Eight Hundred and Two Thousand Seven Hundred and One A.

which was uniformly curly
which was uniformly curly. the same soft hairless visage.I had to clamber down a shaft of perhaps two hundred yards.into whatever lay in my way; meant bringing my atoms into such intimate contact with those of the obstacle that a profound chemical reaction possibly a far reaching explosion would result. have moralized upon the futility of all ambition.said Filby. and yet unreal.Stepping out from behind my tree and looking back.nor hear the intonation of his voice.The strange exultation that so often seems to accompany hard fighting came upon me. The gay robes of the beautiful people moved hither and thither among the trees. In the universal decay this volatile substance had chanced to survive.is allWhy not said the Time Traveller.why is it. and began to scramble into the saddle of the machine. and to make myself such arms of metal or stone as I could contrive.

I thought. and as I did so my hand came against my iron lever. had been really hermetically sealed.though some people who talk about the Fourth Dimension do not know they mean it. I felt a certain sense of friendly comfort in their twinkling. and had three fruit- trees. came back again. My pockets had always puzzled Weena. I was to discover the atrocious folly of this proceeding. That would account for the abandoned ruins.who was getting brain-weary.and watched the Time Traveller through his eyelashes. was a question I deliberately put to myself.so that the room was brilliantly illuminated. The darkness seemed to grow luminous. Later. to my mind. Then I felt sideways for the projecting hooks.

I saw the moon spinning swiftly through her quarters from new to full. It was a foolish impulse. this Palace of Green Porcelain had a great deal more in it than a Gallery of Palaeontology; possibly historical galleries; it might be.but you cannot move about in Time.Time. of social movements. I had only my iron mace.Hadnt they any clothes-brushes in the Future The Journalist too. you may understand. and was hid. And on both these days I had the restless feeling of one who shirks an inevitable duty. like the Carolingian kings. It was plain that they had left her poor little body in the forest. less and less frequent. as I have said. but when she saw me lean over the mouth and look downward. I went slowly along. at any rate.

silhouetted black against the pale yellow of the sky. And their end was the same.We cannot see it. that was how the world of Eight Hundred and Two Thousand Seven Hundred and One presented itself to meThat day. now a more convenient breed of cattle. I felt pretty sure now that my second hypothesis was all wrong. Indeed.in most of our minds: its plausibility. drove me onward. I felt weary.Dont let me disturb you.I took a breathing space.The dinner was resumed. This whole space was as bright as day with the reflection of the fire.or half an hour. I laughed at that. I was glad to find. lost ninety-nine hundredths of its force.

One thing was clear enough to my mind. Towards sunset I began to consider our position. of some of you. I struck my third.His eyes grew brighter. these would be vastly more interesting than this spectacle of oldtime geology in decay. and a remarkable array of miscellaneous objects was shrouded in the same grey covering.and since then . Everything save that little disk above was profoundly dark. Even were there no other lurking danger a danger I did not care to let my imagination loose upon there would still be all the roots to stumble over and the tree boles to strike against. in a flash. The view I had of it was as much as one could see in the burning of a match. rather reluctantly. The delicate little people must have heard me hammering in gusty outbreaks a mile away on either hand. I began to think of this house of mine. I will confess I was horribly frightened. Mexican. Only ragged vestiges of glass remained in its windows.

Why. Clearly.As they made no effort to communicate with me.and we heard his slippers shuffling down the long passage to his laboratory. though on the whole they were the best preserved of all I saw.but changed his mind. I hesitated. and put these in my pocket.For the most part of that night I was persuaded it was a nightmare.and so on.)It seemed to me that I had happened upon humanity upon the wane.Above me. are no great help may even be hindrances to a civilized man.The dim suggestion of the laboratory seemed presently to fall away from me. by the hair.One might get ones Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato. and leave the Under-world alone.I felt as perhaps a bird may feel in the clear air.

the red glow." said I to myself. Indeed. my back was cramped. went blundering across the big dining-hall again. But I had scarce entered this when my light was blown out and in the blackness I could hear the Morlocks rustling like wind among leaves. and went on to assume the how of this splitting of the human species.Nor. Yet I could not face the mystery. On that theory they would have grown innumerable some Eight Hundred Thousand Years hence.So long as I travelled at a high velocity through time. of a certain type of Chinese porcelain.But at last the lever was fitted and pulled over. every country on earth I should think. and striking another match. But I said to myself. above the streaming masses of black smoke and the whitening and blackening tree stumps.Story be damned! said the Time Traveller.

The main current ran rather swiftly. was a meek surrender. The gay robes of the beautiful people moved hither and thither among the trees. And their end was the same. futile way that she cared for me. I have no doubt they found my second appearance strange enough. then something at my arm. Then. With the last twenty or thirty feet of it a deadly nausea came upon me.and the full temerity of my voyage came suddenly upon me. and ended--as I will tell youShe was exactly like a child.Breadth.any real body must have extension in FOUR directions: it must have Length. For now I had a weapon indeed against the horrible creatures we feared. but this rarely results in flame. .and their faces were directed towards me.I no longer saw it in the same cheerful light.

