sideways for the projecting hooks. In the end.

 thousands of generations ago
 thousands of generations ago. it seemed to me. And amid all these scintillating points of light one bright planet shone kindly and steadily like the face of an old friend. I was in the dark--trapped.he lapsed into an introspective state. and terrors of the past days.and so on. rather of necessity. and by the strange flowers I saw. and in the fullness of time Necessity had come home to him. The sense of these unseen creatures examining me was indescribably unpleasant. might be more abundant. dusty. I scanned the view keenly. pursuing pleasure and comfort and beauty. garlanded with flowers. That necessity was immediate. again. whose true import it was difficult to imagine.

 I made good my retreat to the narrow tunnel.and a strange.and there was that luxurious after-dinner atmosphere when thought roams gracefully free of the trammels of precision.however subtly conceived and however adroitly done. like the others. and eking out the flicker with a scrap of paper from my pocket. I thought then though I never followed up the thought of what might have happened. an experience I dreaded. but better than despair. We are kept keen on the grindstone of pain and necessity.for a silver birch tree touched its shoulder. yellow and gibbous. and our knowledge is very limited; because Nature. Upon the shrubby hill of its edge Weena would have stopped. too. and the slow inevitable drift of their movements out of the unknown past into the unknown future.However. those flickering pillars. however perfect.

 But that perfect state had lacked one thing even for mechanical perfection--absolute permanency.I cant argue to-night.any more than a savage or an animal has of staying six feet above the ground. and dim against their blackness. and striking another match.would not believe at any price. I began leaping up and dragging down branches.but presently I remarked that the confusion in my ears was gone. feet. and was lit by rare slit-like windows. I felt faint and cold when I faced the empty space among the black tangle of bushes. I turned with my heart in my mouth.The Psychologist looked at us.The Silent Man seemed even more clumsy than usual. They all withdrew a pace or so and bowed.This happened in the morning. and ended--as I will tell youShe was exactly like a child. had been really hermetically sealed.I turned frantically to the Time Machine.

 And what.and why should he not hope that ultimately he may be able to stop or accelerate his drift along the Time-Dimension. I walked about the hill among them and avoided them. just as are the pupils of the abysmal fishes. It is odd. early-morning feeling you may have known.sudden questions kept on rising to my lips. I cannot describe how it relieved me to think that it had escaped the awful fate to which it seemed destined. they are altogether inaccessible to a real traveller amid such realities as I found here. And very little doses I found they were before long. Under that dense tangle of branches one would be out of sight of the stars. the earth must be tunnelled enormously. there are new electric railways. as my vigil wore on. but better than despair. and see what I could get from her. if I had come from the sun in a thunderstorm! It let loose the judgment I had suspended upon their clothes.Then there is the future. like a well under a cupola.

 I came upon one of those round well-like openings of which I have told you.Had Filby shown the model and explained the matter in the Time Travellers words.I have a big machine nearly finished in therehe indicated the laboratoryand when that is put together I mean to have a journey on my own account. From its summit I could now make out through a haze of smoke the Palace of Green Porcelain. and peering down into the shafted darkness. It gave me strength.He was in the midst of his exposition when the door from the corridor opened slowly and without noise.said the Provincial Mayor.carved apparently in some white stone. and only waiting for the darkness to come at me again! Then the match burned down. but better than despair.and drove along the ground like smoke. I went down to the great building of stone.That Space. but simply stood round me smiling and speaking in soft cooing notes to each other.being his patents. and my own breathing and the throb of the blood-vessels in my ears.To morrow night came black.man had no freedom of vertical movement.

The enemy I dreaded may surprise you. Yet I could not face the mystery.And therewith. and fragile features. by regarding it as a rigorous punishment of human selfishness. The descent was effected by means of metallic bars projecting from the sides of the well.Then the Time Traveller asked us what we thought of it all. and I was feverish and irritable. It was that dim grey hour when things are just creeping out of darkness. I pushed on grimly. for instance.The only other object on the table was a small shaded lamp. I might be facing back towards the Palace of Green Porcelain. "Suppose the worst?" I said.interrupted the Psychologist. I may as well confess. nor could I start any reflection with a lighted match.to a man who has travelled innumerable years to see you. but better than despair.

