Traveller laughed loudly. I remember him standing in the open doorway, shouting good-night.

I shared a cab with the Editor. He thought the story was a “gaudy lie.” I myself could not decide. The story was so strange and impossible. But he had told it in such a calm and believable way. I lay awake most of the night thinking about it. I decided to go and see the Time Traveller again the next day.

They told me he was in the laboratory. I knew the house well and felt at home there, so I went up to him. But the laboratory was empty. I stared at the Time Machine for a minute. Then I put out my hand and touched the lever. At that, the low, solid-looking machine swayed like a branch in the wind. I was very surprised that it moved so easily. It gave me a strange memory of my childhood, when I was told not to touch things.

I came back through the corridor. The Time Traveller met me in the smoking-room. He was coming from the house. He had a small camera under one arm and a knapsack under the other. He laughed when he saw me. He gave me his elbow to shake. “I’m terribly busy,” he said, “with that thing in there.”

“But is it not some hoax?” I said. “Do you really travel through time?”

“Really and truly I do.” And he looked honestly into my eyes. He hesitated. His eyes moved round the room. “I only want half an hour,” he said. “I know why you came, and it’s very kind of you. There are some magazines here. Stay to lunch, and I’ll prove this time travelling to you completely, specimens and all. Will you forgive me if I leave you now?”

I agreed. At that time I hardly understood the full meaning of his words. He nodded and went on down the corridor. I heard the door of the laboratory slam. I sat down in a chair and picked up a daily paper. What was he going to do before lunch-time? Then suddenly an advertisement reminded me of something. I had promised to meet Richardson, the publisher, at two. I looked at my watch. I saw that I could only just get there in time. I got up and went down the passage to tell the Time Traveller.

I took hold of the door handle. Just then I heard a cry, strangely cut off at the end. Then came a click and a thud. When I opened the door, a rush of air whirled round me. From inside came the sound of broken glass falling on the floor. The Time Traveller was not there. For a moment I seemed to see a ghostly, unclear figure. It was sitting in a whirling mass of black and brass. The figure was so transparent that I could clearly see the bench behind it, with its sheets of drawings. But this ghost vanished as I rubbed my eyes. The Time Machine had gone. The far end of the laboratory was empty, except for some dust that was slowly settling. It seemed that a pane of glass in the skylight had just been blown in.

I felt a surprise that I could not explain. I knew that something strange had happened. But for the moment I could not tell what that strange thing was. As I stood there staring, the door into the garden opened. The man-servant appeared.

We looked at each other. Then ideas began to come to me. “Has Mr. —— gone out that way?” I said.

“No, sir. No one has come out this way. I was expecting to find him here.”

At that I understood. I knew that Richardson might be disappointed, but I stayed on. I waited for the Time Traveller. I waited for the second story, which would perhaps be even stranger. I waited for the specimens and photographs he would bring with him. But I am beginning now to fear that I must wait a lifetime. The Time Traveller vanished three years ago. And, as everybody knows now, he has never returned.

### Glossary

- **knuckles**: the bones where your fingers join your hand
- **gynæceum**: the female part of a flower
- **cab**: a carriage with a horse that you pay to ride in, like a taxi
- **ebony**: a very hard, black wood
- **quartz**: a hard, clear stone that looks like glass
- **gaudy lie**: a showy, colourful lie
- **hoax**: a trick to make people believe something false
- **knapsack**: a bag carried on the back
- **specimens**: examples of plants, animals or things, kept to study or to show
- **skylight**: a window in a roof

## Epilogue

I cannot stop wondering about it. Will he ever return? Perhaps he went back into the past. Perhaps he fell among the hairy, blood-drinking savages of the Age of Unpolished Stone. Perhaps he went into the deep waters of the Cretaceous Sea. Or he may be among the strange giant lizards, the huge reptile beasts of the Jurassic times. Even now, if I may say it like this, he may be wandering on some Oolitic coral reef, where plesiosaurs swim. Or he may be beside the lonely salt seas of the Triassic Age. Or did he go forward, into one of the nearer ages? Perhaps men are still men there, but the riddles of our own time are answered. Perhaps our tiring problems are solved there. Perhaps he went into the time when the human race is fully grown. I, for my own part, cannot believe that our time is the highest point of man’s history. Our days are full of weak experiments, broken theories and arguments between people. I say this for my own part. I know that he thought differently. We had talked about the question long before the Time Machine was made. He did not feel hopeful about the Advancement of Mankind. To him, civilisation was only a foolish pile that grew higher and higher. He believed that in the end it must fall back on the people who built it and destroy them. If that is so, we must still live as if it were not so. But to me the future is still black and empty. It is a great unknown, with light in only a few places from the memory of his story. And I keep two strange white flowers near me, for my comfort. They are dry now, and brown and flat, and they break easily. They show me something important. Even when mind and strength had gone, thankfulness and tender love for each other still lived on in the heart of man.

### Glossary

- **savages**: people from a very early time, who lived in a wild, simple way
- **the Age of Unpolished Stone**: a very early time, when people made rough tools from stone
- **reptile**: an animal with cold blood and a skin of scales, like a snake or a lizard
- **Cretaceous, Jurassic, Triassic**: very old periods in the earth’s history, when dinosaurs lived
- **Oolitic coral reef**: a line of rock in a warm, shallow sea, from the Jurassic time
- **plesiosaurs**: large sea reptiles with long necks that lived millions of years ago
- **riddles**: questions or problems that are hard to understand or answer
- **the Advancement of Mankind**: the idea that people keep getting better and wiser over time
- **civilisation**: the way of life of a developed human society, with its cities, laws and science