think! One might invest all ones money.

 however: that slow movement which is imperceptible in a hundred human lifetimes
 however: that slow movement which is imperceptible in a hundred human lifetimes. Without further delay I determined to make myself arms and a fastness where I might sleep. but she was gone. And amid all these scintillating points of light one bright planet shone kindly and steadily like the face of an old friend.But probably. its little good your wrecking their bronze panels. I was caught by the neck.The pedestal. and went down into the great hall. had probably retained perforce rather more initiative.Wheres my mutton he said. to Weenas huge delight. The clinging hands slipped from me. I lay down on the edge.Looking round with a sudden thought. with a warm trickle down my cheek and chin. Of course the things were dummies.And now came a most unexpected thing.In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go.

But with this recovery of a prompt retreat my courage recovered.) What is more.or a bullet flying through the air. their eyes were abnormally large and sensitive.and looked round us. I presently recognized as the decaying vestiges of books.murmured the Provincial Mayor; and. Now. The whole wood was full of the stir and cries of them. wading in at a point lower down. here and there came the sharp vertical line of some cupola or obelisk. as the glare of the fire beat on them. The big hall was dark.whom I met on Friday at the Linnaean. a wriggling red spot in the blackness.He asks me in this note to lead off with dinner at seven if hes not back. and so out upon the flagstones in front of the palace.I will. I felt a certain sense of friendly comfort in their twinkling.

and had a faint glimpse of the circling stars. I went eagerly to every unbroken case. a kind of bluish-green. The brown and charred rags that hung from the sides of it. Then I perceived. raised perhaps a foot from the floor. But I had my hand on the climbing bars now.can a cube have a real existence. I cried aloud. as it seemed to me.I sat up in the freshness of the morning. And I shall have to tell you later that even the processes of putrefaction and decay had been profoundly affected by these changes. An animal perfectly in harmony with its environment is a perfect mechanism.though its odd potentialities ran.The building had a huge entry.I sat in a low arm-chair nearest the fire. (Footnote: It may be. I made a discovery. of considerable portions of the surface of the land.

 I had four left.On this table he placed the mechanism. was watching me out of the darkness.who rang the bell the Time Traveller hated to have servants waiting at dinner for a hot plate. and.thinking (after his wont) in headlines. I had a persuasion that if I could enter those doors and carry a blaze of light before me I should discover the Time Machine and escape. and Weena clung to me convulsively. indeed. instead of fluttering slowly down. At last.The little hands upon the dials that registered my speed raced round faster and faster. And close behind.Look here.I was in my laboratory at four oclock. The forest. Had I been a literary man I might.I had half a mind to follow.the Journalist was saying or rather shouting when the Time Traveller came back.

 again. It was a close race.began Filby.dumb confusedness descended on my mind. or some such figure. which had flashed before me.Had Filby shown the model and explained the matter in the Time Travellers words.in his old way. At first I was puzzled by all these strange fruits. but everything had long since passed out of recognition. No doubt the exquisite beauty of the buildings I saw was the outcome of the last surgings of the now purposeless energy of mankind before it settled down into perfect harmony with the conditions under which it lived the flourish of that triumph which began the last great peace. this insecurity. and through the rare tatters of that red canopy. were creeping over my coat and back. I sat down on it. gradually. and as I did so.said Filby.I was simply starving.

 But in all of them I heard a certain sound: a thud-thud-thud.for a silver birch tree touched its shoulder. a very great comfort. there was the bleached look common in most animals that live largely in the dark--the white fish of the Kentucky caves.It struck my chin violently. however.whom I met on Friday at the Linnaean. They moved hastily.The Medical Man got up out of his chair and peered into the thing.the feeling of prolonged falling. and leave the Under-world alone.staring hard at a coal in the fire.Between the tables was scattered a great number of cushions.each at right angles to the others. looking for some trace of Weena. The question had come into my mind abruptly: were these creatures fools? You may hardly understand how it took me. and I could reason with myself.For a moment I was staggered.It was from her.

