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The Time Machine by H.G. Wells · Audiobooks & Scary Stories

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I hope you enjoy this reading, which comes from a
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: work in the public domain, The Time Machine by H. G.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Wells introduction The time Traveler, for so it will be
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: convenient to speak of him, was expounding a recondite matter
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: to us. His pale gray eyes shone and twinkled, and
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: his usually pale face was flushed and animated. The fire
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: burnt brightly, and the soft radiance of the incandescent lights
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: in the lilies of silver caught the bubbles that flashed
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: and passed in our glasses. Our chairs, being his patents,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: embraced and caressed us, rather than submitted to be sat upon.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: And there was that luxurious after dinner atmosphere when thought
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: runs gracefully free of the trammels of precision. And he
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: put it to us in this way, marking the points
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: with a lean forefinger. As we sat and lazily admired
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: his earnestness over this new paradox as we thought it,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: and his fecundity. You must follow me carefully. I shall
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: have to controvert one or two ideas that are almost
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: universally accepted. The geometry, for instance, they taught you at school,
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: is founded on a misconception is not that, rather a
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: large thing to expect us to begin upon, said Philby,
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: an argumentative person with red hair. I do not mean
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: to ask you to accept anything without reasonable ground for it.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: You will soon admit as much as I need from you.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: You know, of course, that a mathematical line, a line
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: of thickness nil, has no real existence. They taught you
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: that neither has a mathematical plane. These things are mere abstractions.
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  Speaker 1: That is all right, said the psychologist. Nor having only length,
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: breadth and thickness. Can a cube have a real existence? There?
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: I object, said Philby. Of course a solid body may
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: exist all real things, so most people think. But wait
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: a moment, can an instantaneous cue exist? Don't follow you,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: said Philby. Can a cube that does not last for
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: any time at all have a real existence? Philby became pensive. Clearly,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: the time traveler proceeded, Any real body must have extension
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: in four directions. It must have length, breadth, thickness, and duration.
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  Speaker 1: But through a natural infirmity of the flesh, which I
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: will explain to you in a moment, we incline to
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: overlook this fact. There are really four dimensions, three which
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: we call the three planes of space and a fourth time.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: There is, however, a tendency to draw an unreal distinction
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  Speaker 1: between the former three dimensions and the latter, because it
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: happens that our consciousness moves intermittently in one direction along
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: the ladder from the beginning to the end of our lives.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: That said a very young man making spasmodic efforts to
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: relight his cigar over the lamp. That very clear. Indeed,
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: now it is very remarkable that this is so extensively overlooked,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: continued the time traveler, with a slight accession of cheerfulness. Really,
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: this is what is meant by the fourth dimension. Though
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: some people who talk about the fourth dimension do not
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: know they mean it. It is only another way of
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: looking at time. There is no difference between time and
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: any of the three dimensions of space, except that our
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: consciousness moves along it. But some foolish people have got
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: hold of the wrong side of that idea. You have
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: all heard what they have to say about this fourth dimension.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: I have not said the provincial mayor. It is simply
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: this that space, as our mathematicians have it, is spoken
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: of as having three dimensions, which one may call length, breadth,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: and thickness, and is always definable by reference to three planes,
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: each at right angles to the others. But some philosophical
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: people have been asking why three dimensions, particularly why not
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: another direction at right angles to the other three, and
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: have even tried to construct a four dimensional geometry. Professor
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: Simon Newcombe was expounding this to the New York Mathematical
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: Society only a month or so ago. You know how
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: on a flat surface, which has only two dimensions, we
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: can represent a figure of a three dimensional solid. And
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: similarly they think that by models of three dimensions they
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  Speaker 1: could represent one of four if they could master the
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  Speaker 1: perspective of the thing. See I think so, murmured the
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: provincial mayor, and knitting his brows, he lapsed into an
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: introspective state, his lips moving as one who repeats mystic words. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: I think I see it now, he said, after some time,
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: brightening in a quite transitory manner. Well, I do not
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  Speaker 1: mind telling you I have been at work upon this
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  Speaker 1: geometry of four dimensions for some time. Some of my
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  Speaker 1: results are curious. For instance, here is a portrait of
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: a man at eight years old, another at fifteen, another
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: at seventeen, another at twenty three, and so on. All
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: these are evidently sections, as it were, three dimensional representations
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  Speaker 1: of his four dimension being, which is a fixed and
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: unalterable thing. Scientific people preceded the time traveler after the
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: pause required for the proper assimilation of this, know very
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: well that time is only a kind of space. Here
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: is a popular scientific diagram, a weather record. This line
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: I trace with my finger shows the movement of the barometer.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: Yesterday it was so high. Yesterday night it fell. Then
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: this morning it rose again, and so gently upward to hear.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: Surely the mercury did not trace this line in any
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: of the dimensions of space generally recognized. But certainly it
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: traced such a line, And that line, therefore we must conclude,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: was along the time dimension. But said the medical man,
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: staring hard at a coal in the fire, if time
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  Speaker 1: is really only a fourth dimension of space, why is it?
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  Speaker 1: And why has it always been regarded as something different?
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: And why cannot we move in time as we move
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  Speaker 1: about in the other dimensions of space? The time traveler smiled,
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: Are you so sure we can move freely in space?
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: Right and left? We can go backward and forward freely enough,
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: and men always have done so. I admit, we move
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  Speaker 1: freely in two dimensions, But how about up and down?
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  Speaker 1: Gravitation limits us there, not exactly, said the medical man.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: There are balloons. But before the balloons, save for spasmodic
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: jumping in the inequalities of the surface, man had no
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: freedom of vertical movement. Still they could move a little
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: up and down, said the medical man, easier, far easier
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: down than up. And you cannot move at all in time.
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  Speaker 1: You cannot get away from the present moment, My dear sir.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: That is just where you are wrong. That is just
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: where the whole world has gone wrong. We are always
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  Speaker 1: getting away from from the present moment. Our mental existences,
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: which are immaterial and have no dimensions, are passing along
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: the time dimension with a uniform velocity from the cradle
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: to the grave, just as we should travel down if
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: we began our existence fifty miles above the Earth's surface.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: But the great difficulty is this, interrupted the psychologist. You
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  Speaker 1: can move about in all directions of space, but you
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: cannot move about in time. That is the germ of
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: my great discovery. But you are wrong to say that
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: we cannot move about in time. For instance, if I
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: am recalling an incident very vividly. I go back to
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: the instant of its occurrence. I become absent minded, as
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: you say, I jump back for a moment. Of course,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: we have no means of staying back for any length
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: of time, any more than a savage or an animal
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: has of staying six feet above the ground. But a
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: civilized man is better off than the savage in this respect.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: He can go up against gravitation in a balloon. And
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: why should he not hope that ultimately he may be
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: able to stop or accelerate his drift along the time dimension,
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: or even turn about and travel the other way. Oh,
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: this began Philby, is all Why not, said the time traveler.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: It's against reason, said Philby. What reason? Said the time traveler.
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  Speaker 1: You can show black as white by argument, said Philby.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: But you will never convince me. Possibly not, said the
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: time traveler. But now you begin to see the object
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: of my investigations into the geometry of four dimensions. Long
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: ago I had a vague inkling of a machine to
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: travel through time, exclaim the very young man, that shall
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  Speaker 1: travel indifferently in any direction of space and time, as
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: the driver determines. Philby contented himself with laughter. But I
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: have experimental verification, said the time traveler. It would be
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: remarkably convenient for the historian. The psychologists suggested one might
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: travel back and verify the accepted account of the Battle
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: of Hastings, for instance. Don't you think you would attract attention,
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: said the medical man. Our ancestors had no great tolerance
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  Speaker 1: for anachronisms. One might get one's Greek from the very
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  Speaker 1: lips of Homer and Plato, the very young man thought,
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  Speaker 1: in which case they would certainly plow you for the
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  Speaker 1: little girl. The German scholars have improved Greek so much,
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: then there is the future, said the very young man.
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  Speaker 1: Just think one might invest all one's money, leave it
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: to accumulate at interest, and hurry on ahead to discover
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: a society, said I erected on a strictly communistic basis
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: of all the wild, extravagant theories, began the psychologist. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: so it seemed to me, and so I never talked
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  Speaker 1: of it until experimental verification, cried I. You are going
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: to very that the experiment, cried Philby, who was getting
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  Speaker 1: brain weary. Let's see your experiment, anyhow, said the psychologist.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: Though it's all humbug, you know, the time traveler smiled
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  Speaker 1: round at us, then, still smiling faintly, and with his
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  Speaker 1: hands deep in his trousers pockets, he walked slowly out
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  Speaker 1: of the room, and we heard his slippers shuffling down
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  Speaker 1: the long passage to his laboratory. The psychologist looked at us.
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  Speaker 1: I wonder what he's got, some sleight of hand trick
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: or other, said the medical man, and Philby tried to
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: tell us about a conjurer he had seen at Burslem,
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: But before he had finished his preface, the time traveler
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: came back, and Philby's anecdote collapsed. End of introduction two.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: The machine. The thing the time traveler held in his
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  Speaker 1: hand was a glittering metallic framework, scarcely larger than a
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: small clock, and very delicately made. There was ivory in it,
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: and some transparent crystalline substance. And now I must be
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: explicit for this that follows, unless his explanation is to
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: be accepted, is an absolutely unaccountable thing. He took one
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: of the small octagonal tables that were scattered about the
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: room and set it in front of the fire, with
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: two legs on the hearth rock. On this table he
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: placed the mechanism. Then he drew up a chair and
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: sat down. The only other object on the table was
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: a small shaded lamp, the bright light of which fell
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: upon the model. There were also perhaps a dozen candles,
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: about two in brass candlesticks upon the mantel, and several ensconces,
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  Speaker 1: so that the room was brilliantly illuminated. I sat in
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  Speaker 1: a low arm chair nearest the fire, and I drew
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: this forward so as to be almost between the time
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: traveler and the fireplace. Philby sat behind him, looking over
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: his shoulder. The medical man and the provincial mayor watched
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: him in profile, from the right, the psychologist from the left.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: The very young man stood behind the psychologist. We were
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: all on the alert. It appears incredible to me that
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: any kind of trick, however subtly conceived and however adroitly done,
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: could have been played upon us under these conditions. The
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: time traveler looked at us, and then at the mechanism. Well,
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: said the psychologist, this little affair, said the time traveler,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: resting his elbows upon the table and pressing his hands
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: together above. The apparatus is only a model. It is
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: my plan for a machine to travel through time. You
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: will notice that it looks singularly, ask you, and that
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: there is an odd twinkling appearance about this bar, as
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: though it was in some way unreal. He pointed to
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: the part with his finger. Also, here is one little
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: white lever, and here is another. The medical man got
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: up out of his chair and peered into the thing.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: It's beautifully made, he said, it took two years to make,
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: retorted the time traveler. Then, when we had all imitated
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: the action of the medical man, he said, now I
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  Speaker 1: want you clearly to understand that this lever being pressed
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: over sends the machine gliding into the future, and this
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: other reverses the motion. This saddle represents the seat of
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: a time traveler. Presently, I am going to press the lever,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: and off the machine will go. It will vanish, pass
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: into future time and disappear. Have a good look at
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: the thing, look at the table too, and satisfy yourselves
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: there is no trickery. I don't want to waste this
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: model and then be told I'm a quack. There was
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: a minute's pause. Perhaps the psychologist seemed about to speak
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: to me, but changed his mind. Then the time traveler
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: put forth his finger towards the lever. No, he said, suddenly,
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: lend me your hand, and turning to the psychologist, he
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: took that individual's hand in his own and told him
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: to put out his forefinger, so that it was the
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: psychologist himself who sent forth the model time machine on
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: its interminable voyage. We all saw the lever turn. I
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: am absolutely certain there was no trickery. There was a
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: breath of wind, and the lamp flame jumped. One of
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: the candles on the mantle was blown out, and the
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: little machine suddenly swung round, became indistinct, was seen as
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: a ghost for a second, perhaps as an eddy of
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: faintly glittering brass and ivory. And it was gone, vanished,
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: save for the lamp. The table was bare. Everyone was
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: silent for a minute. Then Philby said he was damned.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: The psychologist recovered from his stupor and suddenly looked under
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: the table at that. The time traveler laughed cheerfully. Well,
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: he said, with a reminiscence of the psychologist. Then, getting up,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: he went to the tobacco jar on the mantel, and
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: with his back to us, began to fill his pipe.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: We stared at each other. Look here, said the medical man,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: are you in earnest about this? Do you seriously believe
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: that that machine has traveled into time? Certainly, said the
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: time traveler, stooping to light a spill at the fire.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: Then he turned, lighting his pipe to look at the
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: psychologist's face. The psychologist, to show that he was not unhinged,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: helped himself to a cigar and tried to light it uncut.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: What is more, I have a big machine nearly finished
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: in there, he indicated the laboratory, and when that is
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: put together, I mean to have a journey on my
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: own account. You mean to say that that machine has
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: traveled into the future, said Philby. Into the future or
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: the past? I don't for certain know which. After an interval,
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: the psychologist had an inspiration. It must have gone into
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: the past, if it has gone anywhere, he said, why,
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: said the time traveler, Because I presume that it has
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: not moved in space, and if it traveled in to
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: the future, it would still be here all this time,
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: since it must have traveled through this time, But said I,
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: if it traveled into the past, it would have been
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: visible when we came first into this room, and last
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: Thursday when we were here, and the Thursday before that,
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: and so forth, serious objections, remark the provincial mayor, with
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: an air of impartiality, turning towards the time traveler. Not
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: a bit, said the time traveler, And to the psychologist,
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: you think you can explain that its presentation below the threshold,
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: you know, diluted presentation, of course, said the psychologist, and
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: reassured us that's a simple point of psychology. I should
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: have thought of it. It's plain enough and helps the
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: paradox delightfully. We cannot see it, nor can we appreciate
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: this machine any more than we can the spoke of
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: a wheel spinning or a bullet flying through the air.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: If it is traveling through time fifty times or a
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: hundred times faster than we are, if it gets through
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: a minute while we get through a second, the impression
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: it creates will, of course, be only one fiftieth or
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: one hundredth of what it would make if it were
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: not traveling in time. That's plain enough. He passed his
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: hand through the space in which the machine had been.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: You see, he said, laughing. We sat and stared at
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: the vacant table for a minute or so. Then the
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: time traveler asked us what we thought of it all.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: It sounds plausible enough tonight, said the medical man. But
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: wait until tomorrow, wait for the common sense of the morning.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: Would you like to see the time machine itself, asked
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: the time traveler, and therewith. Taking the lamp in his hand,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: he led the way down the long, drafty corridor to
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: his laboratory. I remember vividly the flickering light, his queer
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: broadhead in silhouette, the dance of the shadows. How we
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: all followed him, puzzled but incredulous. And how therein in
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: the laboratory we beheld a larger edition of the little
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: mechanism which we had seen vanish from before our eyes.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: Parts were of nickel, parts of ivory. Parts had certainly
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: been filed or sawn out of rock crystal. The thing
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: was generally complete, but the twisted crystaline bars lay unfinished
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: upon the bench beside some sheets of drawings, and I
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: took one up for a better look at it. Quartz,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: it seemed to be. Look here, said the medical man.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: Are you perfectly serious? Or is this a trick like
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: that ghost you showed us last Christmas? Upon that machine,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: said the time traveler, holding the lamp aloft, I intend
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: to explore time. Is that plain? I was never more
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: serious in my life. None of us quite knew how
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: to take it. I caught Philbey's eye over the shoulder
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: of the medical man, and he winked at me solemnly.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: Three the time Traveler returns. I think that at that
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: time none of us quite believed in the time machine.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: The fact is, the time Traveler was one of those
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: men who are too clever to be believed. You never
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: felt that you saw all round him, you always suspected
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: some subtle reserve, some ingenuity in ambush behind his lucid frankness.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: Had Philby shown the model and explained the matter in
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: the time Traveler's words, we should have shown him far
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: less skepticism, for we should have perceived his motives. A
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: port butcher could understand Philby. But the time Traveler had
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: more than a touch of whim among his elements, and
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: we distrusted him. Things that would have made the fame
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: of a less clever man seem tricks in his hands.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: It is a mistake to do things too easily. The
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: serious people who took him seriously never felt quite sure
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: of his deportment. They were somehow aware that trusting their
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: reputations for judgment with him was like furnishing a nursery
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: with egg shell china. So I don't think any of
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: us said very much about time traveling in the interval
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: between that Thursday and the next, though its odd potentialities
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: ran no doubt in most of our minds, its plausibility,
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: that is, its practical incredibleness, the curious possibilities of anachronism,
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: and of utter confusion it suggested. For my own part,
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: I was particularly preoccupied with the trick of the model
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: that I remember discussing with the medical man, whom I
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: met on Friday at the Linean. He said he had
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: seen a similar thing at Tubingen and laid considerable stress
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: on the blowing out of the candle, but how the
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: trick was done he could not explain. The next Thursday,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: I went again to Richmond. I suppose I was one
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: of the time Traveler's most constant guests, and arriving late,
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: found four or five men already assembled in his drawing room.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: The medical man was standing before the fire with a
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: sheet of paper in one hand and his watch in
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: the other. I looked round for the time traveler, and
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: it's half past seven now, said the medical man. I
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: suppose we'd better have dinner. Wheer's said, I name our host.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: You've just come. It's rather odd he's unavoidably detained. He
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: asks me in this note to lead off with dinner
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: at seven. If he's not back, says he'll explain when
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: he comes. It seems a pity to let the dinner spoil,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: said the editor of a well known daily paper, and
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: thereupon the doctor rang the bell. The psychologist was the
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: only person besides the doctor and myself who had attended
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: the previous dinner. The other men were blank. The editor aforementioned,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: a certain journalist, and another a quiet, shy man with
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: a beard, whom I didn't know, and who, as far
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: as my observation went, never opened his mouth. All the
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: evening there was some speculation at the dinner table about
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: the time traveler's absence, and I suggested time traveling in
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: a half jocular spirit. The editor wanted that explained to him,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: and the psychologist volunteered a wooden account of the ingenious
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: paradox and trick we had witnessed that day week. He
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: was in the midst of his exposition when the door
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: from the corridor opened slowly and without noise. I was
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: facing the door and saw it first. Hullo, I said,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: at last, and the door opened wider, and the time
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: traveler stood before us. I gave a cry of surprise.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: Good heavens man, what's the matter? Cried the medical man,
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: who saw him next, and the whole tableful turned towards
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: the door. He was in an amazing plight. His coat
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: was dusty and dirty and smeared with green down the sleeves.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: His hair disordered and, as it seemed to me, grayer,
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: either with dust and dirt or because its color had
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: actually faded. His face was ghastly pale. His chin had
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: a brown cut on it, a cut half healed. His
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: expression was haggard and drawn, as by intense suffering. For
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: a moment, he hesitated in the doorway, as if he
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: had dazzled by the light. Then he came into the room.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: He walked with just such a limp as I have
