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10 - The Time Machine - H G Wells · Daily Classic Science Fiction Books

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  Speaker 1: Chapter ten, About eight or nine in the morning, I
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  Speaker 1: came to the same seat of yellow metal from which
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  Speaker 1: I had viewed the world upon the evening of my arrival.
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  Speaker 1: I thought of my hasty conclusions upon that evening, and
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  Speaker 1: could not refrain from laughing bitterly at my confidence. Here
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  Speaker 1: was the same beautiful scene, the same abundant foliage, the
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  Speaker 1: same splendid palaces and magnificent ruins, the same silver river
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  Speaker 1: running between its fertile banks. The gay robes of the
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  Speaker 1: beautiful people moved hither and thither among the trees. Some
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  Speaker 1: were bathing in exactly the place where I had saved Weena,
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  Speaker 1: And that suddenly gave me a keen stab of pain.
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  Speaker 1: And like blots upon the landscape rose the cupulas above
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  Speaker 1: the ways to the underworld. I understood now what all
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  Speaker 1: the beauty of the over world people covered very pleasant?
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  Speaker 1: Was their day as pleasant as the day of the
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  Speaker 1: in the field. Like the cattle. They knew of no enemies,
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  Speaker 1: and provided against no needs, And their end was the same.
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  Speaker 1: I grieved to think how brief the dream of the
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  Speaker 1: human intellect had been. It had committed suicide, it had
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  Speaker 1: set itself steadfastly towards comforts and ease, a balanced society
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  Speaker 1: with security and permanency as its watchword. It had attained
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  Speaker 1: its hopes and come to this at last. Once life
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  Speaker 1: and property must have reached almost absolute safety. The rich
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  Speaker 1: had been assured of his wealth and comfort, the toiler
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  Speaker 1: assured of his life and work. No doubt, in that
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  Speaker 1: perfect world there had been no unemployed problem, no social
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  Speaker 1: question left unsolved, and a great quiet had followed. It
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  Speaker 1: is a law of nature we overlook that intellectual verse
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  Speaker 1: Satility is the compensation for change, danger, and trouble. An
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  Speaker 1: animal perfectly in harmony with its environment is a perfect mechanism.
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  Speaker 1: Nature never appeals to intelligence until habit and instinct are useless.
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  Speaker 1: There is no intelligence where there is no change and
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  Speaker 1: no need of change. Only those animals partake of intelligence
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  Speaker 1: that have to meet a huge variety of needs and dangers. So,
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  Speaker 1: as I see it, the upper world man had drifted
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  Speaker 1: towards his feeble prettiness, and the underworld to mere mechanical industry.
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  Speaker 1: But that perfect state had lacked one thing even for
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  Speaker 1: mechanical perfection, absolute permanency. Apparently, as time went on, the
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  Speaker 1: feeding of the underworld, however it was affected, had become disjointed.
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  Speaker 1: Mother Necessity, who had been staved off for a few
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  Speaker 1: thousand years, came back again, and she began below the underworld,
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  Speaker 1: being in contact with machinery, which, however perfect, still needs
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  Speaker 1: some little thought. Outside habit had probably retained perforce rather
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  Speaker 1: more initiative, if less of every other human character than
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  Speaker 1: the upper And when other meat failed them, they turned
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  Speaker 1: to what old habit had hitherto forbidden. So I say
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  Speaker 1: I saw it in my last view of the world
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  Speaker 1: of eight hundred and two thousand, seven hundred one. It
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  Speaker 1: may be as wrong an explanation as mortal wit could invent.
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  Speaker 1: It is how the thing shaped itself to me, and
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  Speaker 1: as that I give it to you. After the fatigues, excitements,
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  Speaker 1: and terrors of the past days, and in spite of
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  Speaker 1: my grief, this seat and the tranquil view and the
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  Speaker 1: warm sunlight were very pleasant. I was very tired and sleepy,
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  Speaker 1: and soon my theorizing passed into dozing. Catching myself at that,
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  Speaker 1: I took my own hint, and spreading myself out upon
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  Speaker 1: the turf. I had a long and refreshing sleep. I
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  Speaker 1: awoke a little before sunsetting. I now felt safe against
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  Speaker 1: being caught napping by the Morlocks and stretching myself, I
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  Speaker 1: came down on the hill towards the White Sphinx. I
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  Speaker 1: had my crowbar in one hand, and the other hand
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  Speaker 1: played with the matches in my pocket. And now came
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  Speaker 1: a most unexpected thing. As I approached the pedestal of
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  Speaker 1: the Sphinx, I found the bronze valves were open. They
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  Speaker 1: had slid down into grooves. At that I stopped short
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  Speaker 1: before them, hesitating to enter. Within was a small apartment,
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  Speaker 1: and on a raised place in the corner of this
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  Speaker 1: was the time machine. I had the small levers in
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  Speaker 1: my pocket, so here, after all my elaborate preparations for
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  Speaker 1: the siege of the White Sphinx was a meek surrend.
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  Speaker 1: I threw my iron bar away, almost sorry not to
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  Speaker 1: use it. A sudden thought came into my head as
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  Speaker 1: I stooped towards the portal. For once at least I
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  Speaker 1: grasped the mental operations of the morlocks. Suppressing a strong
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  Speaker 1: inclination to laugh, I stepped through the bronze frame and
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  Speaker 1: up to the time machine. I was surprised to find
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  Speaker 1: it had been carefully oiled and cleaned. I have suspected
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  Speaker 1: since that the morlocks had even partially taken it to
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  Speaker 1: pieces while trying in their dim way to grasp its purpose. Now,
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  Speaker 1: as I stood and examined it, finding a pleasure in
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  Speaker 1: the mere touch of the contrivance, the thing I had
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  Speaker 1: expected happened. The bronze panels suddenly slid up and struck
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  Speaker 1: the frame with a clang. I was in the dark, trapped,
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  Speaker 1: so the morlocks thought, And at that I chuckled gleefully.
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  Speaker 1: I could already hear their murmuring laughter as they came
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  Speaker 1: towards me. Very calmly, I tried to strike the match.
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  Speaker 1: I had only to fix on the levers and depart
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  Speaker 1: then like a ghost. But I had overlooked one little thing.
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  Speaker 1: The matches were of that abominable kind that light only
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  Speaker 1: on the box. You may imagine how all my calm vanished.
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  Speaker 1: The little brutes were close upon me. One touched me.
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  Speaker 1: I made a sweeping blow in the dark at them
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  Speaker 1: with the levers, and began to scramble into the saddle
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  Speaker 1: of the machine. Then came one hand upon me, and
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  Speaker 1: then another. Then I had simply to fight against their
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  Speaker 1: persistent fingers for my levers, and at the same time
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  Speaker 1: few for the studs over which these fitted one. Indeed,
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  Speaker 1: they almost got away from me as it slipped from
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  Speaker 1: my hand. I had to bud in the dark with
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  Speaker 1: my head. I could hear the morlock's skull ring to
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  Speaker 1: recover it. It was a newer thing than the fight
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  Speaker 1: in the forest, I think, this last scramble. But at
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  Speaker 1: last the lever was fitted and pulled over. The clinging
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  Speaker 1: hands slipped from me. The darkness presently fell from my eyes.
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  Speaker 1: I found myself in the same gray light and tumult
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  Speaker 1: I have already described. End of Chapter ten