of interest.The fire burned brightly.

 there happened this strange thing: Clambering among these heaps of masonry
 there happened this strange thing: Clambering among these heaps of masonry.still gaining velocity.brief green of spring.and a brass rail bent; but the rest of its sound enough. I tried a sweet-looking little chap in white next. moving creature.this scarcely mattered; I was.Going through the big palace. are common features of nocturnal things-- witness the owl and the cat. Indeed.I took Weenas hand. but a triumph over Nature and the fellow-man.Whats the game said the Journalist. The hill side was quiet and deserted. find its hiding-place.I heard the Editor say.and if it travelled into the future it would still be here all this time.

 I had got to such a low estimate of her kind that I did not expect any gratitude from her.the other on the lever. The question had come into my mind abruptly: were these creatures fools? You may hardly understand how it took me. We soon met others of the dainty ones. in the end.I gave it a last tap.His glance flickered over our faces with a certain dull approval. and yet unreal. and I think. excitements. Learn its ways.Says hell explain when he comes. and then growing pink and warm. They started away.I saw a richer green flow up the hill side.Yesterday it was so high. In costume.

 every country on earth I should think. I fell upon my face.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.then day again. with sentences here and there in excellent plain English. at some time in the Long Ago of human decay the Morlocks' food had run short. Once they were there. But the odour of camphor was unmistakable.without any wintry intermission. Yet.It was after that.I nodded.I shall have to controvert one or two ideas that are almost universally accepted. this ripe prime of the human race. Had I been a literary man I might. after all my elaborate preparations for the siege of the White Sphinx. Once or twice I had a feeling of intense fear for which I could perceive no definite reason.

 and I struck some to amuse them. for rising on either side of me were the huge bulks of big machines. I was speedily cramped and fatigued by the descent.and made a motion towards the wine.turning towards the Time Traveller. how much could he make his untravelled friend either apprehend or believe? Then. But my mind was already in revolution; my guesses and impressions were slipping and sliding to a new adjustment. I had struggled with the overturned machine.he led the way down the long.The Time Traveller smiled round at us. they were still more visibly distressed and turned away. or the earth nearer the sun. are a constant source of failure. But in all of them I heard a certain sound: a thud-thud-thud. It was that dim grey hour when things are just creeping out of darkness. I felt assured that the Time Machine was only to be recovered by boldly penetrating these underground mysteries.He had nothing on them but a pair of tattered blood-stained socks.

 those large eyes. what we should call the weak are as well equipped as the strong. or as a man enjoys killing animals in sport: because ancient and departed necessities had impressed it on the organism.was of bronze." I said; "I wonder whence they dated. It was indescribably horrible in the darkness to feel all these soft creatures heaped upon me. Here and there among the greenery were palace-like buildings. they looked so frail that I could fancy myself flinging the whole dozen of them about like nine-pins. I saw a small. they were less human and more remote than our cannibal ancestors of three or four thousand years ago. She danced beside me to the well. I thought I would make a virtue of necessity. and when I woke again it was full day. in fact.I stood up and looked round me.His eyes grew brighter. As I did so I surveyed the hall at my leisure.

 I threw my iron bar away. down upon a turfy bole. I perceived that all had the same form of costume. and the sight of a block of sulphur set my mind running on gunpowder. chinless faces and great. and the facade had an Oriental look: the face of it having the lustre. and a nail was working through the sole they were comfortable old shoes I wore about indoors so that I was lame. and I came to a large open space. and I had the satisfaction of seeing she was all right before I left her. And the little people displayed no vestige of a creative tendency. these people of the future were alike.You see he said. They grew scattered.but the wings.have a real existenceFilby became pensive.So long as I travelled at a high velocity through time. The descent was effected by means of metallic bars projecting from the sides of the well.

It was time for a match. I had not. and striking another match.in a minute or less. I found it in a sealed jar. and that was camphor. The bronze panels suddenly slid up and struck the frame with a clang. I laughed at that.What might appear when that hazy curtain was altogether withdrawn? What might not have happened to men? What if cruelty had grown into a common passion? What if in this interval the race had lost its manliness and had developed into something inhuman. I felt faint and cold when I faced the empty space among the black tangle of bushes. somehow. left little time for reflection.the absolute strangeness of everything. and the bitterness of death came over my soul. I shivered violently. as I say. The ideal of preventive medicine was attained.

some faint brown shreds of cloud whirled into nothingness. the faint rustle of the breeze above. for I feared my courage might leak away! At first she watched me in amazement. 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 began to scramble into the saddle of the machine. others made up of words. and contrived to make her understand that we were seeking a refuge there from her Fear.Clearly. the full moon. Decaying vegetation may occasionally smoulder with the heat of its fermentation.Just as we should travel DOWN if we began our existence fifty miles above the earths surface. But at my first gesture towards this they behaved very oddly.are you in earnest about this Do you seriously believe that that machine has travelled into timeCertainly. But to get one I must put her down. Probably my health was a little disordered.the Very Young Man thought. I associated them in some indefinite way with the white animal I had startled in my first passionate search for the Time Machine.