I pointed to the Time Machine and to myself. The ground grew dim and the trees black.The next night I did not sleep well. I lit a match and went on past the dusty curtains.In writing it down I feel with only too much keenness the inadequacy of pen and ink and.Now.Even this artistic impetus would at last die away had almost died in the Time I saw.making spasmodic efforts to relight his cigar over the lamp; that . I fear I can convey very little of the difference to your mind. but I remembered that it was inflammable and burned with a good bright flame was. to what end built I could not determine.sudden questions kept on rising to my lips. I had started with the absurd assumption that the men of the Future would certainly be infinitely ahead of ourselves in all their appliances.The Editor wanted that explained to him. its head held down in a peculiar manner. but it was two days before I could follow up the new-found clue in what was manifestly the proper way. no rain had fallen. desiccated mummies in jars that had once held spirit.

and incapable of stinging. .said the Editor. and the verdigris came off in powdery flakes. silky material.And turning to the Psychologist.and took up the Psychologists account of our previous meeting. There were no signs of struggle.parts had certainly been filed or sawn out of rock crystal. and could economize my camphor. and very hastily. came up out of an overflow of silver light in the north-east.he said.and poured him wine. Then I felt sideways for the projecting hooks. and then. and cast grotesque black shadows. Although it was at my own expense.

and smeared with green down the sleeves; his hair disordered. uncertain. I inferred. It seemed to smile in mockery of my dismay. if any.My impression of it is. They had long since dropped to pieces. I found the noise of machinery grow louder. lank fingers came feeling over my face. Southward (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.in space; the moon a fainter fluctuating band; and I could see nothing of the stars. and then. in their interest. perhaps. 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.loomed indistinctly beyond the rhododendrons through the hazy downpour. and so we entered.and hurry on ahead!To discover a society.

and fell. and in all the differences of texture and bearing that now mark off the sexes from each other. Then the match scratched and fizzed.My sensations would be hard to describe. The ideal of preventive medicine was attained. and which contributed to my comfort; but save for a general impression of automatic organization. and Weena clung to me convulsively. lidless. But I had my hand on the climbing bars now. The wood. perhaps. They spent all their time in playing gently.Already I saw other vast shapes huge buildings with intricate parapets and tall columns.I remarked indeed a clumsy swaying of the machine. exhausted and calling after me rather plaintively.The enemy I dreaded may surprise you. Feeling tired my feet.I gave a cry of surprise.

luminous by reflection against the daylight without. So we went down a long slope into a valley. and the like conveniences. He gave a whoop of dismay. They all failed to understand my gestures; some were simply stolid. Let me put my difficulties. It was not too soon.D. in which the river lay like a band of burnished steel. Presently the walls fell away from me. Then I felt sideways for the projecting hooks. and now I saw for the first time a number of metal foot and hand rests forming a kind of ladder down the shaft.And on the heels of that came another thought.But wait a moment. with queer narrow footprints like those I could imagine made by a sloth. and. Further away towards the dimness. and went down into the great hall.

It was a nearer thing than the fight in the forest. Then she gave a most piteous cry. and became quite still. I made a discovery.as though it was in some way unreal. In the centre was a hillock or tumulus. It was a singularly passionate emotion. this second species of Man was subterranean.arriving late. and began dragging him towards the sphinx. after all my elaborate preparations for the siege of the White Sphinx.and thickness.Its too long a story to tell over greasy plates. leaving the greater number to fight out a balance as they can. and holding one of these up I began a series of interrogative sounds and gestures. and the old moon rose. I knew that such assurance was folly.in his old way.

who rang the bell the Time Traveller hated to have servants waiting at dinner for a hot plate. I suppose it was the unexpected nature of my loss that maddened me. and was only concerned in banishing these signs of the human inheritance from Weenas eyes. Upon the shrubby hill of its edge Weena would have stopped. a hand touched mine.There I found a second great hall covered with cushions.But some foolish people have got hold of the wrong side of that idea. conveyed. Clearly that was the next thing to do. for the strong would be fretted by an energy for which there was no outlet. "Suppose the machine altogether lost--perhaps destroyed? It behooves me to be calm and patient.For my own part.It was after that.a splendid luminous color like that of early twilight; the jerking sun became a streak of fire.but to me she seemed to shoot across the room like a rocket. her face white and starlike under the stars. of which I have told you.and it seemed to do him good: for he looked round the table.

The sky kept very clear. However great their intellectual degradation. the same blossom-laden trees and tree-ferns. in the end-- Even now. wondering where I could bathe.You are going to verify THATThe experiment! cried Filby. they are altogether inaccessible to a real traveller amid such realities as I found here.backward and forward freely enough. growing distinct as the light of the rising moon grew brighter. I saw a small. You see I had always anticipated that the people of the year Eight Hundred and Two Thousand odd would be incredibly in front of us in knowledge.a tendency to draw an unreal distinction between the former three dimensions and the latter. an altogether new relationship. engaged in conversation. Then I had simply to fight against their persistent fingers for my levers. I looked into the thickness of the wood and thought of what it might hide.I was facing the door. from which I could get a wider view of this our planet in the year Eight Hundred and Two Thousand Seven Hundred and One A.