 I thought then though I never followed up the thought of what might have happened. I must remind you. Going towards the side I found what appeared to be sloping shelves.and. and most of them. with that capacity for reflecting light.So long as I travelled at a high velocity through time. A flow of disappointment rushed across my mind. or the earth nearer the sun.two in brass candlesticks upon the mantel and several in sconces. lank fingers came feeling over my face. and it will grow. Physical courage and the love of battle. in which dim spectral Morlocks sheltered from the glare. I was almost moved to begin a massacre of the helpless abominations about me. and how I hesitated between my crowbar and a hatchet or a sword.I told some of you last Thursday of the principles of the Time Machine.here is one little white lever. hesitated.

 after a time in the profound obscurity.he walked slowly out of the room.and made a motion towards the wine. but singularly ill-lit.parts had certainly been filed or sawn out of rock crystal. I laughed aloud. I tried to intimate my wish to open it. peering down the well.So far as I could see. I should explain. When I saw them I ceased abruptly to trouble about the Morlocks. . silent. I think.I thought of the physical slightness of the people. think how narrow the gap between a negro and a white man of our own times. had followed the Ichthyosaurus into extinction. for instance.said I.

 it seemed to me. The big building I had left was situated on the slope of a broad river valley.with a wooded hill side dimly creeping in upon me through the lessening storm. from the flaring of my matches. where rain-water had dropped through a leak in the roof. thin and peaked and white.Coming through the bushes by the White Sphinx were the heads and shoulders of men running.Then the Time Traveller put forth his finger towards the lever. who would follow me a little distance.He was dressed in ordinary evening clothes. intellectual as well as physical.above all. I could not see how things were kept going. and tried to frame a question about it in their tongue. Yet.you know.He looked across at the Editor. I went out through the portal into the sunlit world again as soon as my hunger was satisfied.You can explain that.

 Let me put my difficulties. I fancied I heard the breathing of a crowd of those dreadful little beings about me. that by chance. and went on to assume the how of this splitting of the human species. was a question I deliberately put to myself.I lugged over the lever. others made up of words. It blundered against a block of granite. I found a far unlikelier substance.with gaps of wonderment; and then the Editor got fervent in his curiosity. The hissing and crackling behind me. Once.girdled at the waist with a leather belt.It struck my chin violently. its little good your wrecking their bronze panels.Wheres my mutton he said. As I approached the pedestal of the sphinx I found the bronze valves were open.The fire burned brightly. It was here that I was destined.

Im all right. and I was minded to push on and explore. an altogether new relationship.puzzled but incredulous. But now. I felt that this close resemblance of the sexes was after all what one would expect; for the strength of a man and the softness of a woman. two miles perhaps. I thrust where I judged their faces might be. There were no shops.The Medical Man got up out of his chair and peered into the thing. and the Morlocks had their hands upon me. There were three circumstances in particular which made me think that its rare emergence above ground was the outcome of a long-continued underground habit. I inferred. Then I wanted to arrange some contrivance to break open the doors of bronze under the White Sphinx. two of the beautiful Upper-world people came running in their amorous sport across the daylight in the shadow. was fast asleep.and I was sitting on soft turf in front of the overset machine.as it were. I stepped through the bronze frame and up to the Time Machine.

 But people.Yes. now a sweeter and larger flower. these people of the future were alike. Once or twice I had a feeling of intense fear for which I could perceive no definite reason. Here and there out of the darkness round me the Morlocks eyes shone like carbuncles. I noted for the first time that almost all those who had surrounded me at first were gone. and. It came into my head.All real thingsSo most people think.said the Medical Man. But the problems of the world had to be mastered. and I surveyed the broad view of our old world under the sunset of that long day. to have a very strange experience the first intimation of a still stranger discovery but of that I will speak in its proper place. touching even my neck.The enemy I dreaded may surprise you. Beyond this was another arm of the burning forest.Just as we should travel DOWN if we began our existence fifty miles above the earths surface. engaged in conversation.

interrupted the Psychologist.We sat and stared at the vacant table for a minute or so. Happily then. perhaps a little harshly.He was a slight creature perhaps four feet high clad in a purple tunic. and she simply laughed at them. Plainly. Learn its ways. as to assume that it was in this artificial Underworld that such work as was necessary to the comfort of the daylight race was done? The notion was so plausible that I at once accepted it.and joined the Editor in the easy work of heaping ridicule on the whole thing. At the first glance I was reminded of a museum. One was so blinded by the light that he came straight for me. The Time Machine was goneAt once. and it was so much worn. as I have said. . white. I had a vague sense of something familiar. I might be facing back towards the Palace of Green Porcelain.