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: seen in foots or tramps. We stared at him in silence,
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: expecting him to speak. He said not a word, but
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: came painfully to the table and made a motion towards
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: the wine. The editor filled a glass of champagne and
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: pushed it towards him. He drained it, and it seemed
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: to do him good, for he looked round the table
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: and the ghost of his old smile flickered across his face.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: What on earth have you been up to, man, said
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: the doctor. The time traveler did not seem to hear.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: Don't let me disturb you, he said, with a certain
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: faltering articulation. I'm all right. He stopped, held out his
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: glass for more, and took it off at a draft.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: That's good, he said. His eyes grew brighter, and a
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: faint color came into his cheeks. His glance flickered over
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: our faces with a certain dull approval, and then went
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: round the warm and comfortable room. Then he spoke again,
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: still as it were, feeling his way among his words,
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: I'm going to wash and dress, and then i'll come
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: down and explain things. Save me some of that mutton.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: I'm starving for a bit of meat. He looked across
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: at the editor, who was a rare visitor, and hoped
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: he was all right. The editor began a question. Tell you, presently,
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: said the time traveler. I'm funny, be all right. In
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: a minute. He put down his glass and walked towards
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: the staircase door. Again, I remarked his lameness and the
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: soft padding sound of his footfall, and standing up in
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: my place, I saw his feet as he went out.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: He had nothing on them but a pair of tattered,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: blood stained socks. Then the door closed upon him. I
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: had half a mind to follow till I remembered how
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: he detested any fuss about himself. For a minute per
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: perhaps my mind was wolf gathering. Then remarkable behavior of
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: an eminent scientist. I heard the editor say, thinking after
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: his wont In headlines, and this brought my attention back
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: to the bright dinner table. What's the game, said the journalist.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: Has he been doing the amateur cadger, I don't follow.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: I met the eye of the psychologist and read my
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: own interpretation in his face. I thought of the time
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: traveler limping painfully upstairs. I don't think any one else
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: had noticed his lameness. The first to recover completely from
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: this surprise was the medical man who rang the bell.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: The time traveler hated to have servants waiting at dinner
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: for a hot plate. At that the editor turned to
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: his knife and fork with a grunt, and the silent
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: man followed suit. The dinner was resumed. Conversation was exclamatory
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: for a little while, with gaps of wonderment, and then
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: the editor got fervent in his curiosity. Does our friend
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: eke out his modest income with a crossing? Or has
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: he his nebuchadnezzer phases? He inquired. I feel assured. It's
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: this business of the time machine, I said, and took
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: up the psychologist's account of our previous meeting. The new
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: guests were frankly incredulous. The editor raised objections, what was
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: this time traveling? A man couldn't cover himself with dust
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: by rolling in a paradox, could he? And then, as
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: the idea came home to him, he resorted to caricature.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: Hadn't they any clothes brushes in the future. The journalist, too,
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: would not believe at any price, and joined the editor
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: in the easy work of heaping ridicule on the whole thing.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: They were both the new kind of journalist, very joyous,
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: irreverent young men. Our special correspondent in the Day after
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: Tomorrow reports the journalist was saying, or rather shouting, when
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: the time traveler came back. He was dressed in ordinary
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: evening clothes, and nothing save his haggard look, remained of
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: the change that had startled me. I say, said the editor, hilariously,
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: these chaps here say you have been traveling into the
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: middle of next week. Tell us all about little Roseberry,
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: will you? What will you take for the lot? The
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: time traveler came to the place reserved for him without
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: a word. He smiled quietly in his old way. Where's
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: my mutton? He said? What a treat it is to
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: stick a fork into meat again, story cried the editor.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: Story be damned, said the time traveler. I want something
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: to eat. I won't say a word until I get
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: some peptone into my arteries. Thanks and the salt. One word,
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: said I have you been time traveling? Yes, said the
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: time traveler, with his mouth full, nodding his head. I'd
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: give a shilling a line for a orb, bade him, note,
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: said the editor. The time traveler pushed his glass towards
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: the silent man and rang it with his finger nail,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: at which the silent man, who had been staring at
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: his face, started convulsively and poured him wine. The rest
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: of the dinner was uncomfortable. For my own part, Sudden
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: questions kept on rising, to my lips, and I dare
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: say it was the same with the others. The journalist
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: tried to relieve the tension by telling anecdotes of Hetty Potter.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: The time traveler devoted his attention to his dinner and
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: displayed the appetite of a tramp. The medical man smoked
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: a cigarette and watched the time Traveler through his eyelashes.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: The silent man seemed even more clumsy than usual, and
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: drank champagne with regularity and determination out of sheer nervousness.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: At last, the time Traveler pushed his plate away and
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: looked round us. I suppose I must apologize, he said,
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: I was simply starving. I've had a most amazing time.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: He reached out his hand for a cigar and cut
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: the end. But come into the smoking room. It's too
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: long a story to tell. Over greasy plates and ringing
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: the bell and passing, he led the way into the
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: adjoining room. You have told blank and dash and chose
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: about the machine, he said to me, leaning back in
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: his easy chair and naming the three new guests. But
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: the thing's a mere paradox, said the editor. I can't
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: argue tonight. I don't mind telling you the story, but
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: I can't argue. I will, he went on, tell you
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: the story of what has happened to me, if you like,
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: but you must refrain from interruptions. I want to tell
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: it badly. Most of it will sound like lying, so
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: be it. It's true, every word of it all the same.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: I was in my laboratory at four o'clock, and since
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: then I've lived eight days, such days as no human
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: being ever lived before. I'm nearly worn out, but I
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: shan't sleep till I've told this thing over to you.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: Then I shall go to bed. But no interruptions. Is
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: it agreed? Agreed, said the editor, and the rest of
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: us echoed. Agreed. And with that the time Traveler began
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: his story, as I have set it forth. He sat
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: back in his chair at first, and spoke like a
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: weary man. Afterwards, he got more animated in writing it down.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: I feel, with only too much keenness, the inadequacy of
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: pen and ink, and above all my own inadequacy to
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: express its quality. You read, I will suppose attentively enough,
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: But you cannot see the speaker's white, sincere face in
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: the bright circle of the little lamp, nor hear the
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: intonation of his voice. You cannot know how his expression
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: followed the turns of his story. Most of us hearers
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: were in shadow, for the candles in the smoking room
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: had not up and lighted, and only the face of
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: the journalist in the legs of the silent man from
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: the knees downward were illuminated. At first, we glanced now
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: and again at each other. After a time we ceased
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: to do that and looked only at the time traveler's face.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: For time traveling. I told some of you last Thursday
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: of the principles of the time machine, and showed you
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: the actual thing itself incomplete in the workshop there. It
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: is now a little travel worn truly, and one of
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: the ivory bars is cracked and a brass rail bent,
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: but the rest of it sound enough. I expected to
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: finish it on Friday. But on Friday, when the putting
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: together was nearly done, I found that one of the
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: nickel bars was exactly one inch too short, and this
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: I had to get remade, so that the thing was
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: not complete until this morning. It was at ten o'clock
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: to day that the first of all time machines began
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: its career. I gave it a last tap, tried all
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: the screws again, put one more drop of oil on
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: the quartz rock, and sat myself in the saddle. I
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: suppose a suicide who holds a pistol to his skull
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: feels much the same wonder at what will come next,
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: as I felt. Then I took the starting lever in
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: one hand and the stopping one in the other. Pressed
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: the first, and almost immediately the second, I seemed to reel.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: I felt a nightmare sensation of falling, and looking round,
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: I saw the laboratory exactly as before. Had anything happened.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: For a moment, I suspected that my intellect had tricked me.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: Then I noted the clock a moment before, as it
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: seemed it had stood at a minute or so past ten.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: Now it was nearly half past three. I drew a breath,
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: set my teeth, gripped the starting lever with both hands,
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: and went off with a thudd. The laboratory got hazy
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: and went dark. Missus Watchett came in and walked, apparently
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: without seeing me, towards the garden door. I suppose it
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: took her a minute or so to traverse the place,
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: but to me, she seemed to shoot across the room
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: like a rocket. I pressed the lever over to its
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: extreme position. The night came like the turning out of
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: a lamp, and in another moment came tomorrow. The laboratory
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: grew faint and hazy, then fainter, and ever fainter. Tomorrow
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: night came black, then day again, night again, day again,
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: faster and faster. Still, an eddying murmur filled my ears,
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: and a strange, dumb, confusedness descended on my mind. I
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: am afraid I cannot convey the peculiar sensations of time traveling.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: They are excessively unpleasant. There is a feeling exactly like
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: that one has upon a switchback of a helpless headlong motion.
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: I felt the same horrible anticipation, too, of an imminent
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: smash as I put on pace. Night followed day, like
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: the flapping of a black wing. The dim suggestion of
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: the laboratory seemed presently to fall away from it, and
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: I saw the sun hopping swiftly across the sky, leaping
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: at every minute and every minute, marking a day. I
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: supposed the laboratory had been destroyed, and I had come
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: into the open air. I had a dim impression of scaffolding,
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: but I was already going too fast to be conscious
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: of any moving things. The slowest snail that ever crawled
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: dashed by too fast for me. The twinkling succession of
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: darkness and light was excessively painful to the eye. Then,
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: in the intermittent darknesses, I saw the moon spinning swiftly
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: through her quarters from new to full, and had a
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: faint glimpse of the circling stars. Presently, as I went on,
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: still gaining velocity, the palpitation of night and day merged
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: into one continuous grayness. The sky took on a wonderful
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: deepness of blue, a splendid, luminous color like that of
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: early twilight. The jerking sun became a streak of fire,
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: a brilliant arch in space, the moon a fainter, fluctuating band,
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: and I could see nothing of the stars save now
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: and then a brighter circle flickering in the blue. The
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: landscape was misty and vague. I was still on the
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: hillside upon which this house now stands, and the shoulder
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: rose above me, gray and dim. I saw trees growing
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: and changing, like puffs of vapor, now brown, now green.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: They grew, spread, shivered, and passed away. I saw huge
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: buildings rise up, faint and fair, and pass like dreams.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: The whole surface of the earth seemed changed, melting and
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: flowing under my eyes. The little hands upon the dials
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: that registered my speed raced round faster and faster. Presently
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: I noted that the sun belt swayed up and down
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: from solstice to solstice in a minute or less, and
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: that consequently my pace was over a year a minute,
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: and minute by minute, the white snow flashed across the
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: world and vanished, and was followed by the bright, brief
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: green of spring. The unpleasant sensations of the start were
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: less point now. They merged at last into a kind
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: of hysterical exhilaration. I remarked, indeed, a clumsy swaying of
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: the machine for which I was unable to account, But
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: my mind was too confused to attend to it. So,
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: with a kind of madness growing upon me, I flung
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: myself into futurity. At first I scarce thought of stopping,
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: scarce thought of anything but these new sensations. But presently
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: a fresh series of impressions grew up in my mind.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: A certain curiosity, and therewith a certain dread until at
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: last they took complete possession of me. What strange developments
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: of humanity, What wonderful advances upon our rudimentary civilization, I
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: thought might not appear. When I came to look nearly
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: into the dim elusive world that raced and fluctuated before
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: my eyes, I saw great and splendid architecture rising about me,
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: more massive than any buildings of our own time. And
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: yet as it seemed built of glimmer and mist, I
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: saw Richard Green flow up the hillside and remain there
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: without any wintry intermission. Even through the veil of my confusion,
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: the earth seemed very fair, And so my mind came
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: round to the business of stopping. The peculiar risk lay
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: in the possibility of my finding some substance in the
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: space which I or the machine occupied. So long as
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: I traveled at a high velocity through time, this scarcely mattered.
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: I was, so to speak, attenuated, was slipping like a
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: vapor through the interstices of intervening substances. But to come
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: to a stop involved the jamming of myself, molecule by molecule,
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: into whatever lay in my way. Meant bringing my atoms
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: into such intimate contact with those of the obstacle, that
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: a profound chemical reaction, possibly a far reaching explosion, would
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: result and blow myself and my apparatus out of all
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: possible dimensions into the unknown. This possibility had occurred to
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: me again and again while I was making the machine,
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: But then I had cheered fully accepted it as an
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: unavoidable risk, one of the risks a man has got
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: to take. Now the risk was inevitable. I no longer
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: saw it in the same cheerful light. The fact is that, insensibly,
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: the absolute strangeness of everything, the sickly jarring and swaying
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: of the machine, above all, the feeling of prolonged falling,
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: had absolutely upset my nerves. I told myself that I
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: could never stop, and with a gust of petulance, I
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: resolved to stop forthwith, like an impatient fool, I lugged
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: over the lever, and incontinently, the thing went reeling over,
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: and I was flung headlong through the air. There was
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: the sound of a clap of thunder in my ears.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: I may have been stunned for a moment. A pitiless
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: hail was hissing round me, and I was sitting on
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: soft turf in front of the overset machine. Everything still
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: seemed gray, But presently I remarked that the confusion in
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: my ears was gone. I looked round me. I was
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: on what seemed to be a little lawn in a garden,
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: surrounded by rhododendron bushes, and I noticed that their mauve
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: and purple blossoms were dropping in a shower under the
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: beating of the hailstones. The rebounding, dancing hail hung in
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: a little cloud over the machine and drove along the
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: ground like smoke. In a moment, I was wet to
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: the skin. Fine hospitality, said I to a man who
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: has traveled innumerable years to see you. Presently I thought
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: what a fool I was to get wet. I stood
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: up and looked round me. A colossal figure, carved apparently
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: in some white stone, loomed indistinctly beyond the rhododendrons through
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: the hazy downpour. But all else of the world was invisible.
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: My sensations would be hard to describe. As the columns
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: of hail grew thinner, I saw the white figure more distinctly.
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: It was very large, for A silver birch tree touched
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: its shoulder. It was of white marble, in shape something
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: like a winged sphinx. But the wings, instead stead of
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: being carried vertically at the sides, were spread so that
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: it seemed to hover. The pedestal, it appeared to me,
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: was of bronze, and was thick with vertigrees. It chanced
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: that the face was towards me. The sightless eyes seemed
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: to watch me. There was the faint shadow of a
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: smile on the lips. It was greatly weather worn, and
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: that imparted an unpleasant suggestion of disease. I stood looking
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: at it for a little space, half a minute perhaps,
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: or half an hour. It seemed to advance and to recede,
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: as the hail drove before it, denser or thinner. At last,
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: I tore my eyes from it for a moment, and
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: saw that the hail curtain had worn threadbare, and that
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: the sky was lightning with the promise of the sun.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: I looked up again at the crouching white shape, and
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: the full temerity of my voyage came suddenly upon me.
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: What might appear when that hazy curtain was altogether withdrawn?
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: What might not have happened to men? What if cruelty
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: had grown into a common path. What if, in this
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: interval the race had lost its manliness and had developed
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: into something inhuman, unsympathetic, and overwhelmingly powerful. I might seem
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: some old world savage animal, only the more dreadful and
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: disgusting for our common likeness, a foul creature to be
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: incognently slain. Already I saw other vast shapes, huge buildings
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: with intricate parapets, and tall columns, with a wooded hillside
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: dimly creeping in upon me through the lessening storm. I
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: was seized with a panic fear. I turned frantically to
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: the time machine and strove hard to readjust it. As
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: I did so, the shafts of the sun smote through
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: the thunderstorm. The gray downpour was swept aside and vanished,
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: like the trailing garments of a ghost. Above me, in
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: the intense blue of the summer sky, some faint brown
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: shreds of cloud whirled into nothingness. The great buildings about
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: me stood out clear and distinct, shining with the wet
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: of the thunder storm, and picked out in white by
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: the unmelted hailstones piled along their courses. I felt naked
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: in a strange world. I felt as perhaps a bird
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: may feel in the clear air, knowing the hawk wings
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: above and will swoop. My fear grew to frenzy. I
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: took a breathing space, set my teeth, and again grappled
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: fiercely wrist and knee with the machine. It gave under
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: my desperate onset and turned over. It struck my chin violently,
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: one hand on the saddle, the other on the lever.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: I stood, panting heavily in attitude to mount again. But
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: with this recovery of a prompt retreat, my courage recovered.
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: I looked more curiously and less fearfully at this world
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: of the remote future. In a circular opening high up
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: in the wall of the nearer house, I saw a
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: group of figures clad in rich soft robes. They had
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: seen me, and their faces were directed towards me. Then
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: I heard voices approaching me. Coming through the bushes. By
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: the white sphinx were the heads and shoulders of men running.
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: One of these emerged in a pathway leading straight to
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: the little lawn upon which I stood with my machine.
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: He was a slight creature, perhaps four feet high, clad
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: in a purple tunic, girdled at the waist with a
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: leather belt, sandals or buskins. I could not clearly distinguish
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: which were on his feet. His legs were bare to
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: the knees, and his head was bare. Noticing that I
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: noticed for the first time how warm the air was.
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: He struck me as being a very beautiful and graceful creature,
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: but indescribably frail. His flushed face reminded me of the
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: more beautiful kind of consumptive, that hectic beauty of which
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: we used to hear so much. At the sight of him,
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: I suddenly regained confidence. I took my hands from the
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: machine the in the Golden Age. In another moment, we
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: were standing face to face, I and this fragile thing
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: out of futurity. He came straight up to me and
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: laughed into my eyes. The absence from his bearing of
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: any sign of fear struck me at once. Then he
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: turned to the two others who were following him, and
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: spoke to them in a strange and very sweet and
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: liquid tongue. There were others coming, and presently a little
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: group of perhaps eight or ten of these exquisite creatures
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: were about me. One of them addressed me. It came
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: into my head oddly enough that my voice was too
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: harsh and deep for them, so I shook my head, and,
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: pointing to my ears, shook it again. He came a
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: step forward, hesitated, and then touched my hand. Then I
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: felt other soft little tentacles upon my back and shoulders.
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: They wanted to make sure I was real. There was
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: nothing in this at all alarming. Indeed, there was something
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: in these pretty little people that inspired confidence, a graceful gentleness,
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: a certain childlike ease. And besides, they looked so frail
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: that I could fancy myself flinging the whole dozen of
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: them about like nine pins. But I made a sudden
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: motion to warn them when I saw their little pink
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: hands feeling at the time machine happily. Then, when it
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: was not too late, I thought of a danger I
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: had hitherto forgotten, and reaching over the bars of the machine,
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: I unscrewed the little levers that would set it in
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: motion and put these in my pocket. Then I turned
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: again to see what I could do in the way
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: of communication, And then, looking more nearly into their features,
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: I saw some further peculiarities in their dressed in China
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: type of prettiness, their hair, which was uniformly curly came
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: to a sharp end at the neck and cheek. There
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: was not the faintest suggestion of it on the face,
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: and their ears were singularly minute. The mouths were small,
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: with bright red, rather thin lips, and the little chins
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: ran to a point. The eyes were large and mild.
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: And this may seem egotism on my part, I fancied
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: even that there was a certain lack of the interest
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: I might have expect in them, as they made no
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: effort to communicate with me, but simply stood round me,
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: smiling and speaking in soft, cooing notes to each other.