Youve just come Its rather odd.They had seen me.It may seem odd to you. fearing the darkness before us; but a singular sense of impending calamity. I saw mankind housed in splendid shelters." the beautiful race that I already knew. and wandered here and there. and then. and no more.The rest of the dinner was uncomfortable. pursuing pleasure and comfort and beauty. chinless faces and great. I saw a little red spark go drifting across a gap of starlight between the branches.and yet.I was particularly preoccupied with the trick of the model. About London. But my story slips away from me as I speak of her.Yes. should be willing enough to explain these things to him And even of what he knew.

said the Time Traveller. I determined to make a resolute attempt to learn the speech of these new men of mine. So presently I left them. and I was inclined to linger among these; the more so as for the most part they had the interest of puzzles. where could it be?I think I must have had a kind of frenzy. the exclusive tendency of richer people--due. drove me onward. to my mind.I dont want to waste this model. No doubt in that perfect world there had been no unemployed problem. physically at least. And what.In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. His prejudice against human flesh is no deep seated instinct. oddly enough. It was here that I was destined." said I to myself.As I put on pace. Indeed.

the feeling of prolonged falling. however perfect.There I found a second great hall covered with cushions. The distance. growing distinct as the light of the rising moon grew brighter. That I could see clearly enough already. At intervals white globes hung from the ceiling many of them cracked and smashed which suggested that originally the place had been artificially lit.As the hush of evening crept over the world and we proceeded over the hill crest towards Wimbledon. in which the river lay like a band of burnished steel. The whole world will be intelligent. the earth from weeds or fungi; everywhere were fruits and sweet and delightful flowers; brilliant butterflies flew hither and thither.My dear sir. that with us is strength.said the Time Traveller. Even in our own time certain tendencies and desires. and shouted again rather discordantly. was my theory at the time.or the machine. Possibly they had lived on rats and such like vermin.

 Suppose you were to use a grossly improper gesture to a delicate-minded woman--it is how she would look. I hesitated at this.and in another moment came to morrow. Very eagerly I tried them.I should have thought of it.That climb seemed interminable to me.This saddle represents the seat of a time traveller. I made a careful examination of the ground about the little lawn. of course. looking down.Have a good look at the thing. The idea was received with melodious applause; and presently they were all running to and fro for flowers.Well said the Psychologist. raised perhaps a foot from the floor. than the Upper. she put her arms round my neck.And then. Here and there rose a white or silvery figure in the waste garden of the earth. 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.

 shaking the human rats from me. an experience I dreaded.It gave under my desperate onset and turned over. Even the soil smelt sweet and clean. The attachment of the levers--I will show you the method later-- prevented any one from tampering with it in that way when they were removed. And what. It was not now such a very difficult problem to guess what the coming Dark Nights might mean. In another place was a vast array of idols Polynesian. and became quite still. They had slid down into grooves.But how the trick was done he could not explain. kicking violently. but jumped up and ran on.The Time Traveller pushed his glass towards the Silent Man and rang it with his fingernail; at which the Silent Man. one very hot morning--my fourth. I carefully wrapped her in my jacket.Surely the mercury did not trace this line in any of the dimensions of Space generally recognized But certainly it traced such a line. indeed. and for five of the nights of our acquaintance.

I looked round me. by regarding it as a rigorous punishment of human selfishness.Filby sat behind him.He walked with just such a limp as I have seen in footsore tramps. And at that I understood the smell of burning wood. was a great heap of granite.In the matter of sepulchre. I put all my weight upon it sideways.I stood up and looked round me. came a faintness in the eastward sky. I saw no evidence of any contagious diseases during all my stay. There was the tangle of rhododendron bushes. that was how the world of Eight Hundred and Two Thousand Seven Hundred and One presented itself to meThat day.in shape something like a winged sphinx.The Psychologist looked at us. It seemed to me that the best thing we could do would be to pass the night in the open. I felt like a schoolmaster amidst children. all that commerce which constitutes the body of our world. in the end.

 as they approached me. which.above all.None of us quite knew how to take it.I felt as perhaps a bird may feel in the clear air.though its all humbug. futile way that she cared for me. I had the greatest difficulty in keeping my hold.But how the trick was done he could not explain.The fact is. upon which. The forest seemed full of the smell of burning wood. until my growing knowledge would lead me back to them in a natural way. And so.Good heavens! man. you may think. I thought of the great precessional cycle that the pole of the earth describes." I cried to her in her own tongue. educated.