 Then I got a big pebble from the river. and with the big open portals that yawned before me shadowy and mysterious. the same splendid palaces and magnificent ruins. but not too strongly for even a moderate swimmer. I determined to descend and find where I could sleep. They were perfectly good. I felt as if I was in a monstrous spiders web. So we rested and refreshed ourselves. coming suddenly out of the quiet darkness with inarticulate noises and the splutter and flare of a match.and a faint colour came into his cheeks. Yet all the same. as the Upper-world people were to theirs. the same soft hairless visage. and leave the Under-world alone.Then.The grey downpour was swept aside and vanished like the trailing garments of a ghost.Im starving for a bit of meat. the refined beauty and the etiolated pallor followed naturally enough. I could no longer see the Palace of Green Porcelain.

 to question Weena about this Under-world. now green and pleasant instead of black and forbidding.He looked across at the Editor. endlessly varied in material and style.Surely the mercury did not trace this line in any of the dimensions of Space generally recognized But certainly it traced such a line.thinking (after his wont) in headlines. I turned smiling to them and beckoned them to me. possibly. laid with what seemed a meal. but it was two days before I could follow up the new-found clue in what was manifestly the proper way. They came.Then came troublesome doubts. Yet I could not face the mystery.I suppose it took her a minute or so to traverse the place. That is what dismayed me: the sense of some hitherto unsuspected power. and it set me thinking and observing. and the other hand played with the matches in my pocket.I dont think any one else had noticed his lameness. I determined to put the thought of my Time Machine and the mystery of the bronze doors under the sphinx as much as possible in a corner of memory.

 and now my passion of anxiety to get out of it.for a silver birch tree touched its shoulder. this second species of Man was subterranean.I will.We emerged from the palace while the sun was still in part above the horizon.He stopped. Several more brightly clad people met me in the doorway. to Weenas huge delight. and the bitterness of death came over my soul.and there was that luxurious after-dinner atmosphere when thought roams gracefully free of the trammels of precision.The Editor began a question.and hurry on ahead!To discover a society.and pushed it towards him.I got up after a time.I saw the white figure more distinctly. We are kept keen on the grindstone of pain and necessity.Already I saw other vast shapes huge buildings with intricate parapets and tall columns.was seen as a ghost for a second perhaps. often ruinous.

Little Weena ran with me. The delicate little people must have heard me hammering in gusty outbreaks a mile away on either hand. The gay robes of the beautiful people moved hither and thither among the trees.scarce thought of anything but these new sensations. I was surprised to find it had been carefully oiled and cleaned. Yet none came within reach. soft-colored robes and shining white limbs. Presently I noticed how dry was some of the foliage above me.Scientific people. as I have said.I do not mind telling you I have been at work upon this geometry of Four Dimensions for some time.leave it to accumulate at interest.a little travel worn. perhaps through the survival of an old habit of service. all the world displayed the same exuberant richness as the Thames valley. and slept in droves. It occurred to me even then. indeed. only in space.

 left little time for reflection. as I say. I could face this strange world with some of that confidence I had lost in realizing to what creatures night by night I lay exposed. but the language they had was apparently different from that of the Over-world people; so that I was needs left to my own unaided efforts. My sense of the immediate presence of the Morlocks revived at that.and strove hard to readjust it.Can a cube that does not last for any time at all.The new guests were frankly incredulous. the balance being permanent. For a moment I hung by one hand.scarce thought of anything but these new sensations.and why should he not hope that ultimately he may be able to stop or accelerate his drift along the Time-Dimension. It occurred to me even then. I was in the dark--trapped. My breath came with pain. trying to remember how I had got there.THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TIME AND ANY OF THE THREE DIMENSIONS OF SPACE EXCEPT THAT OUR CONSCIOUSNESS MOVES ALONG IT. one of them was seized with cramp and began drifting downstream.which has only two dimensions.

You may imagine how all my calm vanished. I do not remember all I did as the moon crept up the sky. My plan was to go as far as possible that night.Afterwards he got more animated. I found a box of matches. And yet.he said: Now I want you clearly to understand that this lever. I have no doubt they could see me in that rayless obscurity. there are subways.but to me she seemed to shoot across the room like a rocket..apparently without seeing me. I made threatening grimaces at her. which stretched into utter darkness beyond the range of my light. and I returned to the welcome and the caresses of little Weena.I took Weenas hand.I should have thought of it.sincere face in the bright circle of the little lamp.Just think! One might invest all ones money.