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: I began the conversation. I pointed to the time machine
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: and to myself, then, hesitating for a moment, how to
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: express time, I pointed to the sun at once. A
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: quaintly pretty little figure in checkered purple and white followed
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: my gesture and then astonished me by imitating the sound
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: of thunder. For a moment. I was staggered, though the
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: import of his gesture was plain enough. The question had
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: come into my mind abruptly. Were these creatures fools? You
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: may hardly understand how it took me. You see, I
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: had always anticipated that the people of the year eight
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: hundred and two thousand odd would be incredibly in front
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: of us in knowledge, art everything. Then one of them
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: suddenly asked me a question that showed him to be
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: on the intellectual level of one of our five year
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: old children. Asked me, in fact, if I had come
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: from the sun in a thunderstorm, it let loose the
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: judgment I had suspended upon their clothes, their frail like
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: limbs and fragile features. A flow of disappointment rushed across
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: my mind. For a moment I felt that I had
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: built the time machine in vain. I nodded, pointed to
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: the sun, and gave them such a vivid rendering of
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: a thunderclap as startled them. They all withdrew a pace
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: or sow and bowed. Then came one, laughing towards me,
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: carrying a chain of beautiful flowers altogether new to me,
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: and put it about my neck. The idea was received
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: with melodious applause, and presently they were all running to
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: and fro for flowers, and laughingly flinging them upon me,
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: until I was almost smothered with blossom. You who have
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: never seen the light can scarcely imagine what delicate and
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: wonderful flowers countless years of culture had created. Then someone
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: suggested that their plaything should be exhibited in the nearest building,
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: And so I was led past the sphinx of white marble,
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: which it seemed to watch me all the while with
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: a smile at my astonishment, towards a vast gray edifice
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: of fretted stone. As I went with them, the memory
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: of my confident anticipations of a profoundly grave and intellectual
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: posterity came with irresistible merriment to my mind. The building
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: had a huge entry and was altogether of colossal dimensions.
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: I was naturally most occupied with the growing crowd of
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: little people, and with the big open portals that yawned
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: before me, shadowy and mysterious. My general impression of the
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: world I saw over their heads was a tangled waste
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: of beautiful bushes and flowers, a long, neglected and yet
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: weedless garden. I saw a number of tall spikes of
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: strange white flowers, measuring a foot perhaps across the spread
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: of the waxen petals. They grew scattered as if wild,
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: among the variegated shrubs. But as I say, I did
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: not examine them closely. At this time, the time machine
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: was left deserted on the turf among the rhododendrons. The
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: arch of the doorway was richly carved, but naturally I
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: did not observe the carving very narrowly, though I fancied.
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: I saw suggestions of old Phoenician decorations as I passed through,
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: and it struck me that they were very badly broken
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: and weather worn. Several more brightly clad people met me
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: in the doorway, and so we entered, dressed in dingy
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: nineteenth century garments, looking grotesque enough, garlanded with flowers, and
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: surrounded by an eddying mass of bright, soft colored robes
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: and shining white limbs. In a melodious whirl of laughter
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: and laughing speech. The big doorway opened into a proportionately
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: great hull, hum with brown. The roof was in shadow,
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: and the windows, partially glazed with colored glass and partially unglazed,
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: admitted a tempered light. The floor was made up of
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: huge blocks of some very hard white metal, not plates
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: nor slabs, blocks, and it was so much worn, as
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: I judged by the going to and fro of past generations,
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: as to be deeply channeled ali long the more frequented
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: ways transfers. To the length were innumerable tables made of
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: slabs of polished stone, raised perhaps a foot from the floor,
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: and upon these were heaps of fruits, some I recognized
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: as a kind of hypertrophied raspberry and orange, but for
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: the most part they were strange. Between the tables was
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: scattered a great number of cushions. Upon these my conductors
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: seated themselves, signing for me to do likewise. With a
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: pretty absence of ceremony, they began to eat the fruit
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: with their hands, flinging peel and stalks and so forth
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: into the round openings in the sides of the tables.
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: I was not loath to follow their example, for I
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: felt thirsty and hungry. As I did so, I surveyed
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: the hall at my leisure, and perhaps the thing that
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: struck me most was its dilapidated look. The stained glass windows,
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: which displayed only a geometrical pattern, were broken in many places,
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: and the curtains that hung across the lower end were
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: thick with dust, and it caught my eye that the
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: corner of the marble table near me was fractured. Nevertheless,
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: the general effect was extremely rich and picturesque, There were
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: perhaps a couple of hundred people dining in the hall,
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: and most of them, seated as near to me as
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: they could come, were watching me with interest, their little
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: eyes shining over the fruit they were eating. All were
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: clad in the same soft and yet strong, silky material. Fruit,
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: by the bye was all their diet. These people of
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: the remote future were strict vegetarians, and while I was
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: with them, in spite of some carnal cravings, I had
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: to be forgivorous also. Indeed, I found afterwards that horses, cattle,
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: sheep dogs had followed the ichthyosaurus into extinction. But the
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: fruits were very delightful. One in particular that seemed to
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: be in season all the time I was there. A
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: flowery thing in a three sided husk was a space
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: vishily good, and I made it my staple. At first
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: I was puzzled by all these strange fruits, and by
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: the strange flowers I saw, But later I began to
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: perceive their import. However, I am telling you of my
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: fruit dinner in the distant future now. So soon as
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: my appetite was a little checked, I determined to make
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: a resolute attempt to learn the speech of these new
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: men of mine, clearly that was the next thing to do.
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: The fruit seemed a convenient thing to begin upon, and
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: holding one of these up, I began a series of
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: interrogative sounds and gestures. I had some considerable difficulty in
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: conveying my meaning. At first my efforts met with a
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: stare of surprise or inextinguishable laughter. But presently a fair
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: haired little creature seemed to grasp my intention and repeated
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: a name. They had to chatter and explain the business
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: at great length to each other, and my first attempts
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: to make the exquisite little sounds of their language caused
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: an immense amount of genuine, if uncivil amusement. However, I
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: felt like a schoolmaster amidst children, and persisted, and presently
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: I had a score of nouned substantives at least at
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: my command, and then I got to demonstrative pronouns and
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: even the verb to eat. But it was slow work,
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: and the little people soon tired and wanted to get
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: away from my interrogations. So I determined, rather of necessity,
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: to let them give their lessons in little dozes when
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: they felt inclined, and very little dozes I found they
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: were before long, for I never met people more indolent
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: or more easily fatigued six the sunset of mankind a
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: queer thing I soon discovered about my little hosts, and
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: that was their lack of interest. They would come to
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: me with eager cries of astonishment like children, but like
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: children they would soon stop examining me and wander away
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: after some other toy. The dinner and my conversational beginnings ended.
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: I noted for the first time that almost all those
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: who had surrounded me at first were gone. It is odd, too,
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: how speedily I came to disregard these little people. I
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: went out through the portal into the sunlit world again
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: as soon as my hunger was satisfied. I was continually
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: meeting more of these men of the future, who would
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: follow me a little distance, chatter and laugh about me, and,
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: having smiled and gesticulated in a friendly way, leave me
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: again to my own devices. The calm of evening was
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: upon the world as I emerged from the Great Hall,
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: and the scene was lit by the warm glow of
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: the setting sun. At first, things were very confusing. Everything
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: was so entirely different from the world I had known.
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: Even the flowers The big building I had left was
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: situated on the slope of a broad river valley, but
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: the Thames had shifted perhaps a mile from its present position.
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: I resolved to mount to the summit of a crest
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: perhaps a mile and a half away, from which I
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: could get a wider view of this our planet in
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: the year eight hundred and two thousand, seven hundred and one.
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: A d for that I should explain was the date
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: the little dials of my machine recorded. As I walked,
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: I was watching for every impression that could possibly help
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: to explain the condition of ruinous splendor in which I
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: found the world. For ruinous it was a little way
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: up the hill, for instance, was a great heap of
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: granite bound together by masses of aluminium, a vast labyrinth
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: of precipitous walls and crumpled heaps. Amidst which were thick
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: heaps of very beautiful pagoda like plants, nettles, possibly but
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: wonderfully tinted with brown about the leaves and incapable of stinging.
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: It was evidently the derelict remains of some vast structure.
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: To what end built I could not determine. It was
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: here that I was destined at a later date to
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: have a very strange experience, the first intimation of a
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: still stranger discovery. But of that I will speak in
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: its proper place. Looking round with a sudden thought from
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: a terrace on which I rested for a while, I
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: realized that there were no small houses to be seen.
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: Apparently the single house, and possibly even the household, had vanished.
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: Here and there among the greenery were palace like buildings,
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: But the house and the cottage, which formed such characteristic
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: features of our own English landscape, had disappeared. Communism, said
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: I to myself, And on the heels of that came
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: another thought. I looked at the half dozen little figures
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: that were following me. Then in a flash, I perceived
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: that all had the same form of costume, the same soft,
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: hairless visage, and the same girlish rotundity of limb. It
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: may seem strange, perhaps that I had not noticed this before,
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: But everything was so strange now I saw the fact
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: plainly enough. In costume, and in all the differences of
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: texture and bearing that now mark off the sexes from
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: each other. These people of the future were alike, and
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: the children seemed to my eyes to be but the
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: miniatures of their parents. I judge much then that the
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: children of that time were extremely precocious physically at least,
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: and I found afterwards abundant verification of my opinion. Seeing
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: the ease and security in which these people were living,
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: I felt that this close resemblance of the sexes was,
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: after all what one would expect for the strength of
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: a man, the softness of a woman. The institution of
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: the family, and the differentiation of occupations are mere militant
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: necessities of an age of physical force. Where population is
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: balanced and abundant, much child bearing becomes an evil rather
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: than a blessing. To the state where violence comes but
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: rarely in offspring are secure, there is less necessity. Indeed,
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: there is no necessity for an efficient family, and the
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: specialization of the sexes with reference to their children's needs disappears.
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: We see some beginnings of this even in our own time,
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: and in this future age it was complete. This, I
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: must remind you, was my speculation at the time. Later
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: I was to appreciate how far it fell short of
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: the reality. While I was musing upon these things, my
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: attention was attracted by a pretty little structure like a
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: well under a cupola. I thought in a transitory way
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: of the oddness of wells still existing, and then resumed
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: the thread of my speculations. There were no large buildings
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: towards the top of the hill, and as my walking
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: powers were evidently miraculous, I was presently left alone for
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: the first time. With a strange sense of freedom and adventure,
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: I pushed on up to the crest. There I found
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: a seat of some yellow metal that I did not recognize,
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: corroded in places with a kind of pinkish rust, and
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: half smothered in soft moss. The arm rests cast and
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: filed into the resemblance of griffin's heads. I sat down
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: on it, and I surveyed the broad view of our
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: old world under the sunset of that long day. It
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: was as sweet and fair a view as I have
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: ever seen. The sun had already gone below the horizon,
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: and the west was flaming gold, touched with some horizontal
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: bars of purple and crimson. Below was the valley of
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: the Thames, in which the river lay like a band
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: of burnished steel. I have already spoken of the great
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: palaces dotted about among the variegated greenery, some in ruins
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: and some still occupied. Here and there rose a white
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: or silvery figure in the waste garden of the earth.
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: Here and there came the sharp vertical line of some
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: cupola or obelisk. There were no hedges, no signs of
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: proprietary rites, no evidences of agriculture. The whole earth had
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: become a garden. So watching, I began to put my
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: interpretation upon the things I had seen, And as it
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: shaped itself to me that evening my interpretation was something.
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: In this way. Afterwards I found I had got only
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: a half truth, or only a glimpse of one facet
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: of the truth. It seemed to me that I had
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: happened upon humanity, upon the wine. The ruddy sunset set
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: me thinking of the sunset of mankind. For the first time,
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: I began to realize an odd consequence of the social
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: effort in which we are at present engaged, and yet
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: come to think it is a logical consequence. Enough strength
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: is the outcome of need. Security sets a premium on feebleness.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: The work of ameliorating the conditions of life, the true
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: civilizing process that makes life more and more secure, had
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: gone steadily on to a climax, one triumph of a
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: united humanity over nature had followed another. Things that are
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: now mere dreams had become projects, deliberately put in hand
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: and carried forward. And the harvest was what I saw.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: After all, the sanitation and the agriculture of today are
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: still in the rudimentary stage. The science of our time
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: has attacked but a little department of the field of
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: human disease. But even so it spreads its operations very
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: steadily and persistently. Our agriculture and horticulture destroy a weed
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: just here and there, and cultivate perhaps a score or
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: so of wholesome plans, leaving the greater number to fight
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: out a balance as they can. We improve our favorite
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: plants and animals, and how few they are, gradually by
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: selective breeding. Now a new and better peach, Now a
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: seedless grape, now a sweeter and larger flower, Now a
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: more convenient breed of cattle. We improve them gradually because
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: our ideals are vague and tentative, and our knowledge is
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: very limited, because nature, too is shy and slow in
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: our clumsy hands. Some day all this will be better
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: organized and still better. That is the drift of the current.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: In spite of the eddies, the whole world will be intelligent,
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: educated and co operating. Things will move faster and faster
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: towards the subjugation of nature. In the end, wisely and
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: carefully we shall readjust the balance of animal and vegetable
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: life to suit our human needs. This adjustment, I say,
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: must have been done, and done well done. Indeed, for
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: all time, in the space of time a cross which
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: my machine had left, the air was free from gnats,
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: the earth from weeds or fungi. Everywhere were fruits and
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: sweet and delightful flowers. Brilliant butterflies flew hither and thither.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: The ideal of preventive medicine was attained. Diseases had been
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: stamped out. I saw no evidence of any contagious diseases
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: during all my stay, and I shall have to tell
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: you later that even the processes of putrefaction and decay
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: had been profoundly affected by these changes. Social triumphs too
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: had been affected. I saw mankind housed in splendid shelters,
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: gloriously clothed, and as yet I had found them engaged
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: in no toil. There were no signs of struggle, neither
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: social nor economical struggle. The shop, the advertisement traffic, all
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: that commerce, which constitutes the body of our world was gone.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: It was natural, on that golden evening that I should
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: jump at the idea of a social paradise. The difficulty
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: of increasing population had been met, I guessed, and population
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: had ceased to increase. But with this change in condition
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: comes inevitably adaptations to the change. What, unless biological science
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: is a mass of errors, is the cause of human
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: intelligence and vigor, hardship and freedom. Conditions under which the active,
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: strong and subtle survive and the weaker go to the wall.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: Conditions that put a premium upon the loyal alliance of
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: capable men, upon self restraint, patience and decision, and the
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: institution of the family, and the emotions that arise therein
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: the fierce jealousy, the tenderness for offspring, parental self devotion,
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: all found their justification and support in the imminent dangers
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: of the young. Now where are these imminent dangers? There
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: is a sentiment arising, and it will grow against connubial jealousy,
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: against fierce maternity, against passion of all sorts, unnecessary things
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: now and things that make us uncomfortable, savage survivals discords
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: in a refined and pleasant life. I thought of the
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: physical slightness of the people, their lack of intelligence, and
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: those big abundant ruins, and it strengthened my belief in
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: a perfect conquest of nature. For after the battle comes quiet.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: Humanity had been strong, energetic, and intelligent, and had used
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: all its abundant vitality to alter the conditions under which
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: it lived. And now came the reaction of the altered conditions.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: Under the new conditions of perfect comfort and security, that
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: restless energy that with us is strength would become weakness.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: Even in our own times, certain tendencies and desires, once
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: necessary to survival, are a constant source of failure. Physical
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: courage and the love of battle, for instance, are no
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: great help, may even be hindrances to a civilized man,
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: And in a state of physical balance and security, power, intellect,
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: rual as well as physical would be out of place.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: For countless years, I judged there had been no danger
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: of war or solitary violence, no danger from wild beasts,
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: no wasting disease to require strength of constitution, no need
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: of toil for such a life. What we should call
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: the weak are as well equipped as the strong are.
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: Indeed no longer weak, better equipped indeed they are, for
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: the strong would be fretted by an energy for which
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: there was no outlet. No doubt, the exquisite beauty of
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: the buildings I saw was the outcome of the last
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: surgings of the now purposeless energy of mankind, before it
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: settled down into perfect harmony with the conditions under which
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: it lived, the flourish of that triumph which began the
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: last great peace. This has ever been the fate of
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: energy in security. It takes to art and to eroticism,
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: and then come languor and decay. Even this artistic impetus
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: would at last die away. Had almost died in the
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: time I saw to adorn themselve elves with flowers, to dance,
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: to sing in the sunlight. So much was left of
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: the artistic spirit, and no more even that would fade
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: in the end into a contented inactivity. We are kept
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: keen on the grindstone of pain and necessity. And it
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: seemed to me that here was that hateful grindstone broken
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: at last. As I stood there in the gathering dark,
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: I thought that in this simple explanation I had mastered
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: the problem of the world, mastered the whole secret of
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: these delicious people. Possibly the checks they had devised for
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: the increase of population had succeeded too well, and their
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: numbers had rather diminished than kept stationary. That would account
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: for the abandoned ruins. Very simple was my explanation, and
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: plausible enough, as most wrong theories are. Seven a sudden shock.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: As I stood there musing over this too perfect triumph
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: of man, the full moon, yellow and gibbous, came up
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: out of an overflow of silver light in the northeast.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: The bright little figures ceased to move about below. A
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: noiseless owl flitted by, and I shivered with the chill
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: of the night. I determined to descend and find where
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: I could sleep. I looked for the building I knew.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: Then My eye traveled along to the figure of the
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: white sphinx upon the pedestal of bronze, growing distinct. As
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: the light of the rising moon grew brighter, I could
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: see the silver birch against it. There was the tangle
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: of rhododendron bushes black in the pale light. And there
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: was the little lawn. I looked at the lawn again.
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: A queer doubt chilled my complacency. No, said I stoutly
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: to myself that was not the lawn, But it was
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: the lawn, for the white, leprous face of the sphinx
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: was towards it. Can you imagine what I felt as
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: this conviction came home to me, But you cannot. The
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: time machine was gone at once, like a lash across
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: the face. Came the possibility of losing my own age,
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: of being left helpless in this strange news world. The
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: bare thought of it was an actual physical sensation. I
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: could feel it griped me at the throat and stop
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: my breathing. In another moment, I was in a passion
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: of fear and running with great leaping strides down the slope.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: Once I fell headlong and cut my face, I lost
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: no time in stanching the blood, but jumped up and
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: ran on, with a warm trickle down my cheek and chin.
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: All the time I ran, I was saying to myself,
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: they have moved it a little, pushed it under the bushes,
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: out of the way. Nevertheless, I ran with all my
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: might all the time, with the certainty that sometimes comes
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: with excessive dread. I knew that such assurance was folly.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: Knew instinctively that the machine was removed out of my reach.