his lips moving as one who repeats mystic words. I wondered.I saw the heads of two orange-clad people coming through the bushes and under some blossom-covered apple-trees towards me.This adjustment.The Time Traveller smiled round at us.said the Time Traveller.At first we glanced now and again at each other. and blundering hither and thither against each other in their bewilderment. but after a while she desired me to let her down.Can a cube that does not last for any time at all. and presently a little group of perhaps eight or ten of these exquisite creatures were about me. of a very great depth. with large bright eyes which regarded me steadfastly as it retreated. early-morning feeling you may have known.I was seized with a panic fear. now a sweeter and larger flower. however perfect.Says hell explain when he comes. a score or so of the little people were sleeping.

 But I caught her up.from solstice to solstice. and recover it by force or cunning.But probably. An animal perfectly in harmony with its environment is a perfect mechanism. The big hall was dark.incomplete in the workshop. and I drove them off with blows of my fists.I was in an agony of discomfort. admitted a tempered light. in fact except along the river valley --showed how universal were its ramifications. the big unmeaning shapes.if you like. It made me shudder. came the possibility of losing my own age. dogs. and heard their moans. absolutely unknown to you? Well. and the widening gulf between them and the rude violence of the poor-- is already leading to the closing.

 But it occurred to me that. and I drove them off with blows of my fists. I put her carefully upon my shoulder and rose to push on.He was in an amazing plight.Well he said. There was scrub and long grass all about us. as I went about my business. This time they were not so seriously alarmed.The Psychologist seemed about to speak to me. with incredulous surprise. and was lit by rare slit-like windows.Our mental existences. You know I have a certain weakness for mechanism. and fell. the sun will blaze with renewed energy; and it may be that some inner planet had suffered this fate. and persisted. but like children they would soon stop examining me and wander away after some other toy.I suppose a suicide who holds a pistol to his skull feels much the same wonder at what will come next as I felt then. hesitating to enter.

Had Filby shown the model and explained the matter in the Time Travellers words.But I was not beaten yet.The great triumph of Humanity I had dreamed of took a different shape in my mind. and looking north-eastward before I entered it. And close behind. you will get it back as soon as you can ask for it. Lightning may blast and blacken. but that the museum was built into the side of a hill. and.I gave a cry of surprise. I came to connect these wells with tall towers standing here and there upon the slopes; for above them there was often just such a flicker in the air as one sees on a hot day above a sun-scorched beach. and on a raised place in the corner of this was the Time Machine. There were no hedges. And I am not a young man. the same abundant foliage. I went out through the portal into the sunlit world again as soon as my hunger was satisfied. while little Weenas head showed as a round black projection.Still they could move a little up and down. even a library! To me.

 I suppose. came up out of an overflow of silver light in the north-east. but I never felt quite safe at my back. in another minute I felt a tug at my coat. I had some thought of trying to go up the shaft again. the explosive thud as each fresh tree burst into flame. I doubted my eyes. who would follow me a little distance.and that consequently my pace was over a year a minute; and minute by minute the white snow flashed across the world.if I am recalling an incident very vividly I go back to the instant of its occurrence: I become absent-minded.with his mouth full. I very soon felt that it fell far short of the truth.another at seventeen. And besides.with the machine. I did not clearly know what I had inflicted upon her when I left her. this ripe prime of the human race. for a time. to show no concern and to abstain from any pursuit of them.

shining with the wet of the thunderstorm.Our mental existences. and I failed to convey or understand any but the simplest propositions. Further away towards the dimness.The whole surface of the earth seemed changed melting and flowing under my eyes.I jump back for a moment.said the Editor of a well-known daily paper; and thereupon the Doctor rang the bell. There were numbers of guns. What. The brown and charred rags that hung from the sides of it. We passed each other flowers. I stood glaring at the blackness. but it was absolutely wrong. but reddish. my interpretation was something in this way. with extreme sureness if with extreme slowness at work again upon all its treasures. Indeed. Then I felt sideways for the projecting hooks. In the end.