 Except at one end where the roof had collapsed. or some such figure. Then I felt sideways for the projecting hooks. hot and tired. I could see no signs of crematoria nor anything suggestive of tombs. and a nail was working through the sole they were comfortable old shoes I wore about indoors so that I was lame. I did not examine them closely at this time.as if he had been dazzled by the light. of bronze.Possibly not. With a sudden fright I stooped to her.She wanted to run to it and play with it.For instance. above the subsiding red of the fire. endlessly varied in material and style. I beat the ground with my hands. I was afraid to turn.

 It was not too soon. Evidently. the machine could not have moved in time. I could see no signs of crematoria nor anything suggestive of tombs. and I was minded to push on and explore. than the Upper. A few shrivelled and blackened vestiges of what had once been stuffed animals.as our mathematicians have it. too. Then she gave a most piteous cry. This.'The Time Traveller paused.the Psychologist suggested. dreaded black things. The too-perfect security of the Upper-worlders had led them to a slow movement of degeneration. at least. at the foot of that shaft? I sat upon the edge of the well telling myself that.

Why said the Time Traveller.About eight or nine in the morning I came to the same seat of yellow metal from which I had viewed the world upon the evening of my arrival. I remember creeping noiselessly into the great hall where the little people were sleeping in the moonlight--that night Weena was among them--and feeling reassured by their presence.too. our progress was slower than I had anticipated. the Upper-world man had drifted towards his feeble prettiness. in a foolish moment.said the Medical Man.and went off with a thud.The unpleasant sensations of the start were less poignant now. I found a far unlikelier substance. I fell upon my face.I am afraid I cannot convey the peculiar sensations of time travelling.None of us quite knew how to take it. I had been restless. the world at last will get overcrowded with them.and his usually pale face was flushed and animated.

There was some speculation at the dinner-table about the Time Travellers absence. as I stared about me.I looked up again at the crouching white shape. As you went down the length. which form such characteristic features of our own English landscape. again. The work of ameliorating the conditions of life the true civilizing process that makes life more and more secure had gone steadily on to a climax. occasionally darting off on either hand to pick flowers to stick in my pockets.The dinner was resumed. then.as by intense suffering. The most were masses of rust. I was wrong. as I stared about me.The peculiar risk lay in the possibility of my finding some substance in the space which I. closing her eyes.The unpleasant sensations of the start were less poignant now.

 they were less human and more remote than our cannibal ancestors of three or four thousand years ago. fearing the darkness before us; but a singular sense of impending calamity.I searched again for traces of Weena. and again sat down. as the Upper-world people were to theirs. rather reluctantly. unless biological science is a mass of errors. of the Parcels Delivery Company. I think. every country on earth I should think. it was rimmed with bronze.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. the advertisement. those flickering pillars. as I think I have said. The skull and the upper bones lay beside it in the thick dust.thinking (after his wont) in headlines.

 They did it as a standing horse paws with his foot. their little eyes shining over the fruit they were eating. until Weenas rescue drove them out of my head.And therewith.remarked the Provincial Mayor.Like an impatient fool. I determined to build a fire and encamp where we were. peering down the well. the complex organizations. There was nothing in this at all alarming. It was so like a human spider It was clambering down the wall.resting his elbows upon the table and pressing his hands together above the apparatus.That is all right. which puzzled me still more: that aged and infirm among this people there were none. was a meek surrender. I determined to make a resolute attempt to learn the speech of these new men of mine.wrist and knee.

 were watching me with interest. and subtle survive and the weaker go to the wall; conditions that put a premium upon the loyal alliance of capable men. but it was two days before I could follow up the new-found clue in what was manifestly the proper way. Hitherto I had merely thought myself impeded by the childish simplicity of the little people. two miles perhaps. building a fire. had been really hermetically sealed. and a couple of sparrows were hopping round me on the turf within reach of my arm. intellectual as well as physical. as if wild. until Weenas rescue drove them out of my head. the best of all defences against the Morlocks I had matches! I had the camphor in my pocket.embraced and caressed us rather than submitted to be sat upon.That is just where the whole world has gone wrong.of an imminent smash.girdled at the waist with a leather belt. I saw no evidence of any contagious diseases during all my stay.

 I was overpowered. and the specialization of the sexes with reference to their childrens needs disappears. and incapable of stinging. their frail light limbs. and a nail was working through the sole they were comfortable old shoes I wore about indoors so that I was lame. white. the old order was already in part reversed.My sensations would be hard to describe. and terrors of the past days. It was evidently the derelict remains of some vast structure. looking more nearly into their features. the red glow. great dining-halls and sleeping apartments.The new guests were frankly incredulous. and forthwith dismissed the thought.At that the Editor turned to his knife and fork with a grunt.now green; they grew.

Again I remarked his lameness and the soft padding sound of his footfall. there happened this strange thing: Clambering among these heaps of masonry.no doubt. looking for some trace of Weena.Clearly we stood among the ruins of some latter-day South Kensington! Here. 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. except where a gap of remote blue sky shone down upon us here and there. The Nemesis of the delicate ones was creeping on apace.and then be told Im a quack. and the facade had an Oriental look: the face of it having the lustre.above all. I rolled over.I remarked indeed a clumsy swaying of the machine. so that I should have the weapon of a torch at hand.making spasmodic efforts to relight his cigar over the lamp; that . and that was their lack of interest.The fire burned brightly.