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: My breath came with pain. I suppose I covered the
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: whole distance from the hill crest to the little lawn,
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: two miles, perhaps in ten minutes, and I am not
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: a young man. I cursed aloud as I ran at
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: my confidence folly in leaving the machine, wasting good breath. Thereby,
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: I cried aloud, and none answered. Not a creature seemed
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: to be stirring in that moonlit world. When I reached
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: the lawn, my worst fears were realized. Not a trace
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: of the thing was to be seen. I felt faint
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: and cold when I faced the empty space among the
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: black tangle of bushes. I ran round it furiously, as
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: if the thing might be hidden in a corner, and
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: then stopped abruptly, with my hands clutching my hair. Above
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: me towered the sphinx upon the bronze pedestal, white, shining
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: leprous in the light of the rising moon. It seemed
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: to smile and mockery of my dismay. I might have
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: consoled myself by imagining the little people had put the
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: mechanism in some shelter for me, had I not felt
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: assured of their physical and intellectual inadequacy. That is what
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: dismayed me, the sense of some hitherto unsuspected power through
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: whose intervention my invention had vanished. Yet, for one thing,
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: I felt assured, unless some other age had produced its
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: exact duplicate, the machine could not have moved in time.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: The attachment of the levers I will show you the
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: method later, prevented any one from tampering with it in
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: that way. When they were removed, it had moved and
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: was hid only in space. But then where could it be?
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: I think I must have had a kind of frenzy.
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: I remember running violently in and out among the moonlit
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: bushes all round the Sphinx, and startling some white animal that,
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: in the dim light I took for a small deer.
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: I remember too late that night beating the bushes with
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: my clenched fist until my knuckles were gashed and bleeding
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: from the broken twigs. Then sobbing and raving in my
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: anguish of mind, I went down to the Great Building
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: of Stone. The big hall was dark, silent, and deserted.
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: I slipped on the uneven floor and fell over one
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: of the malachite tables, almost breaking my shin. I lit
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: a match and went on past the dusty curtains of
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: which I have told you. There I found a second
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: great hall, covered with cushions, upon which perhaps a score
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: or so of the little people were sleeping. I have
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: no doubt they found my second appearance strange enough, coming
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: suddenly out of the quiet darkness with inarticulate noises and
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: the splutter and flare of a match, For they had
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: forgotten about matches. Where is my time machine? I began
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: bawling like an angry child, laying hands upon them and
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: shaking them up together. It must have been very queer
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: to them. Some laughed, most of them looked sorely frightened.
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: When I saw them standing round me, it came into
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: my head that I was doing as foolish a thing
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: as it was possible for me to do under the circumstances,
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: in trying to revive the sensation of fear. For reasoning
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: from their daylight behavior, I thought that fear must be forgotten. Abruptly,
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: I dashed down the mat, and, knocking one of the
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: people over in my course, went blundering across the big
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: dining hall again. Out under the moonlight, I heard cries
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: of terror, and their little feet, running and stumbling this way,
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: and that I do not remember all I did as
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: the moon crept up the sky. I suppose it was
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: the unexpected nature of my loss that maddened me. I
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: felt hopelessly cut off from my own kind, a strange
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: animal in an unknown world. I must have raved to
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: and fro screaming and crying upon God and fate. I
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: have a memory of horrible fatigue as the long night
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: of despair wore away, of looking in this impossible place,
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: and that of groping among moonlit ruins and touching strange
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: creatures in the black shadows. At last, of lying on
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: the ground near the sphinx, and weeping with absolute wretchedness,
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: even anger at the folly of leaving the machine. Having
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: leaked away with my strength, I had nothing left but misery.
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: Then I slept, and when I woke again it was
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: full day, and a couple of sparrows were hopping round
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: me on the turf, within reach of my arm. I
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: sat up in the freshness of the morning, trying to
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: remember how I had got there and why I had
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: such a profound sense of desertion and despair. Then things
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: came clear in my mind, with the plain, reasonable daylight,
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: I could look my circumstances fairly in the face. I
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: saw the wild folly of my frenzy over night, and
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: I could reason with myself. Suppose the worst, I said,
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: suppose the machine altogether lost, perhaps destroyed. It beholds me
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: to be calm and patient, to learn the way of
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: the people, to get a clear idea of the method
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: of my loss, and the means of getting materials and tools,
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: so that in the end, perhaps I may make another
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: That would be my only hope, A poor hope, perhaps,
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: but better than despair. And after all it was a
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: beautiful and curious world. But probably the machine had only
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: been taken away. Still I must be calm and patient,
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: find its hiding place, and recover it by force or cunning.
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: And with that I scrambled to my feet and looked
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: about me, wondering where I could bathe. I felt weary, stiff,
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: and travel soiled. The freshness of the morning made me
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: desire an equal freshness. I had exhausted my emotion. Indeed,
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: as I went about my business, I found myself wondering
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: at my intense excitement. Over night, I made a careful
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: examination of the ground, about the little lawn. I wasted
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: some time in feudal questionings conveyed as well as I
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: was able to such of the little people as came by.
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: They all failed to understand my gestures. Some were simply stolid,
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: some thought it was a jest and laughed at me.
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: I had the hardest task in the world to keep
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: my hands off their pretty laughing faces. It was a
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: foolish impulse, but the devil begotten of fear and blind
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: anger was ill curbed and still eager to take advantage
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: of my perplexity. The turf gave better counsel. I found
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: a groove ripped in it about midway between the pedestal
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: of the sphinx, and the marks of my feet were.
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: On arrival, I had struggled with the overturned machine. There
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: were other signs of removal about, with queer, narrow footprints,
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: like those I could imagine made by a sloth. This
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: directed my closer attention to the pedestal. It was, as
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: I think I have said of bronze. It was not
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: a mere block, but highly decorated, with deep framed panels
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: on either side. I went and wrapped at these. The
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: pedestal was hollow, Examining the panels with care, I found
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: them discontinuous with the frames. There were no handles or keyholes,
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: but possibly the panels if they were doors, as I supposed,
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: open from within. One thing was clear enough to my mind.
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: It took no very great mental effort to infer that
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: my time machine was inside that pedestal. But how it
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: got there was a different problem. I saw the heads
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: of two orange clad people coming through the bushes and
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: under some blossom covered apple trees towards me. I turned
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: smiling to them and beckoned them to me. They came,
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: and then, pointing to the bronze pedestal, I tried to
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: intimate my wish to open it. But at my first
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: gesture towards this, they behaved very oddly. I don't know
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: how to convey their expression to you. Suppose you were
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: to use a grossly improper gesture to a delicate minded woman,
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: it is how she would look. They went off as
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: if they had received the last possible insult. I tried
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: a sweet looking little chap in white next, with exactly
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: the same result. Somehow, his manner made me feel ashamed
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: of myself. But as you know, I wanted the time machine,
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: and I tried him once more. As he turned off
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: like the others, my temper got the better of me.
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: In three strides, I was after him, had him by
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: the loose part of his robe round the neck, and
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: began dragging him towards the sphinx. Then I saw the
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: horror and repugnance of his face, and all of a
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: sudden I let him go. But I was not beaten yet.
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: I banged with my fist at the bronze panels. I
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: thought I heard something stir inside. To be explicit, I
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: thought I heard a sound like a chuckle, but I
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: must have been mistaken. Then I got a big pebble
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: from the river and came and hammered till I had
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: flattened a coil in the decorations, and the vertigrees came
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: off in powdery flakes. The delicate little people must have
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: heard me hammering in gusty outbreaks a mile away on
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: either hand, but nothing came of it. I saw a
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: crowd of them upon the slopes, looking furtively at me.
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: At last, hot and tired, I sat down to watch
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: the place. But I was too restless to watch long.
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: I am too occidental for a long vigil I could
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: work at a problem for years, But to wait inactive
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: for twenty four hours, that is another matter. I got
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: up after a time and began walking aimlessly through the
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: bushes towards the hill. Again. Patience, said I to myself.
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: If you want your machine again, you must leave that
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: sphinx alone. If they mean to take your machine away,
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: it's little good. You're wrecking their bronze panels. And if
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: they don't, you will get it back as soon as
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: you can ask for it. To sit among all those
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: unknown things before a puzzle like that is hopeless. That
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: way lies monomania. Face this world, learn its ways, watch it,
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: be careful of two hasty guesses at its meaning. In
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: the end you will find clues to it all. Then
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: suddenly the humor of the situation came into my mind,
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: the thought of the years I had spent in study
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: and toiled to get into the future age, and now
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: my passion of anxiety to get out of it. I
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: had made myself the most complicated and the most hopeless
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: trap that ever am and devised. Although it was at
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: my own expense, I could not help myself. I laughed aloud.
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: Going through the big palace. It seemed to me that
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: the little people avoided me. It may have been my fancy,
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: or it may have had something to do with my
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: hammering at the gates of bronze. Yet I felt tolerably
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: sure of the avoidance. I was careful, however, to show
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: no concern and to abstain from any pursuit of them,
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: And in the course of a day or two things
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: got back to the old footing. I made what progress
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: I could in the language, and in addition I pushed
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: my explorations here and there. Either I missed some subtle point,
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: or their language was excessively simple, almost exclusively composed of
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: concrete substantives and verbs. There seemed to be few, if any,
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: abstract terms, or little use of figurative language. Their sentences
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: were usually simple and of two words, and I failed
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: to convey or understand any but the simplest propositions. I
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: determined to put the thought of my time machine and
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: the mystery of the bronze doors under the sphynx, as
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: much as possible, in a corner of memory, until my
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: growing knowledge would lead me back to them in a
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: natural way. Yet a certain feeling you may understand, tethered
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: me in a circle of a few miles round the
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: point of my arrival. Eight explanation. So far as I
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: could see, all the world displayed the same exuberant richness
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: as the Thames Valley. From every hill I climbed, I
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: saw the same abundance of splendid buildings, endlessly varied in
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: material and style, the same clustering thickets of evergreens, the
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: same blossom laden trees and tree ferns. Here in their
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: waters shone like silver, and beyond the land rose into blue,
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: undulating hills, and so faded into the serenity of the sky.
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: A peculiar feature which presently attracted my attention was the
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: presence of certain circular wells, several as it seemed to
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: me of a very great depth. One lay by the
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: path up the hill which I had followed during my
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: first walk. Like the others, it was rimmed with bronze,
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: curiously wrought, and protected by a little cupola from the rain.
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: Sitting by the side of these wells and peering down
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: into the shaft of darkness, I could see no gleam
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: of water, nor could I start any reflection with a
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: lighted match. But in all of them I heard a
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: certain sound, a thud, thud, thud, like the beating of
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: some big engine. And I discovered from the flaring of
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: my matches that a steady current of air set down
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: the shafts. Further, I threw a scrap of paper into
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: the throat of one, and instead of fluttering slowly down,
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: it was at once sucked swiftly out of sight. After
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: a time, too, I came to connect these wells with
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: tall towers standing here and there upon the slopes, for
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: above them there was often just such a flicker in
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: the air as one sees on a hot day above
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: a sun scorched beach. Putting things together, I reached a
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: strong suggestion of an extensive system of subterranean ventilation, whose
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: true import it was difficult to imagine. I was at
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: first inclined to associate it with the sanitary apparatus of
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: these people. It was an obvious conclusion, but it was
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: absolutely wrong. And here I must admit that I learned
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: very little of drains and bells, and modes of conveyance
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: and the like conveniences during my time in this real future.
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: In some of these visions of Utopia's and coming times
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: which I have read, there is a vast amount of
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: detail about building and social arrangements and so forth. But
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: while such details are easy enough to obtain when the
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: whole world is contained in one's imagination, they are altogether
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: inaccessible to a real traveler. Amid such realities as I
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: found here, conceive the tale of London which a Negro
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: fresh from Central Africa would take back to his tribe.
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: What would he know of railway companies, of social movements,
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: of telephone and telegraph wires, of the parcels delivery company,
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: and postal orders and the like. Yet we at least
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: should be willing enough to explain these things to him.
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: And even of what he knew, how much could he
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: make his inntraveled friend either apprehend or believe? Then think
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: how narrow the gap between a Negro and a white
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: man of our own times, and how wide the interval
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: between myself and these of the golden age. I was
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: sensible of much which was unseen, and which contributed to
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: my comfort. But save for a general impression of automatic organization,
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: I fear I can convey very little of the difference
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: to your mind. In the matter of sepulture, for instance,
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: I could see no signs of crematoria, nor anything suggestive
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: of tombs. But it occurred to me that possibly there
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: might be cemeteries or crematoria somewhere beyond the range of
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: my explorings. This again was a question I deliberately put
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: to myself, and my curiosity was at first entirely defeated.
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: Upon the point the thing puzzled me, and I was
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: led to make a further remark, which puzzled me still more,
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: that aged and infirm among this people there were none.
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: I must confess that my satisfaction with my first theories
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: of an automatic civilization and a decadent humanity did not
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: long endure. Yet I could think of no other let
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: me put my difficulties. The several big palaces I had
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: explored were mere living places, great dining halls and sleeping apartments.
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: I could find no machinery, no appliances of any kind.
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: Yet these people were clothed in pleasant fabrics that must
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: at times need renewal, and their sandals, though undecorated, were
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: fairly complex specimens of metal work. Somehow such things must
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: be made, and the little people displayed no vestige of
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: a creative tendency. There were no shops no workshops, no
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: sign of importations among them. They spent all their time
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: in playing gently, in bathing in the river, in making
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: love in a half playful fashion, in eating fruit and sleeping.
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: I could not see how things were kept going. Then
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: again about the time machine. Something I knew, not what
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: had taken it into the hollow pedestal of the white Sphinx. Why,
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: for the life of me I could not imagine those
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: waterless wells too, those flickering pillars. I felt I lacked
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: a clue. I felt, how shall I put it? Suppose
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: you found an inscription with sentences here and there in
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: excellent plain English, and interpolated therewith others made up of
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: words of letters even absolutely unknown to you. Well, on
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: the third day of my visit, that was how the
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: world of eight hundred and two thousand, seven hundred and
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: one presented itself to me. That day too, I made
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: a friend of a sort. It happened that, as I
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: was watching some of the little people bathing in a
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: shallow one of them was seized with cramp and began
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: drifting down stream. The main current ran rather swiftly, but
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: not too strongly for even a moderate swimmer. It will
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: give you an idea therefore, of the strange deficiency in
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: these creatures, when I tell you that none made the
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: slightest attempt to rescue the weakly crying little thing which
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: was drowning before their eyes. When I realized this, I
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: hurriedly slipped off my clothes, and, wading in at a
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: point lower down, I caught the poor mite and drew
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: her safe to land. A little rubbing of the limbs
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: soon brought her round, and I had the satisfaction of
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: seeing she was all right. Before I left her, I
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: had got to such a low estimate of her kind
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: that I did not expect any gratitude from her in
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: that however, I was wrong. This happened in the morning.
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: In the afternoon, I met my little woman, as I
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: believe it was, as I was returning towards my center
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: from an exploration, and she received me with cries of delight,
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: and presented me with a big garland of flowers, evidently
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: made for me and me alone. The thing took my
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: imagination very possibly I had been feeling desolate. At any rate,
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: I did my best to display my appreciation of the gift.
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: We were soon seated together in a little stone arbor,
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: engaged in conversation, chiefly of smiles. The creature's friendliness affected
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: me exactly as a child's might have done. We passed
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 1: each other flowers, and she kissed my hands. I did
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: the same to hers. Then I tried talk and found
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: that her name was Weena, which, though I don't know
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: what it meant, somehow seemed appropriate enough. That was the
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: beginning of a queer friendship, which lasted a week and
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: ended as I will tell you. She was exactly like
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: a child. She wanted to be with me always. She
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: tried to follow me everywhere, and on my next journey
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: out and about, it went to my heart to tire
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 1: her down and leave her at last, exhausted in calling
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: after me rather plaintively. But the problems of the world
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: had to be mastered. I had not, I said to myself,
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: come into the future to carry on a miniature flotation.
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: Yet her distress when I left her was very great.
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: Her expostulations that the parting were sometimes frantic, and I
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: think altogether I had as much trouble as comfort from
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: her devotion. Nevertheless, she was somehow a very great comfort.
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: I thought it was mere childish affection that made her
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: cling to me. Until it was too late. I did
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: not clearly know what I had inflicted upon her when
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: I left her, nor until it was too late did
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: I clearly understand what she was to me. For by
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: merely seeming fond of me and showing in her weak,
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 1: futile way that she cared for me, the little doll
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: of a creature presently gave my return to the neighborhood
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: of the White Sphinx almost the feeling of coming home,
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: and I would watch for her tiny figure of white
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: and gold so soon as I came over the hill.
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: It was from her, too that I learned that fear
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: had not yet left the world. She was fearless enough
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 1: in the daylight, and she had the oddest confidence in me.
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: For once, in a foolish moment, I made threatening grimaces
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 1: at her, and she simply laughed at them. But she
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: dreaded the dark, dreaded shadows, dreaded black things. Darkness to
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: her was the one thing dreadful. It was a singularly
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 1: passionate emotion, and it set me thinking and observing. I discovered, then,
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: among other things, that these little people gathered into the
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: great houses after dark and slept in droves. To enter
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: upon them without a light was to put them into
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: a tumult of apprehension. I never found one out of doors,
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: or one sleeping alone within doors after dark. Yet I
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: was still such a blockhead that I missed the lesson
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: of that fear, And in spite of Weena's distress, I
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: insisted upon sleeping away from these slumbering multitudes. It troubled
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: her greatly, but in the end her odd affection for
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: me triumphed, and for five of the nights of our
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: acquaint including the last night of all, she slept with
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: her head pillowed on my arm. But my story slips
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: away from me as I speak of her. It must
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: have been the night before her rescue that I was
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: awakened about dawn. I had been restless, dreaming most disagreeably
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: that I was drowned, and that sea and emones were
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: feeling over my face with their soft palps. I woke
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: with a start, and with an odd fancy that some
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: grayish animal had just rushed out of the chamber. I
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: tried to get to sleep again, but I felt restless
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 1: and uncomfortable. It was that dim gray hour when things
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: are just creeping out of darkness when everything is colorless
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: and clear cut and yet unreal. I got up and
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: went down into the Great Hall and sew out upon
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: the flagstones in front of the palace. I thought I
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: would make a virtue of necessity and see the sunrise.
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: The moon was setting, and the dying moonlight and the
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: first pallor of dawn were mingled in a ghastly half light.
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 1: The bushes were inky black, the ground a somber gray,
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 1: the sky colorless and cheerless. And up the hill I
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: thought I could see ghosts. Three several times as I
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 1: scanned the slope, I saw white figures. Twice I fancied
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: I saw a solitary, white ape like creature running rather
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: quickly up the hill, and once near the ruins, I
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 1: saw a leash of them, carrying some dark body. They
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: moved hastily. I did not see what became of them.
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: It seemed that they vanished among the bushes. The dawn
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: was still indistinct. You must understand I was feeling that chill,
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: uncertain early morning feeling you may have known. I doubted
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: my eyes. As the eastern sky grew brighter and the
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: light of the day came on, and its vivid coloring
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: returned upon the world once more. I scanned the view keenly,
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: but I saw no vestige of my white figures. They
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: were mere creatures of the half light. They must have
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: been ghosts, I said, I wonder whence they dated. For
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: a queer notion of Grant Allen's came into my head
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: and amused me. If each generation die and leave ghosts,
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: he argued, the world at last will get overcrowded with them.
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 1: On that theory, they would have grown innumerable some eight
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: hundred thousand years hence, and it was no great wonder
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: to see for at once. But the jest was unsatisfying,
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: and I was thinking of these figures all the morning,
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 1: until Weena's rescue drove them out of my head. I
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: associated them, in some indefinite way with the white animal
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 1: I had startled in my first passionate search for the
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: time machine. But Weena was a pleasant substitute. Yet all
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: the same, they were soon destined to take far deadlier
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: possession of my mind. I think I have said, how
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: much hotter than our own was the weather of this
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: Golden age? I cannot account for it. It may be
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: that the sun was hotter, or the earth nearer the Sun.
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 1: It is usual to assume that the Sun will go
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: on cooling steadily in the future. But people unfamiliar with
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 1: such speculations as those of the younger Darwin, forget that
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 1: the planets must ultimately fall back one by one into
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: the parent body. As these catastrophes occur, the Sun will
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: blaze with renewed energy, and it may be that some
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: inner planet had suffered this fate. Whatever the reason, the
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 1: fact remains that the Sun was very much hotter than
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: we know it well. One very hot morning, my fourth
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 1: I think, as I was seeking shelter from the heat
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 1: and glare in a colossal ruin near the Great House
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: where I slept and fed, there happened this strange thing.
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: Clambering among these heaps of masonry, I found a narrow
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 1: gallery whose end and side windows were blocked by fallen
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 1: masses of stone. By contrast with the brilliancy outside, it
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: seemed at first impenetrably dark to me. I entered it, groping,
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: for the change from light to blackness made spots of
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 1: color swim before me. Suddenly I halteds bell bound a
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: pair of eyes luminous by reflection against the daylight without
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: was watching me. Out of the darkness. The old instinctive
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 1: dread of wild beasts came upon me. I clenched my
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: hands and steadfastly looked into the glaring eyeballs. I was
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: afraid to turn. Then the thought of the absolute security
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 1: in which humanity appeared to be living came to my mind,
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 1: and then I remembered that strange terror of the dark.
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 1: Overcoming my fear to some extent, I advanced a step
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: and spoke. I will admit that my voice was harsh
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: and ill controlled. I put out my hand and touched
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: something soft. At once, the eyes darted sideways, and something
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 1: white ran past me. I turned, with my heart in
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: my mouth, and saw a queer, little ape like figure,
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 1: its head held down in a peculiar manner, running across
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: the sunlit space behind me. It blundered against a block
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: of granite, staggered aside, and in a moment was hidden
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: and in a black shadow, beneath another pile of ruined masonry.
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: My impression of it is, of course imperfect, but I
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: know it was a dull white and had strange, large
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: grayish red eyes. Also that there was flaxen hair on
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: its head and down its back, But as I say,
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: it went too fast for me to see distinctly. I
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 1: cannot even say whether it ran on all fours or
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: only with its forearms held very low. After an instant's pause,
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 1: I followed it into the second heap of ruins. I
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 1: could not find it at first, but after a time
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: in the profound obscurity, I came upon one of those
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: round well like openings of which I have told you,
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 1: half closed by a fallen pillar. A sudden thought came
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 1: to me, could this thing have vanished down the shaft?
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 1: I lit a match, and looking down, I saw a small, white,
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: moving creature with large, bright eyes, which regarded me steadfastly
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: as it retreated. It made me shudder. It was so
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: like a human spider. It was clambering down the wall.
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: And now I saw for the first time a number
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 1: of metal foot and hand rests forming a kind of
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: ladder down the shaft. Then the light burned my fingers
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 1: and fell out of my hand, going out as it dropped,
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: And when I had lit another, the little monster had disappeared.
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: I do not know how long I sat peering down
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: that well. It was not for some time that I
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: could succeed in persuading myself that the thing I had
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: seen was human. But gradually the truth dawned on me
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: that man had not remained one species, but had differentiated
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: into two distinct animals, that my graceful children of the
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 1: upper world were not the sole descendants of our generation,
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: but that this bleached, obscene, nocturnal thing which had flashed
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: before me was also heir to all the ages. I
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: thought of the flickering pillars, and of my theory of
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 1: an underground ventilation. I began to suspect their true import
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 1: And what I wondered was this lemur doing in my
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: scheme of a perfectly balanced organization? How was it related
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 1: to the indolent serenity of the beautiful overworlders? And what
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 1: was hidden down there at the foot of that shaft.
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: I sat upon the edge of the well, telling myself
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: that at any rate, there was nothing to fear, and
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: that there I must descend for the solution of my difficulties,
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 1: and withal I was absolutely afraid to go. As I hesitated,
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 1: two of the beautiful upper world people came running in
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: their amorous sport across the daylight in the shadow. The
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: male pursued the female flinging flowers at her as he ran.
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: They seemed distressed to find me my arm against the
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: overturned pillar peering down the well. Apparently it was considered
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: bad form to remark these apertures, for when I pointed
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 1: to this one and try to frame a question about
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: it in their tongue, they were still more visibly distressed
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 1: and turned away. But they were interested by my matches,
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: and I struck some to amuse them. I tried them
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: again about the well, and again I failed. So presently
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 1: I left them, meaning to go back to Weena and
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 1: see what I could get from her. But my mind
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 1: was already in revolution. My guesses and impressions were slipping
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: and sliding to a new adjustment. I had now a
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 1: clue to the import of these wells, to the ventilating towers,
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 1: to the mystery of the ghosts, to say nothing of
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 1: a hint at the meaning of the bronze gates and
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: the fate of the time machine. And very vaguely there
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: came a suggestion towards the solution of the economic problem
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 1: that had puzzled me. Here was the new view. Plainly,
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 1: this second species of man was subterranean. There were three
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 1: circumstances in particular, which made me think that its rare
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 1: emergence above ground was the outcome of a long, continued
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 1: underground habit In the first place, there was the bleached
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: look common in most animals that live largely in the dark,
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: the white fish of the Kentucky Caves, for instance. Then
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 1: those large eyes with that capacity for reflecting light are
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 1: common features of nocturnal things witnessed the owl and the cat.
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 1: And last of all, that evident confusion in the sunshine,
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 1: that hasty yet fumbling, awkward flight towards dark shadow, and
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 1: that peculiar carriage of the head while in the light
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 1: all reinforced the theory of an extreme sensitiveness of the
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 1: retina beneath my feet. Then the earth must be tunneled enormously,
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 1: and these tunnelings were the habitat of the new Race.
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 1: The presence of ventilating shafts and wells along the hill
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 1: slopes everywhere, in fact, except along the river valley, showed
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: how universal were its ramifications. What so natural then, as
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 1: to assume that it was in this artificial underworld that
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 1: such work as was necessary to the comfort of the
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 1: daylight race was done. The notion was so plausible that
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 1: I at once accepted it and went on to assume
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 1: the how of this splitting of the human species. I
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 1: dare say you will anticipate the shape of my theory,
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: though for myself I very soon felt that it fell
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 1: far short of the truth. At first, proceeding from the
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 1: problems of our own age, it seemed clear as daylight
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 1: to me that the gradual widening of the present, merely
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 1: temporary and social difference between the capitalist and the laborer
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 1: was the key to the whole position. No doubt, it
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 1: will seem grotesque enough to you, and wildly incredible, And
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 1: yet even now there are existing circumstances to point that way.
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 1: There is a tendency to utilize underground space for the
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: less ornamental purposes of civilization. There is the Metropolitan Railway
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 1: in London, for instance. There are new electric railways, There
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 1: are subways, There are underground workrooms and restaurants, and they
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 1: increase and multiply. Evidently, I thought this tendency had increased
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 1: till industry had gradually lost its birthright in the sky.
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 1: I mean that it had gone deeper and deeper into
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 1: larger and ever larger underground factories. Spending as stilling increasing
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: amount of its time therein till in the end even
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 1: now does not an East End worker live in such
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 1: artificial conditions as practically to be cut off from the
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 1: natural surface of the earth. Again, the exclusive tendency of
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: richer people, due no doubt to the increasing refinement of
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: their education and the widening gulf between them and the
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 1: rude violence of the poor, is already leading to the
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 1: closing in their interest of considerable portions of the surface
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: of the land. About London, for instance, perhaps half the
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 1: prettier country is shut in against intrusion. And this same
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 1: widening gulf, which is due to the length and expense
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 1: of the higher educational process and the increased facilities for
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: intemptations towards refined habits on the part of the rich,
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 1: will make that exchange between class and class, that promotion
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 1: by intermarriage, which at present retards the splitting of our
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 1: species along lines of social stratification, less and less frequent.
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 1: So in the US the end, above ground you must
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 1: have the halves pursuing pleasure and comfort and beauty, and
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 1: below ground the have nots. The workers getting continually adapted
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 1: to the conditions of their labor Once they were there,
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 1: they would no doubt have to pay rent, and not
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 1: a little of it, for the ventilation of their caverns,
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 1: and if they refused, they would starve or be suffocated
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 1: for arrears. Such of them as were so constituted as
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 1: to be miserable and rebellious would die, and in the end,
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 1: the balance being permanent, the survivors would become as well
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 1: adapted to the conditions of underground life and as happy
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 1: in their way as the overworld people were to theirs.
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 1: As it seemed to me, the refined beauty and the
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: eediolated pallor followed naturally enough, the great triumph of humanity
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 1: I had dreamed of took a different shape in my mind.
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 1: It had been no such triumph of moral education and
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 1: general co operation as I had imagined. Instead, I saw
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 1: a real aristocracy, armed with a perfect science and working
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 1: to a logical conclusion the industrial system of to day.
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 1: Its triumph had not been simply a triumph over nature,
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 1: but a triumph over nature and the fellow man. This,
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 1: I must warn you, was my theory at the time.
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 1: I had no convenient cicerone in the pattern of the
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 1: utopian books. My explanation may be absolutely wrong. I still
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 1: think it is the most plausible one. But even on
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 1: this supposition, the balanced civilization that was at last attained
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 1: must have long since passed its zenith and was now
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 1: far fallen into decay. The too perfect security of the
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 1: overworlders had led them to a slow movement of degeneration,
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 1: to a general dwindling in size, strength, and intelligence that
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 1: I could see clearly enough already. What had happened to
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 1: the undergrounders I did not yet suspect, but from what
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 1: I had seen of the Morlocks that by the Bye
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 1: was the name by which these creatures were called, I
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 1: could imagine that the notification of the human type was
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 1: even far more profound than among the Talloi, the beautiful
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 1: race that I already knew. Then came troublesome doubts. Why
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 1: had the Morlocks taken my time machine? For I felt
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 1: sure it was they who had taken it. Why, too,
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 1: if the Eloi were masters, could they not restore the
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 1: machine to me? And why were they so terribly afraid
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 1: of the dark. I proceeded, as I have said, to
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 1: question Weena about this underworld, But here again I was disappointed.
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 1: At first she would not understand my questions, and presently
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 1: she refused to answer them. She shivered, as though the
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 1: topic was unendurable, and when I pressed her, perhaps a
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 1: little harshly, she burst into tears. They were the only
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 1: tears except my own I ever saw in that golden age.
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 1: When I saw them, I ceased abruptly to trouble about
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 1: the Morlocks, and was only concerned in banishing these signs
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 1: of her human inheritance from Weena's eyes, And very soon
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 1: she was smiling and clapping her hands while I solemnly
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 1: burnt a match nine the Morlocks. It may seem odd
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 1: to you, but it was two days before I could
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 1: follow up the new found clue in what was manifestly
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 1: the proper way. I felt a peculiar shrinking from those
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 1: pallid bodies. They were just the half bleached color of
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 1: the worms and things one sees preserved in spirit in
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 1: a zoological museum, and they were filfilly cold to the touch.
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 1: Probably my shrinking was largely due to the sympathetic influence
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 1: of the ELOI, whose disgust of the Morlocks I now
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 1: began to appreciate. The next night I did not sleep well.
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 1: Probably my health was a little disordered, I was oppressed
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 1: with perplexity and doubt. Once or twice I had a
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 1: feeling of intense fear for which I could perceive no
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 1: definite reason. I remember creeping noiselessly into the Great Hall
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 1: where the little people were sleeping in the moonlight. That night,
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 1: we was among them, and feeling reassured by their presence.
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 1: It occurred to me even then that in the course
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 1: of a few days, the moon must pass through its
• 1:46:09
  Speaker 1: last quarter, and the nights grow dark, when the appearances
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 1: of these unpleasant creatures from below, these whitened lemurs, this
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 1: new vermin that had replaced the old, might be more abundant.
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 1: And on both these days I had the restless feeling
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: of one who shirks an inevitable duty. I felt assured
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 1: that the time machine was only to be recovered by
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 1: boldly penetrating these mysteries of underground. Yet I could not
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 1: face the mystery. If only I had had a companion,
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 1: it would have been different. But I was so horribly alone,
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 1: and even to clamber down into the darkness of the
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 1: well appalled me. I don't know if you will understand
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 1: my feeling, but I never felt quite safe at my back.
• 1:46:50
  Speaker 1: It was this restlessness, this insecurity, perhaps that drove me
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 1: farther and farther afield in my exploring expeditions. Going to
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 1: the south westward towards the rising country that is now
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 1: called combe Wood, I observed far off in the direction
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 1: of nineteenth century Banstad, a vast green structure different in
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 1: character from any I had hitherto seen. It was larger
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 1: than the largest of the palaces or ruins I knew,
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 1: and the facade had an oriental look, the face of
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 1: it having the luster as well as the pale green tint,
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 1: a kind of bluish green of a certain type of
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 1: Chinese porcelain. This difference in aspect suggested a difference in use,
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 1: and I was minded to push on and explore. But
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 1: the day was growing late, and I had come upon
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 1: the side of the place after a long and tiring circuit.
• 1:47:38
  Speaker 1: So I resolved to hold over the adventure for the
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 1: following day, and I returned to the welcome and the
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 1: caresses of Little Weena. But next morning I perceived clearly
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 1: enough that my curiosity regarding the palace of Green porcelain
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 1: was a piece of self deception to enable me to
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 1: shirk by another day, and experience I dreaded. I resolved
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 1: I would make the descent without further waste of time,
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 1: and started out in the early morning towards a well
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 1: near the ruins of granite and aluminium. Little Weena ran
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 1: with me. She danced beside me to the well, but
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 1: when she saw me lean over the mouth and look downward,
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 1: she seemed strangely disconcerted. Good Bye, little Weena, I said,
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 1: kissing her and then putting her down. I began to
• 1:48:21
  Speaker 1: feel over the parapet for the climbing hooks rather hastily,
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 1: I may as well confess, for I feared my courage
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 1: might leak away. At first she watched me in amazement.
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 1: Then she gave a most piteous cry, and running to me,
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 1: she began to pull at me with her little hands.
• 1:48:40
  Speaker 1: I think her opposition nerved me rather to proceed. I
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 1: shook her off, perhaps a little roughly, and in another
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 1: moment I was in the throat of the well. I
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 1: saw her agonized face over the parapet and smiled to
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 1: reassure her. Then I had to look down at the
• 1:48:56
  Speaker 1: unstable hooks to which I clung. I had to clamber
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 1: down on a shaft of perhaps two hundred yards. The
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 1: descent was affected by means of metallic bars projecting from
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 1: the sides of the well, and these being adapted to
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 1: the needs of a creature much smaller and lighter than myself.
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 1: I was speedily cramped and fatigued by the descent, and
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 1: not simply fatigued. One of the bars bent suddenly under
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 1: my weight and almost swung me off into the blackness beneath.
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 1: For a moment I hung by one hand, and after
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 1: that experience I did not dare to rest again. Though
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 1: my arms and back were presently acutely painful, I went
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 1: on clambering down the sheer descent with as quick emotion
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 1: as possible. Glancing upward, I saw the aperture a small
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 1: blue disk in which a star was visible, while little
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 1: Weena's head showed as a round black projection. The thudding
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 1: sound of a machine below grew louder and more oppressive.
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 1: Everything save that little disk above was profoundly dark, and
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 1: when I looked up again, Weena had disappeared. I was
• 1:49:59
  Speaker 1: in an agony of discomfort. I had some thought of
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 1: trying to go up the shaft again and leave the
• 1:50:05
  Speaker 1: underworld alone, but even while I turned this over in
• 1:50:08
  Speaker 1: my mind. I continued to descend. At last, with intense relief,
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 1: I saw dimly, coming up a foot to the right
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 1: of me, a slender loophole in the wall. Swinging myself in,
• 1:50:21
  Speaker 1: I found it was the aperture of a narrow, horizontal
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 1: tunnel in which I could lie down and rest. It
• 1:50:27
  Speaker 1: was not too soon. My arms ached, my back was cramped,
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 1: and I was trembling with the prolonged terror of a fall.
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 1: Besides this, the unbroken darkness had had a distressing effect
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 1: upon my eyes. The air was full of the throb
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 1: and hum of machinery pumping air down the shaft. I
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 1: do not know how long I lay. I was aroused
• 1:50:49
  Speaker 1: by a soft hand touching my face. Starting up in
• 1:50:53
  Speaker 1: the darkness, I snatched at my matches and hastily striking one,
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 1: I saw three stooping white creatures, similar to the one
• 1:51:00
  Speaker 1: I had seen above ground in the ruin, hastily retreating
• 1:51:03
  Speaker 1: before the light, living as they did in what appeared
• 1:51:07
  Speaker 1: to me impenetrable darkness. Their eyes were abnormally large and sensitive,
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 1: just as are the pupils of the abysmal fishes, and
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 1: they reflected the light in the same way I have
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 1: no doubt they could see me in that rayless obscurity,
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 1: and they did not seem to have any fear of
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 1: me apart from the light. But so soon as I
• 1:51:26
  Speaker 1: struck a match in order to see them, they fled incognently,
• 1:51:29
  Speaker 1: vanishing into dark gutters and tunnels, from which their eyes
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 1: glared at me in the strangest fashion. I tried to
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 1: call to them, but the language they had was apparently
• 1:51:39
  Speaker 1: different from that of the overworld people, so that I
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 1: was needs left to my own unaided efforts, and the
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 1: thought of flight before exploration was even then in my mind.
• 1:51:49
  Speaker 1: But I said to myself, you are in for it now,
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 1: And feeling my way along the tunnel, I found the
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 1: noise of machinery grow louder. Presently the walls fell away
• 1:51:59
  Speaker 1: from me, and I came to a large open space, and,
• 1:52:02
  Speaker 1: striking another match, saw that I had entered a vast,
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 1: arched cavern which stretched into utter darkness beyond the range
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 1: of my light. The view I had of it was
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 1: as much as one could see in the burning of
• 1:52:13
  Speaker 1: a match. Necessarily, my memory is vague. Great shapes like
• 1:52:18
  Speaker 1: big machines rose out of the dimness and cast grotesque
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 1: black shadows in which dim spectral morlocks sheltered from the glare.
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 1: The place by the by was very stuffy and oppressive,
• 1:52:30
  Speaker 1: and the faint hallius of freshly shed blood was in
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 1: the air. Some Way down the central vista was a
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 1: little table of white metal laid with what seemed a meal.
• 1:52:40
  Speaker 1: The morlocks, at any rate, were carnivorous. Even at the time,
• 1:52:44
  Speaker 1: I remember wondering what large animal could have survived to
• 1:52:47
  Speaker 1: furnish the red joint. I saw. It was all very indistinct,
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 1: the heavy smell, the big, unmeaning shapes, the obscene figures
• 1:52:55
  Speaker 1: lurking in the shadows, and only waiting for the darkness
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 1: to come at me again. Then the match burnt down
• 1:53:02
  Speaker 1: and stung my fingers, and fell a wriggling red spot
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 1: in the blackness. I have thought since how particularly ill
• 1:53:09
  Speaker 1: equipped I was for such an experience. When I had
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 1: started with the time machine, I had started with the
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 1: absurd assumption that the men of the future would certainly
• 1:53:18
  Speaker 1: be infinitely ahead of ourselves in all their appliances. I
• 1:53:22
  Speaker 1: had come without arms, without medicine, without anything to smoke.
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 1: At times I missed tobacco frightfully, even without enough matches.
• 1:53:31
  Speaker 1: If only I had thought of a kodak. I could
• 1:53:34
  Speaker 1: have flashed that glimpse of the underworld in a second
• 1:53:37
  Speaker 1: and examined it at leisure. But as it was, I
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 1: stood there with only the weapons and the powers that
• 1:53:43
  Speaker 1: nature had endowed me with hands, feet, and teeth, these
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 1: and four safety matches that still remained to me. I
• 1:53:51
  Speaker 1: was afraid to push my way in among all this
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 1: machinery in the dark. And it was only with my
• 1:53:56
  Speaker 1: last glimpse of light I discovered that my store of
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 1: matches had run low. It had never occurred to me
• 1:54:02
  Speaker 1: until that moment that there was any need to economize them,
• 1:54:05
  Speaker 1: and I had wasted almost half the box in astonishing
• 1:54:08
  Speaker 1: the overworlders, to whom fire was a novelty. Now, as
• 1:54:13
  Speaker 1: I say, I had fore left, And while I stood
• 1:54:16
  Speaker 1: in the dark, a hand touched mine. Lank fingers came
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 1: feeling over my face, and I was sensible of a peculiar,
• 1:54:22
  Speaker 1: unpleasant odor. I fancied. I heard the breathing of a
• 1:54:26
  Speaker 1: crowd of those dreadful little beings about me. I felt
• 1:54:29
  Speaker 1: the box of matches in my hand being gently disengaged,
• 1:54:33
  Speaker 1: and other hands behind me plucking at my clothing. The
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 1: sense of these unseen creatures examining me was indescribably unpleasant.
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 1: The sudden realization of my ignorance of their ways of
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 1: thinking and doing came home to me very vividly. In
• 1:54:47
  Speaker 1: the darkness, I shouted at them as loudly as I could.
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 1: They started away, and then I could feel them approaching
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 1: me again. They clutched at me more boldly, whispering odd
• 1:54:59
  Speaker 1: sounds to each other. I shivered violently and shouted again,
• 1:55:03
  Speaker 1: rather discordantly. This time they were not so seriously alarmed,
• 1:55:08
  Speaker 1: and they made a queer laughing noise as they came
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 1: back at me. I will confess I was horribly frightened.
• 1:55:15
  Speaker 1: I determined to strike another match and escape under the
• 1:55:18
  Speaker 1: protection of its glare. I did so, and eking out
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 1: the flicker with a scrap of paper from my pocket,
• 1:55:24
  Speaker 1: I made good my retreat to the narrow tunnel. But
• 1:55:28
  Speaker 1: I had scarce entered this when my light was blown out,
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 1: and in the blackness I could hear the morlocks rustling
• 1:55:33
  Speaker 1: like wind among leaves and pattering like the rain as
• 1:55:36
  Speaker 1: they hurried after me. In a moment, I was clutched
• 1:55:40
  Speaker 1: by several hands, and there was no mistaking that they
• 1:55:42
  Speaker 1: were trying to haul me back. I struck another light
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 1: and waved it in their dazzled faces. You can scarce
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 1: imagine how nauseatingly inhuman they looked, those pale, chinless faces
• 1:55:54
  Speaker 1: and great, lidless, pinkish gray eyes as they stared in
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 1: their blindness and bewilder. But I did not stay to look,
• 1:56:02
  Speaker 1: I promise you. I retreated again, and when my second
• 1:56:06
  Speaker 1: match had ended, I struck my third. It had almost
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 1: burnt through. When I reached the opening into the shaft,
• 1:56:13
  Speaker 1: I lay down on the edge for the throb of
• 1:56:15
  Speaker 1: the great pump below made me giddy. Then I felt
• 1:56:19
  Speaker 1: sideways for the projecting hooks, and as I did so,
• 1:56:22
  Speaker 1: my feet were grasped from behind, and I was violently
• 1:56:25
  Speaker 1: tugged backward. I lit my last match, and it incontinently
• 1:56:30
  Speaker 1: went out, But I had my hand on the climbing
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 1: bars now, and kicking violently, I disengaged myself from the
• 1:56:37
  Speaker 1: clutches of the morlocks and was speedily clambering up the
• 1:56:40
  Speaker 1: shaft while they stayed peering and blinking up at me.
• 1:56:43
  Speaker 1: All but one little wretch, who followed me for some
• 1:56:46
  Speaker 1: way and well nigh secured my boot as a trophy.
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 1: That climb seemed interminable to me. With the last twenty
• 1:56:54
  Speaker 1: or thirty feet of it, a deadly nausea came upon me.
• 1:56:57
  Speaker 1: I had the greatest difficulty in keeping my hold. The
• 1:57:01
  Speaker 1: last few yards was a frightful struggle against this faintness.
• 1:57:06
  Speaker 1: Several times my head swam, and I felt all the
• 1:57:08
  Speaker 1: sensations of falling. At last, however, I got over the
• 1:57:13
  Speaker 1: well mouth somehow, and staggered out of the ruin into
• 1:57:16
  Speaker 1: the blinding sunlight. I fell upon my face. Even the
• 1:57:21
  Speaker 1: soil smelt sweet and clean. Then I remember Weena kissing
• 1:57:25
  Speaker 1: my hands and ears, and the voices of others among
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 1: the alloy. Then for a time I was insensible x
• 1:57:34
  Speaker 1: when night came. Now, indeed, I seemed in a worse
• 1:57:38
  Speaker 1: case than before. Hitherto, except during my night's anguish at
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 1: the loss of the time machine, I had felt a
• 1:57:45
  Speaker 1: sustaining hope of ultimate escape. But that hope was staggered
• 1:57:48
  Speaker 1: by these new discoveries. Hitherto, I had merely thought myself
• 1:57:52
  Speaker 1: impeded by the childish simplicity of the little people, and
• 1:57:56
  Speaker 1: by some unknown forces which I had only to understand
• 1:57:58
  Speaker 1: to overcome. But there was an altogether new element in
• 1:58:01
  Speaker 1: the sickening quality of the Morlocks, a something in human
• 1:58:04
  Speaker 1: and malign. Instinctively, I loathed them. Before I had felt
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 1: as a man might feel who had fallen into a pit.
• 1:58:13
  Speaker 1: My concern was with the pit and how to get
• 1:58:15
  Speaker 1: out of it. Now I felt like a beast in
• 1:58:18
  Speaker 1: a trap whose enemy would come upon him soon. The
• 1:58:21
  Speaker 1: enemy I dreaded may surprise you. It was the darkness
• 1:58:25
  Speaker 1: of the new moon. Weena had put this into my
• 1:58:29
  Speaker 1: head by some at first incomprehensible remarks about the dark nights.
• 1:58:33
  Speaker 1: It was not now such a very difficult problem to
• 1:58:36
  Speaker 1: guess what the coming dark knights might mean. The moon
• 1:58:39
  Speaker 1: was on the wane. Each night there was a longer
• 1:58:41
  Speaker 1: interval of darkness, and I now understood to some slight
• 1:58:46
  Speaker 1: degree at least the reason of the fear of the
• 1:58:48
  Speaker 1: little upper world people for the dark. I wondered vaguely
• 1:58:51
  Speaker 1: what foul villainy it might be that the Morlocks did
• 1:58:54
  Speaker 1: under the new moon. I felt pretty sure now that
• 1:58:57
  Speaker 1: my second hypothesis was all wrong. The upper world people
• 1:59:01
  Speaker 1: might once have been the favored aristocracy and the Morlocks
• 1:59:05
  Speaker 1: their mechanical servants, but that had long since passed away.
• 1:59:09
  Speaker 1: The two species that had resulted from the evolution of
• 1:59:12
  Speaker 1: man were sliding down towards or had already arrived at
• 1:59:15
  Speaker 1: an altogether new relationship. The Eloi, like the Carlovignan kings,
• 1:59:21
  Speaker 1: had decayed to a mere, beautiful futility. They still possessed
• 1:59:25
  Speaker 1: the earth on sufferns, since the Morlachs, subterranean for innumerable generations,
• 1:59:30
  Speaker 1: had come at last to find the daylight surface intolerable.
• 1:59:34
  Speaker 1: And the Morlocks made their garments I inferred and maintained
• 1:59:38
  Speaker 1: them in their habitual needs, perhaps through the survival of
• 1:59:41
  Speaker 1: an old habit of service. They did it as a
• 1:59:44
  Speaker 1: standing horse pause with his foot, or as a man
• 1:59:47
  Speaker 1: enjoys killing animals in sport, because ancient and departed necessities
• 1:59:51
  Speaker 1: had impressed it on the organism. But clearly the old
• 1:59:55
  Speaker 1: order was already in part reversed. The nemesis of the
• 1:59:59
  Speaker 1: delicate ones was creeping on apace ages ago, thousands of
• 2:00:04
  Speaker 1: generations ago. Man had thrust his brother man out of
• 2:00:07
  Speaker 1: the ease and the sunshine, and now that brother was
• 2:00:10
  Speaker 1: coming back changed Already the alloy had begun to learn
• 2:00:15
  Speaker 1: one old lesson anew They were becoming reacquainted with fear,
• 2:00:20
  Speaker 1: and suddenly there came into my head the memory of
• 2:00:22
  Speaker 1: the meat I had seen in the underworld. It seemed
• 2:00:26
  Speaker 1: odd how it floated into my mind, not stirred up,
• 2:00:29
  Speaker 1: as it were, by the current of my meditations, but
• 2:00:31
  Speaker 1: coming in almost like a question from outside. I tried
• 2:00:35
  Speaker 1: to recall the form of it. I had a vague
• 2:00:38
  Speaker 1: sense of something familiar, but I could not tell what
• 2:00:40
  Speaker 1: it was at the time. Still, however, helpless the little
• 2:00:44
  Speaker 1: people in the presence of their mysterious fear, I was
• 2:00:47
  Speaker 1: differently constituted. I came out of this age of ours,
• 2:00:51
  Speaker 1: this right crime of the human race. When fear does
• 2:00:54
  Speaker 1: not paralyze and mystery has lost its terrors, I at
• 2:00:58
  Speaker 1: least would defend myself without further delay. I determined to
• 2:01:02
  Speaker 1: make myself arms in a fastness where I might sleep.
• 2:01:06
  Speaker 1: With that refuge as a base, I could face this
• 2:01:08
  Speaker 1: strange world with some of that confidence I had lost
• 2:01:11
  Speaker 1: in realizing to what creatures night by night I lay exposed.
• 2:01:15
  Speaker 1: I felt I could never sleep again until my bed
• 2:01:18
  Speaker 1: was secure from them. I shuddered with horror to think
• 2:01:22
  Speaker 1: how they must already have examined me. I wandered during
• 2:01:25
  Speaker 1: the afternoon along the valley of the Thames, but found
• 2:01:28
  Speaker 1: nothing that commended itself to my mind as inaccessible. All
• 2:01:33
  Speaker 1: the buildings and trees seemed easily practicable to such dexterous
• 2:01:36
  Speaker 1: climbers as the Morlocks, to judge by their wells, must be.
• 2:01:41
  Speaker 1: Then the tall pinnacles of the palace of green porcelain,
• 2:01:44
  Speaker 1: and the polished gleam of its walls came back to
• 2:01:46
  Speaker 1: my memory, and in the evening, taking Weena like a
• 2:01:49
  Speaker 1: child upon my shoulder, I went up the hills towards
• 2:01:52
  Speaker 1: the southwest. The distance I had reckoned was seven or
• 2:01:56
  Speaker 1: eight miles, but it must have been nearer eighteen. I
• 2:02:00
  Speaker 1: had first seen the place on a moist afternoon, when
• 2:02:03
  Speaker 1: distances are deceptively diminished. In addition, the heel of one
• 2:02:08
  Speaker 1: of my shoes was loose, and a nail was working
• 2:02:10
  Speaker 1: through the sole. They were comfortable old shoes. I wore
• 2:02:13
  Speaker 1: about indoors, so that I was lame, and it was
• 2:02:17
  Speaker 1: already long past sunset when I came in sight of
• 2:02:19
  Speaker 1: the palace, silhouetted black against the pale yellow of the sky.
• 2:02:24
  Speaker 1: Weena had been hugely delighted when I began to carry her,
• 2:02:27
  Speaker 1: but after a while She desired me to let her down,
• 2:02:30
  Speaker 1: and ran along by the side of me, occasionally darting
• 2:02:33
  Speaker 1: off on either hand to pick flowers to stick in
• 2:02:35
  Speaker 1: my pockets. My pockets had always puzzled Weena, but at
• 2:02:39
  Speaker 1: the last she had concluded that they were an eccentric
• 2:02:42
  Speaker 1: kind of vases for floral decoration. At least she utilized
• 2:02:46
  Speaker 1: them for that purpose, and that reminds me. In changing
• 2:02:51
  Speaker 1: my jacket, I found the time traveler paused, put his
• 2:02:54
  Speaker 1: hand into his pocket, and silently placed two withered flowers,
• 2:02:58
  Speaker 1: not unlike very large white mallows, upon the little table.
• 2:03:02
  Speaker 1: Then he resumed his narrative. As the hush of evening
• 2:03:06
  Speaker 1: crept over the world, and we proceeded over the hill
• 2:03:08
  Speaker 1: crest towards Wimbledon. Weena grew tired and wanted to return
• 2:03:12
  Speaker 1: to the House of gray Stone, but I pointed out
• 2:03:15
  Speaker 1: the distant pinnacles of the Palace of Green Porcelain to her,
• 2:03:18
  Speaker 1: and contrived to make her understand that we were seeking
• 2:03:21
  Speaker 1: a refuge there from her fear. You know that great
• 2:03:24
  Speaker 1: pause that comes upon things before the dusk, even the
• 2:03:28
  Speaker 1: breeze stops in the trees. To me, there is always
• 2:03:31
  Speaker 1: an air of expectation about that evening stillness. The sky
• 2:03:36
  Speaker 1: was clear, remote and empty, save for a few horizontal
• 2:03:39
  Speaker 1: bars far down in the sunset well that night, the
• 2:03:43
  Speaker 1: expectation took the color of my fears. In that darkling calm,
• 2:03:48
  Speaker 1: my senses seemed preternaturally sharpened. I fancied I could even
• 2:03:52
  Speaker 1: feel the hollowness of the ground beneath my feet, could
• 2:03:55
  Speaker 1: indeed almost see through it. The Morlocks on their ant hill,
• 2:03:59
  Speaker 1: going hither and thither in waiting for the dark. In
• 2:04:02
  Speaker 1: my excitement, I fancied that they would receive my invasion
• 2:04:05
  Speaker 1: of their burrows as a declaration of war. And why
• 2:04:08
  Speaker 1: had they taken my time machine? So we went on
• 2:04:12
  Speaker 1: in the quiet, and the twilight deepened into night. The
• 2:04:15
  Speaker 1: clear blue of the distance faded, and one star after
• 2:04:19
  Speaker 1: another came out. The ground grew dim and the trees black.
• 2:04:24
  Speaker 1: Weena's fears and her fatigue grew upon her. I took
• 2:04:27
  Speaker 1: her in my arms and talked to her and caressed her. Then,
• 2:04:31
  Speaker 1: as the darkness grew deeper, she put her arms round
• 2:04:34
  Speaker 1: my neck, and, closing her eyes tightly, pressed her face
• 2:04:38
  Speaker 1: against my shoulder. So we went down a long slope
• 2:04:42
  Speaker 1: into a valley, and there, in the dimness, I almost
• 2:04:44
  Speaker 1: walked into a little river. This I waited and went
• 2:04:48
  Speaker 1: up the opposite side of the valley, passed a number
• 2:04:51
  Speaker 1: of sleeping houses, and by a statue a fawn or
• 2:04:54
  Speaker 1: some such figure minus the head. Here too were Acacia's.
• 2:05:00
  Speaker 1: So far I had seen nothing of the Morlocks. But
• 2:05:02
  Speaker 1: it was yet early in the night, and the darker
• 2:05:05
  Speaker 1: hours before the old moon rose were still to come.
• 2:05:08
  Speaker 1: From the brow of the next hill, I saw a
• 2:05:10
  Speaker 1: thick wood spreading wide and black before me. I hesitated
• 2:05:15
  Speaker 1: at this. I could see no end to it, either
• 2:05:18
  Speaker 1: to the right or the left. Feeling tired, my feet,
• 2:05:22
  Speaker 1: in particular were very sore, I carefully lowered Weena from
• 2:05:26
  Speaker 1: my shoulder. As I halted and sat down upon the turf,
• 2:05:30
  Speaker 1: I could no longer see the palace of green porcelain,
• 2:05:33
  Speaker 1: and I was in doubt of my direction. I looked
• 2:05:36
  Speaker 1: into the thickness of the wood and thought of what
• 2:05:38
  Speaker 1: it might hide. Under that dense tangle of branches. One
• 2:05:42
  Speaker 1: would be out of sight of the stars, even were
• 2:05:45
  Speaker 1: there no other lurking danger, A danger I did not
• 2:05:48
  Speaker 1: care to let my imagination loose. Upon there would still
• 2:05:51
  Speaker 1: be all the roots to stumble over and the tree
• 2:05:53
  Speaker 1: bowls to strike against. I was very tired too, after
• 2:05:58
  Speaker 1: the excitements of the day, so I decided that I
• 2:06:00
  Speaker 1: would not face it, but would pass the night upon
• 2:06:03
  Speaker 1: the open hill. Weena, I was glad to find, was
• 2:06:07
  Speaker 1: fast asleep. I carefully wrapped her in my jacket and
• 2:06:11
  Speaker 1: sat down beside her to wait for the moonrise. The
• 2:06:14
  Speaker 1: hillside was quiet and deserted, but from the black of
• 2:06:18
  Speaker 1: the wood there came now and then a stir of
• 2:06:20
  Speaker 1: living things above me shone. The stars for the night
• 2:06:24
  Speaker 1: was very clear. I felt a certain sense of friendly
• 2:06:27
  Speaker 1: comfort in their twinkling. All the old constellations had gone
• 2:06:32
  Speaker 1: from the sky. However, that slow movement, which is imperceptible
• 2:06:35
  Speaker 1: in a hundred human lifetimes, had long since rearranged them
• 2:06:39
  Speaker 1: in unfamiliar groupings. But the milky way, it seemed to me,
• 2:06:44
  Speaker 1: was still the same tattered streamer of star dust as
• 2:06:46
  Speaker 1: of yore. Southward, as I judged, it was a very
• 2:06:51
  Speaker 1: bright red star that was new to me. It was
• 2:06:53
  Speaker 1: even more splendid than our own green serious, and amid
• 2:06:57
  Speaker 1: all these scintillating points of light, one bright place shone
• 2:07:00
  Speaker 1: kindly and steadily, like the face of an old friend.
• 2:07:04
  Speaker 1: Looking at these stars suddenly dwarfed my own troubles and
• 2:07:07
  Speaker 1: all the gravities of terrestrial life. I thought of their
• 2:07:11
  Speaker 1: unfathomable distance and the slow, inevitable drift of their movements
• 2:07:15
  Speaker 1: out of the unknown past into the unknown future. I
• 2:07:18
  Speaker 1: thought of the great processional cycle that the pole of
• 2:07:21
  Speaker 1: the Earth describes. Only forty times had that silent revolution
• 2:07:25
  Speaker 1: occurred during all the years that I had traversed, And
• 2:07:29
  Speaker 1: during these few revolutions, all the activity, all the traditions,
• 2:07:33
  Speaker 1: the complex organizations, the nations, languages, literatures, aspirations, even the
• 2:07:39
  Speaker 1: mere memory of Man as I knew him, had been
• 2:07:41
  Speaker 1: swept out of existence. Instead were these frail creatures who
• 2:07:46
  Speaker 1: had forgotten their high ancestry, and the white things of
• 2:07:49
  Speaker 1: which I went in terror. Then I thought of the
• 2:07:52
  Speaker 1: great fear that was between the two species, and for
• 2:07:54
  Speaker 1: the first time, with a sudden shiver, came the clear
• 2:07:58
  Speaker 1: knowledge of what the meat I had seen my Yet
• 2:08:01
  Speaker 1: it was too horrible. I looked at little Weena sleeping
• 2:08:05
  Speaker 1: beside me, her face white and star like under the stars,
• 2:08:08
  Speaker 1: and forthwith dismissed the thought. Through that long night I
• 2:08:12
  Speaker 1: held my mind off the morlocks as well as I could,
• 2:08:15
  Speaker 1: and whiled away the time by trying to fancy. I
• 2:08:18
  Speaker 1: could find signs of the old constellations in the new confusion.
• 2:08:22
  Speaker 1: The sky kept very clear, except for a hazy cloud
• 2:08:25
  Speaker 1: or so, no doubt I dozed at times. Then, as
• 2:08:30
  Speaker 1: my vigil wore on, came a faintness in the eastward sky,
• 2:08:34
  Speaker 1: like the reflection of some colorless fire. And the old
• 2:08:36
  Speaker 1: moon rose thin and peaked in white, and close behind
• 2:08:41
  Speaker 1: and overtaking it and overflowing it. The dawn came pale
• 2:08:45
  Speaker 1: at first, and then growing pink and worn. No morlocks
• 2:08:49
  Speaker 1: had approached us, indeed, I had seen none upon the
• 2:08:53
  Speaker 1: hill that night, and in the confidence of renewed day,
• 2:08:56
  Speaker 1: it almost seemed to me that my fear had been unreasonable.
• 2:09:00
  Speaker 1: I stood up and found my foot with the loose heel,
• 2:09:03
  Speaker 1: swollen at the ankle, and painful under the heel. So
• 2:09:06
  Speaker 1: I sat down again, took off my shoes and flung
• 2:09:09
  Speaker 1: them away. I awakened Weena, and we went down into
• 2:09:13
  Speaker 1: the wood, now green and pleasant instead of black, and
• 2:09:16
  Speaker 1: forbidding we found some fruit wherewith to break our fast.
• 2:09:21
  Speaker 1: We soon met others of the dainty ones, laughing and
• 2:09:24
  Speaker 1: dancing in the sunlight, as though there was no such
• 2:09:26
  Speaker 1: thing in nature as the night. And then I thought
• 2:09:29
  Speaker 1: once more of the meat that I had seen. I
• 2:09:32
  Speaker 1: felt assured now of what it was, and from the
• 2:09:35
  Speaker 1: bottom of my heart I pitted this last feeble rill
• 2:09:38
  Speaker 1: from the great flood of humanity. Clearly, at some time
• 2:09:42
  Speaker 1: in the long ago of human decay, the morlock's food
• 2:09:44
  Speaker 1: had run short. Possibly they had lived on rats and
• 2:09:48
  Speaker 1: such like vermin. Even now, man is far less discriminating
• 2:09:52
  Speaker 1: and exclusive in his food than he was, far less
• 2:09:55
  Speaker 1: than any monkey. His prejudice against human flesh is no
• 2:09:59
  Speaker 1: deep seated instinct. And so these inhuman sons of men.
• 2:10:04
  Speaker 1: I tried to look at the thing in a scientific spirit.
• 2:10:08
  Speaker 1: After all, they were less human and more remote than
• 2:10:11
  Speaker 1: our cannibal ancestors of three or four thousand years ago,
• 2:10:15
  Speaker 1: And the intelligence that would have made this state of
• 2:10:17
  Speaker 1: things a torment had gone. Why should I trouble myself?
• 2:10:22
  Speaker 1: These alloy were mere fatted cattle, which the ant like
• 2:10:25
  Speaker 1: morlocks preserved and preyed upon, probably saw to the breeding of.
• 2:10:30
  Speaker 1: And there was Weena dancing at my side. Then I
• 2:10:33
  Speaker 1: tried to preserve myself from the horror that was coming
• 2:10:36
  Speaker 1: upon me by regarding it as a rigorous punishment of
• 2:10:39
  Speaker 1: human selfishness. Man had been content to live in ease
• 2:10:43
  Speaker 1: and delight upon the labors of his fellow man had
• 2:10:46
  Speaker 1: taken necessity as his watchword and excuse, and in the
• 2:10:49
  Speaker 1: fullness of time necessity had come home to him. I
• 2:10:52
  Speaker 1: even tried to carlyle like scorn of this wretched aristocracy
• 2:10:56
  Speaker 1: in decay, But this attitude of mind was impossible. However
• 2:11:01
  Speaker 1: great their intellectual degradation, the alloy had kept too much
• 2:11:05
  Speaker 1: of the human form, and not to claim my sympathy
• 2:11:07
  Speaker 1: and to make me perforce a sharer in their degradation
• 2:11:10
  Speaker 1: and their fear. I had at that time very vague
• 2:11:13
  Speaker 1: ideas as to the course I should pursue. My first
• 2:11:17
  Speaker 1: was to secure some safe place of refuge, and to
• 2:11:20
  Speaker 1: make myself such arms of metal or stone as I
• 2:11:23
  Speaker 1: could contrive that necessity was immediate. In the next place,
• 2:11:28
  Speaker 1: I hoped to procure some means of fire, so that
• 2:11:30
  Speaker 1: I should have the weapon of a torch at hand,
• 2:11:33
  Speaker 1: for nothing I knew would be more efficient against these morlocks.
• 2:11:37
  Speaker 1: Then I wanted to arrange some contrivance to break open
• 2:11:40
  Speaker 1: the doors of bronze under the white Sphynx. I had
• 2:11:44
  Speaker 1: in mind the battering ram. I had a persuasion that
• 2:11:47
  Speaker 1: if I could enter those doors and carry a blaze
• 2:11:49
  Speaker 1: of light before me, I should discover the time machine
• 2:11:52
  Speaker 1: and escape. I could not imagine the morlocks were strong
• 2:11:56
  Speaker 1: enough to move it far away. Weena. I had resolved
• 2:11:59
  Speaker 1: to ring with me to our own time, and turning
• 2:12:03
  Speaker 1: such schemes over in my mind, I pursued our way
• 2:12:05
  Speaker 1: towards the building which my fancy had chosen as our
• 2:12:08
  Speaker 1: dwelling eleven, the Palace of Green Porcelain. I found the
• 2:12:12
  Speaker 1: Palace of Green Porcelain when we approached it about noon,
• 2:12:15
  Speaker 1: deserted and falling into ruin. Only ragged vestiges of glass
• 2:12:20
  Speaker 1: remained in its windows, and great sheets of the green
• 2:12:23
  Speaker 1: facing had fallen away from the corroded metallic framework. It
• 2:12:27
  Speaker 1: lay very high upon a turfy down and looking northeastward.
• 2:12:31
  Speaker 1: Before I entered it, I was surprised to see a
• 2:12:33
  Speaker 1: large estuary or even creek, where I judged Wandsworth and
• 2:12:37
  Speaker 1: Battersea must once have been. I thought, then, though I
• 2:12:41
  Speaker 1: never followed up the thought of what might have happened
• 2:12:44
  Speaker 1: or might be happening to the living things in the sea.
• 2:12:47
  Speaker 1: The material of the palace proved on examination to be
• 2:12:50
  Speaker 1: indeed porcelain, and along the face of it I saw
• 2:12:53
  Speaker 1: an inscription in some unknown character. I thought rather foolishly
• 2:12:58
  Speaker 1: that Weena might help me to interpret this, but I
• 2:13:01
  Speaker 1: only learned that the bare idea of writing had never
• 2:13:04
  Speaker 1: entered her head. She always seemed to me, I fancy,
• 2:13:08
  Speaker 1: more human than she was, perhaps because her affection was
• 2:13:11
  Speaker 1: so human. Within the big valves of the door, which
• 2:13:15
  Speaker 1: were open and broken, we found instead of the customary hall,
• 2:13:19
  Speaker 1: a long gallery lit by many side windows. At the
• 2:13:23
  Speaker 1: first glance I was reminded of a museum. The tiled
• 2:13:27
  Speaker 1: floor was thick with dust, and a remarkable array of
• 2:13:30
  Speaker 1: miscellaneous objects was shrouded in the same gray covering. Then
• 2:13:34
  Speaker 1: I perceived, standing strange and gaunt in the center of
• 2:13:37
  Speaker 1: the hall, what was clearly the lower part of a
• 2:13:40
  Speaker 1: huge skeleton. I recognized by the oblique feet that it
• 2:13:44
  Speaker 1: was some extinct creature after the fashion of the megatherium.
• 2:13:48
  Speaker 1: The skull and the upper bones lay beside it in
• 2:13:51
  Speaker 1: the thick dust, and in one place where rain water
• 2:13:54
  Speaker 1: had dropped through a leak in the roof, the thing
• 2:13:56
  Speaker 1: itself had been worn away. Further in the gallery was
• 2:14:00
  Speaker 1: the huge skeleton barrel of a brontosaurus. My museum hypothesis
• 2:14:05
  Speaker 1: was confirmed. Going towards the side, I found what appeared
• 2:14:09
  Speaker 1: to be sloping shelves, and clearing away the thick dust,
• 2:14:12
  Speaker 1: I found the old familiar glass cases of our own time.
• 2:14:16
  Speaker 1: But they must have been air tight, to judge from
• 2:14:18
  Speaker 1: the fair preservation of some of their contents. Clearly we
• 2:14:22
  Speaker 1: stood among the ruins of some latter day South Kensington.
• 2:14:26
  Speaker 1: Here apparently was the paleontological section, and a very splendid
• 2:14:30
  Speaker 1: array of fossils. It must have been though the inevitable
• 2:14:33
  Speaker 1: process of decay, that had been staved off for a time,
• 2:14:36
  Speaker 1: and had, through the extinction of bacteria and fungi, lost
• 2:14:40
  Speaker 1: ninety nine hundreds of its force, was nevertheless, with extreme sureness,
• 2:14:45
  Speaker 1: if with extreme slowness, at work again upon all its treasures.
• 2:14:49
  Speaker 1: Here and there I found traces of the little people
• 2:14:52
  Speaker 1: in the shape of rare fossils, broken to pieces or
• 2:14:54
  Speaker 1: threaded in strings upon reeds, and the cases had in
• 2:14:58
  Speaker 1: some instances been b bodily removed by the morlocks. As
• 2:15:02
  Speaker 1: I judged, the place was very silent. The thick dust
• 2:15:07
  Speaker 1: deadened our footsteps. Weena, who had been rolling a sea
• 2:15:11
  Speaker 1: urchin down the sloping glass of a case, presently came
• 2:15:15
  Speaker 1: as I stared about me, and very quietly took my
• 2:15:17
  Speaker 1: hand and stood beside me. And at first I was
• 2:15:21
  Speaker 1: so much surprised by this ancient monument of an intellectual age,
• 2:15:24
  Speaker 1: that I gave no thought to the possibilities it presented.
• 2:15:28
  Speaker 1: Even my preoccupation about the time machine receded a little
• 2:15:31
  Speaker 1: from my mind. To judge from the size of the place,
• 2:15:35
  Speaker 1: this palace of green porcelain had a great deal more
• 2:15:38
  Speaker 1: in it than a gallery of paleontology, possibly historical galleries.
• 2:15:42
  Speaker 1: It might be even a library. To me, at least
• 2:15:46
  Speaker 1: in my present circumstances, these would be vastly more interesting
• 2:15:50
  Speaker 1: than this spectacle of old time geology. In decay, exploring,
• 2:15:55
  Speaker 1: I found another short gallery running transversely to the first.
• 2:15:59
  Speaker 1: This appeared to be devoted to minerals, and the sight
• 2:16:02
  Speaker 1: of a block of sulfur set my mind running on gunpowder.
• 2:16:06
  Speaker 1: But I could find no saltpetrie, indeed no nitrates of
• 2:16:09
  Speaker 1: any kind. Doubtless they had deliquest ages ago. Yet the
• 2:16:14
  Speaker 1: sulfur hung in my mind and set up a train
• 2:16:17
  Speaker 1: of thinking as for the rest of the contents of
• 2:16:20
  Speaker 1: that gallery, though on the whole they were the best
• 2:16:22
  Speaker 1: preserved of all I saw. I had little interest. I
• 2:16:26
  Speaker 1: am no specialist in mineralogy, and I went on down
• 2:16:29
  Speaker 1: a very ruinous aisle running parallel to the first hall
• 2:16:32
  Speaker 1: I had entered. Apparently this section had been devoted to
• 2:16:36
  Speaker 1: natural history, but everything had long since passed out of recognition.
• 2:16:41
  Speaker 1: A few shriveled and blackened vestiges of what had once
• 2:16:43
  Speaker 1: been stuffed animals, desiccated mummies in jars that had once
• 2:16:47
  Speaker 1: held spirit, a brown dust of departed plants. That was all.
• 2:16:52
  Speaker 1: I was sorry for that, because I should have been
• 2:16:54
  Speaker 1: glad to trace the patient readjustments by which the conquest
• 2:16:57
  Speaker 1: of animated nature had been attained. Then we came to
• 2:17:01
  Speaker 1: a gallery of simply colossal proportions, but singularly ill lit,
• 2:17:05
  Speaker 1: the floor of it running downward at a slight angle
• 2:17:08
  Speaker 1: from the end at which I entered. At intervals, white
• 2:17:11
  Speaker 1: globes hung from the ceiling, many of them cracked and smashed,
• 2:17:15
  Speaker 1: which suggested that originally the place had been artificially lit.
• 2:17:19
  Speaker 1: Here I was more in my element, for rising on
• 2:17:21
  Speaker 1: either side of me were the huge bulks of big machines,
• 2:17:24
  Speaker 1: all greatly corroded in, many broken down, but some still
• 2:17:28
  Speaker 1: fairly complete. You know, I have a certain weakness for mechanism,
• 2:17:32
  Speaker 1: and I was inclined to linger among these, the more
• 2:17:35
  Speaker 1: so as for the most part they had the interest
• 2:17:37
  Speaker 1: of puzzles, and I could make only the vaguest guesses
• 2:17:40
  Speaker 1: of what they were. For I fancied that if I
• 2:17:43
  Speaker 1: could solve their puzzles, I should find myself in possession
• 2:17:45
  Speaker 1: of powers that might be of use against the Morlocks. Suddenly,
• 2:17:49
  Speaker 1: Weena came very close to my side, so suddenly that
• 2:17:53
  Speaker 1: she startled me. Had it not been for her, I
• 2:17:57
  Speaker 1: do not think I should have noticed that the floor
• 2:17:59
  Speaker 1: of the gallery slope at all. Footnote. It may be,
• 2:18:03
  Speaker 1: of course that the floor did not slope, but that
• 2:18:06
  Speaker 1: the museum was built into the side of a hill.
• 2:18:08
  Speaker 1: Dot e D. The end I had come in that
• 2:18:11
  Speaker 1: was quite above ground and was lit by rare slit
• 2:18:14
  Speaker 1: like windows. As you went down the length, the ground
• 2:18:18
  Speaker 1: came up against these windows, until at last there was
• 2:18:21
  Speaker 1: a pit like the area of a London house before each,
• 2:18:24
  Speaker 1: and only a narrow line of daylight at the top.
• 2:18:27
  Speaker 1: I went slowly along, puzzling about the machines, and had
• 2:18:31
  Speaker 1: been too intent upon them to notice the gradual diminution
• 2:18:34
  Speaker 1: of the light until Weena's increasing apprehensions drew my attention.
• 2:18:39
  Speaker 1: Then I saw that the gallery ran down at last
• 2:18:42
  Speaker 1: into a thick darkness. I hesitated, and then as I
• 2:18:46
  Speaker 1: looked round me, I saw that the dust was less
• 2:18:48
  Speaker 1: abundant and its surface less. Even further away towards the dimness,
• 2:18:53
  Speaker 1: it appeared to be broken by a number of small,
• 2:18:55
  Speaker 1: narrow footprints. My sense of the immediate presence of the
• 2:18:59
  Speaker 1: Morlocke revived. At that I felt that I was wasting
• 2:19:03
  Speaker 1: my time in the academic examination of machinery. I called
• 2:19:07
  Speaker 1: to mind that it was already far advanced in the afternoon,
• 2:19:10
  Speaker 1: and that I had still no weapon, no refuge, and
• 2:19:13
  Speaker 1: no means of making a fire. And then down in
• 2:19:17
  Speaker 1: the remote blackness of the gallery, I heard a peculiar
• 2:19:20
  Speaker 1: pattering and the same odd noises I had heard down
• 2:19:22
  Speaker 1: the well. I took Weena's hand, then struck with a
• 2:19:27
  Speaker 1: sudden idea, I left her and turned to a machine
• 2:19:30
  Speaker 1: from which projected a lever not unlike those in a
• 2:19:32
  Speaker 1: signal box. Clambering upon the stand and grasping this lever,
• 2:19:37
  Speaker 1: in my hands, I put all my weight upon its sideways. Suddenly, Weena,
• 2:19:42
  Speaker 1: deserted in the central aisle, began to whimper. I had
• 2:19:46
  Speaker 1: judged the strength of the lever pretty correctly, for it
• 2:19:49
  Speaker 1: snapped after a minute's strain, and I rejoined her with
• 2:19:52
  Speaker 1: a mace in my hand, more than sufficient I judged
• 2:19:55
  Speaker 1: for any morlocks skull I might encounter, And I longed
• 2:19:59
  Speaker 1: very much to kill Morlock, or so very inhuman you
• 2:20:03
  Speaker 1: may think to want to go killing one's own descendants.
• 2:20:07
  Speaker 1: But it was impossible somehow to feel any humanity in
• 2:20:11
  Speaker 1: the things. Only my disinclination to leave Weena and a
• 2:20:15
  Speaker 1: persuasion that if I began to slake my thirst for murder,
• 2:20:18
  Speaker 1: my time machine might suffer restrain me from going straight
• 2:20:21
  Speaker 1: down the gallery and killing the brutes. I heard, well,
• 2:20:24
  Speaker 1: Mason one hand and Weena in the other. I went
• 2:20:27
  Speaker 1: out of that gallery and into another and still larger one, which,
• 2:20:30
  Speaker 1: at the first glance reminded me of a military chapel
• 2:20:33
  Speaker 1: hung with tattered flags. The brown and charred rags that
• 2:20:37
  Speaker 1: hung from the sides of it I presently recognized as
• 2:20:40
  Speaker 1: the decaying vestiges of books. They had long since dropped
• 2:20:44
  Speaker 1: to pieces, and every semblance of print had left them.
• 2:20:48
  Speaker 1: But here and there were warped boards and cracked metallic
• 2:20:51
  Speaker 1: clasps that told the tale well enough. Had I been
• 2:20:54
  Speaker 1: a literary man, I might perhaps have moralict upon the
• 2:20:58
  Speaker 1: futility of all ambition. But as it was, the thing
• 2:21:02
  Speaker 1: that struck me with keenest force was the enormous waste
• 2:21:05
  Speaker 1: of labor to which this somber wilderness of rotting paper testified.
• 2:21:10
  Speaker 1: At the time, I will confess that I thought chiefly
• 2:21:12
  Speaker 1: of the philosophical transactions and my own seventeen papers upon
• 2:21:16
  Speaker 1: physical optics. Then, going up a broad staircase, we came
• 2:21:21
  Speaker 1: to what may once have been a gallery of technical chemistry.
• 2:21:25
  Speaker 1: And here I had not a little hope of useful discoveries,
• 2:21:29
  Speaker 1: except that one end, where the roof had collapsed, this
• 2:21:32
  Speaker 1: gallery was well preserved. I went eagerly to every unbroken case,
• 2:21:38
  Speaker 1: and at last, in one of the really air tight cases,
• 2:21:41
  Speaker 1: I found a box of matches. Very eagerly I tried them.
• 2:21:46
  Speaker 1: They were perfectly good. They were not even damp. I
• 2:21:50
  Speaker 1: turned to weena dance, I cried to her in her
• 2:21:54
  Speaker 1: own tongue, For now I had a weapon indeed against
• 2:21:57
  Speaker 1: the horrible creatures we feared. And so, in that derelict museum,
• 2:22:02
  Speaker 1: upon the thick, soft carpeting of dust, to Weena's huge delight,
• 2:22:06
  Speaker 1: I solemnly performed a kind of composite dance, whistling the
• 2:22:09
  Speaker 1: land of the leal as cheerfully as I could. In
• 2:22:13
  Speaker 1: part it was a modest cancan, in part a step dance,
• 2:22:16
  Speaker 1: in part a skirt dance, so far as my tail
• 2:22:19
  Speaker 1: coat permitted, and in part original. For I am naturally inventive.
• 2:22:24
  Speaker 1: As you know now, I still think that for this
• 2:22:27
  Speaker 1: box of matches to have escaped the wear of time
• 2:22:30
  Speaker 1: for immemorial years was a most strange As for me
• 2:22:33
  Speaker 1: it was a most fortunate thing. Yet oddly enough I
• 2:22:37
  Speaker 1: found a far unlikelier substance, and that was camphor. I
• 2:22:41
  Speaker 1: found it in a sealed jar that, by chance, I
• 2:22:44
  Speaker 1: suppose had been really hermetically sealed. I fancied at first
• 2:22:49
  Speaker 1: that it was paraffin wax, and smashed the glass accordingly,
• 2:22:53
  Speaker 1: But the odor of camphor was unmistakable. In the universal decay,
• 2:22:57
  Speaker 1: this volatile substance had chanced to serve perhaps through many
• 2:23:01
  Speaker 1: thousands of centuries. It reminded me of a Sepia painting
• 2:23:05
  Speaker 1: I had once seen done from the ink of a
• 2:23:07
  Speaker 1: fossil bellite that must have perished and become fossilized millions
• 2:23:11
  Speaker 1: of years ago. I was about to throw it away,
• 2:23:14
  Speaker 1: but I remembered that it was inflammable and burnt with
• 2:23:17
  Speaker 1: a good bright flame, was in fact an excellent candle,
• 2:23:21
  Speaker 1: and I put it in my pocket. I found no explosives, however,
• 2:23:25
  Speaker 1: nor any means of breaking down the bronze doors. As
• 2:23:29
  Speaker 1: yet my iron crowbar was the most helpful thing I
• 2:23:32
  Speaker 1: had chanced upon. Nevertheless, I left that gallery greatly elated.
• 2:23:38
  Speaker 1: I cannot tell you all the story of that long afternoon.
• 2:23:41
  Speaker 1: It would require a great effort of memory to recall
• 2:23:44
  Speaker 1: my explorations in it all the proper order. I remember
• 2:23:48
  Speaker 1: a long gallery of rusting stands of arms, and how
• 2:23:51
  Speaker 1: I hesitated between my crowbar and a hatchet or a sword.
• 2:23:55
  Speaker 1: I could not carry both, however, and my bar of
• 2:23:58
  Speaker 1: iron promised best against the bronze gates. There were numbers
• 2:24:02
  Speaker 1: of guns, pistols, and rifles. The most were masses of rust,
• 2:24:07
  Speaker 1: but many were of some new metal and still fairly sound.
• 2:24:11
  Speaker 1: But any cartridges or powder there may once have been
• 2:24:14
  Speaker 1: had rotted into dust. One corner I saw was charred
• 2:24:18
  Speaker 1: and shattered, perhaps, I thought, by an explosion. Among the specimens.
• 2:24:23
  Speaker 1: In another place was a vast array of idols Polynesian, Mexican, Grecian, Phoenician,
• 2:24:29
  Speaker 1: every country on Earth, I should think. And here, yielding
• 2:24:33
  Speaker 1: to an irresistible impulse, I wrote my name upon the
• 2:24:36
  Speaker 1: nose of a steatite monster from South America. That particularly
• 2:24:40
  Speaker 1: took my fancy. As the evening drew on my interest waned,
• 2:24:45
  Speaker 1: I went through gallery after gallery, dusty, silent, often ruinous.
• 2:24:50
  Speaker 1: The exhibits sometimes mere heaps of rust and lignite, sometimes fresher.
• 2:24:55
  Speaker 1: In one place I suddenly found myself near the model
• 2:24:58
  Speaker 1: of a tin mine, And then, by the merest accident,
• 2:25:01
  Speaker 1: I discovered in an air tight case two dynamite cartridges.
• 2:25:06
  Speaker 1: I shouted eureka and smashed the case with joy. Then
• 2:25:11
  Speaker 1: came a doubt. I hesitated. Then, selecting a little side gallery,
• 2:25:17
  Speaker 1: I made my essay. I never felt such a disappointment
• 2:25:21
  Speaker 1: as I did in waiting five ten, fifteen minutes for
• 2:25:24
  Speaker 1: an explosion that never came. Of course, the things were dummies,
• 2:25:28
  Speaker 1: as I might have guessed from their presence. I really
• 2:25:32
  Speaker 1: believed that had they not been so, I should have
• 2:25:34
  Speaker 1: rushed off incognately and blown sphinx bronze doors, and as
• 2:25:38
  Speaker 1: it proved, my chances of finding the time machine altogether
• 2:25:42
  Speaker 1: into non existence. It was after that I think that
• 2:25:46
  Speaker 1: we came to a little open court within the palace.
• 2:25:50
  Speaker 1: It was turfed and had three fruit trees. So we
• 2:25:54
  Speaker 1: rested and refreshed ourselves. Towards sunset, I began to consider
• 2:25:59
  Speaker 1: our position. Night was creeping upon us, and my inaccessible
• 2:26:03
  Speaker 1: hiding place had still to be found. But that troubled
• 2:26:07
  Speaker 1: me very little. Now I had in my possession a
• 2:26:10
  Speaker 1: thing that was perhaps the best of all defenses against
• 2:26:13
  Speaker 1: the morlocks. I had matches. I had the camphor in
• 2:26:17
  Speaker 1: my pocket too, if a blaze were needed. It seemed
• 2:26:21
  Speaker 1: to me that the best thing we could do would
• 2:26:23
  Speaker 1: be to pass the night in the open, protected by
• 2:26:25
  Speaker 1: a fire. In the morning there was the getting of
• 2:26:28
  Speaker 1: the time machine. Towards that As yet I had only
• 2:26:32
  Speaker 1: my iron mace. But now with my growing knowledge, I
• 2:26:37
  Speaker 1: felt very differently towards those bronze doors. Up to this
• 2:26:41
  Speaker 1: I had refrained from forcing them, largely because of the
• 2:26:44
  Speaker 1: mystery on the other side. They had never impressed me
• 2:26:48
  Speaker 1: as being very strong, and I hoped to find my
• 2:26:50
  Speaker 1: bar of iron not altogether inadequate for the work. Twelve,
• 2:26:56
  Speaker 1: in the darkness, we emerged from the palace while the
• 2:26:58
  Speaker 1: sun was still in part above the horizon. I was
• 2:27:02
  Speaker 1: determined to reach the White Sphinx early the next morning,
• 2:27:05
  Speaker 1: and ere the dusk I purposed pushing through the woods
• 2:27:08
  Speaker 1: that had stopped me on the previous journey. My plan
• 2:27:11
  Speaker 1: was to go as far as possible that night, and
• 2:27:14
  Speaker 1: then building a fire to sleep in the protection of
• 2:27:16
  Speaker 1: its glare. Accordingly, as we went along, I gathered any
• 2:27:20
  Speaker 1: sticks or dried grass I saw, and presently had my
• 2:27:24
  Speaker 1: arms full of such litter thus loaded. Our progress was
• 2:27:28
  Speaker 1: slower than I had anticipated, and besides, Weena was tired,
• 2:27:32
  Speaker 1: and I also began to suffer from sleepiness too, so
• 2:27:36
  Speaker 1: that it was full night before we reached the wood
• 2:27:39
  Speaker 1: upon the shrubby hill of its edge. Weena would have stopped,
• 2:27:42
  Speaker 1: fearing the darkness before us, but a singular sense of
• 2:27:45
  Speaker 1: impending calamity that should indeed have served me as a warning,
• 2:27:49
  Speaker 1: drove me onward. I had been without sleep for a
• 2:27:52
  Speaker 1: night and two days, and I was feverish and irritable.
• 2:27:56
  Speaker 1: I felt sleep coming upon me, and the morlocks with it.
• 2:28:00
  Speaker 1: While we hesitated among the black bushes behind us and
• 2:28:04
  Speaker 1: dim against their blackness, I saw three crouching figures. There
• 2:28:09
  Speaker 1: was scrub and long grass all about us, and I
• 2:28:11
  Speaker 1: did not feel safe from their insidious approach. The forest,
• 2:28:15
  Speaker 1: I calculated, was rather less than a mile across if
• 2:28:19
  Speaker 1: we could get through it to the bare hill side, there,
• 2:28:22
  Speaker 1: as it seemed to me, was an altogether safer resting place.
• 2:28:26
  Speaker 1: I thought that with my matches and my camphor, I
• 2:28:28
  Speaker 1: could contrive to keep my path illuminated through the woods.
• 2:28:32
  Speaker 1: Yet it was evident that if I was to flourish
• 2:28:34
  Speaker 1: matches with my hands, I should have to abandon my firewood.
• 2:28:37
  Speaker 1: So rather reluctantly I put it down, And then it
• 2:28:42
  Speaker 1: came into my head that I would amaze our friends
• 2:28:44
  Speaker 1: behind by lighting it. I was to discover the atrocious
• 2:28:48
  Speaker 1: folly of this proceeding, but it came to my mind
• 2:28:50
  Speaker 1: as an ingenious move for covering our retreat. I don't
• 2:28:54
  Speaker 1: know if you have ever thought what a rare thing
• 2:28:56
  Speaker 1: flame must be in the absence of man, and in
• 2:28:58
  Speaker 1: a temper climate. The sun's heat is rarely strong enough
• 2:29:02
  Speaker 1: to burn, even when it is focussed by dewdrops, as
• 2:29:06
  Speaker 1: is sometimes the case in more tropical districts. Lightning may
• 2:29:10
  Speaker 1: blast and blacken, but it rarely gives rise to widespread fire.
• 2:29:15
  Speaker 1: Decaying vegetation may occasionally smolder with the heat of its fermentation,
• 2:29:19
  Speaker 1: but this rarely results in flame. In this decadence, too,
• 2:29:24
  Speaker 1: the art of fire making had been forgotten on the earth.
• 2:29:27
  Speaker 1: The red tongues that went licking up my heap of
• 2:29:29
  Speaker 1: wood were an altogether new and strange thing to Weena.
• 2:29:33
  Speaker 1: She wanted to run to it and play with it.
• 2:29:36
  Speaker 1: I believed she would have cast herself into it had
• 2:29:38
  Speaker 1: I not restrained her. But I caught her up, and,
• 2:29:42
  Speaker 1: in spite of her struggles, plunged boldly before me into
• 2:29:45
  Speaker 1: the wood for a little way. The glare of my
• 2:29:48
  Speaker 1: fire lit the path. Looking back presently, I could see
• 2:29:53
  Speaker 1: through the crowded stems that from my heap of sticks,
• 2:29:55
  Speaker 1: the blaze had spread to some bushes adjacent, and a
• 2:29:58
  Speaker 1: curved line of fire was weeping up the grass of
• 2:30:01
  Speaker 1: the hill. I laughed at that, and turned again to
• 2:30:04
  Speaker 1: the dark trees before me. It was very black, and
• 2:30:08
  Speaker 1: Weena clung to me convulsively, but there was still. As
• 2:30:11
  Speaker 1: my eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, sufficient light for
• 2:30:15
  Speaker 1: me to avoid the stems. Overhead, it was simply black,
• 2:30:19
  Speaker 1: except where a gap of remote blue sky shone down
• 2:30:21
  Speaker 1: upon us. Here and there. I lit none of my matches.
• 2:30:25
  Speaker 1: Because I had no hand free upon my left arm,
• 2:30:29
  Speaker 1: I carried my little one in my right hand. I
• 2:30:31
  Speaker 1: had my iron bar for some way. I heard nothing
• 2:30:35
  Speaker 1: but the crackling twigs under my feet, the faint rustle
• 2:30:38
  Speaker 1: of the breeze above, and my own breathing, and the
• 2:30:41
  Speaker 1: throb of the blood vessels in my ears. Then I
• 2:30:44
  Speaker 1: seemed to know of a pattering behind me. I pushed
• 2:30:47
  Speaker 1: on grimly. The pattering grew more distinct, and then I
• 2:30:51
  Speaker 1: caught the same queer sound and voices I had heard
• 2:30:54
  Speaker 1: in the underworld. There were evidently several of the Morlocks,
• 2:30:58
  Speaker 1: and they were closing in upon me. Indeed, in another minute,
• 2:31:02
  Speaker 1: I felt a tug at my coat, then something at
• 2:31:05
  Speaker 1: my arm, and Weena shivered violently and became quite still.
• 2:31:10
  Speaker 1: It was time for a match, but to get one,
• 2:31:13
  Speaker 1: I must put her down. I did so, and as
• 2:31:17
  Speaker 1: I fumbled with my pocket, a struggle began in the
• 2:31:20
  Speaker 1: darkness about my knees, perfectly silent on her part, and
• 2:31:23
  Speaker 1: with the same peculiar cooing sounds from the Morlocks. Soft
• 2:31:27
  Speaker 1: little hands, too were creeping over my coat and back,
• 2:31:31
  Speaker 1: touching even my neck. Then the match scratched and fizzed.
• 2:31:36
  Speaker 1: I held it flaring, and saw the white backs of
• 2:31:38
  Speaker 1: the Morlocks in flight amid the trees. I hastily took
• 2:31:42
  Speaker 1: a lump of camphor from my pocket and prepared to
• 2:31:45
  Speaker 1: light it as soon as the match should wane. Then
• 2:31:48
  Speaker 1: I looked at Weena. She was lying clutching my feet
• 2:31:52
  Speaker 1: and quite motionless, with her face to the ground. With
• 2:31:56
  Speaker 1: a sudden fright, I stooped to her. She seemed scarcely
• 2:31:59
  Speaker 1: to breathe. I lit the block of camphor and flung
• 2:32:03
  Speaker 1: it to the ground, and as it split and flared
• 2:32:05
  Speaker 1: up and drove back the Morlocks and the shadows, I
• 2:32:08
  Speaker 1: knelt down and lifted her. The wood behind seemed full
• 2:32:12
  Speaker 1: of the stern murmur of a great company. She seemed
• 2:32:16
  Speaker 1: to have fainted. I put her carefully upon my shoulder
• 2:32:19
  Speaker 1: and rose to push on. And then there came a
• 2:32:21
  Speaker 1: horrible realization. In maneuvering with my matches and Weena, I
• 2:32:26
  Speaker 1: had turned myself about several times, and now I had
• 2:32:29
  Speaker 1: not the faintest idea in what direction lay my path.
• 2:32:33
  Speaker 1: For all I knew I might be facing back towards
• 2:32:36
  Speaker 1: the palace of green porcelain. I found myself in a
• 2:32:39
  Speaker 1: cold sweat. I had to think rapidly what to do.
• 2:32:44
  Speaker 1: I determined to build a fire and encamp where we were.
• 2:32:48
  Speaker 1: I put Weena, still motionless, down upon a turfy bowl,
• 2:32:52
  Speaker 1: and very hastily, as my first lump of camphor waned,
• 2:32:55
  Speaker 1: I began collecting sticks and leaves here and there. Out
• 2:32:59
  Speaker 1: of the darkness round me. The morlock's eyes shone like carbuncles.
• 2:33:03
  Speaker 1: The camphor flickered and went out. I lit a match,
• 2:33:07
  Speaker 1: and as I did so, two white forms that had
• 2:33:10
  Speaker 1: been approaching Weena dashed hastily away. One was so blinded
• 2:33:14
  Speaker 1: by the light that he came straight for me, and
• 2:33:17
  Speaker 1: I felt his bones grind under the blow of my fist.
• 2:33:20
  Speaker 1: He gave a whoop of dismay, staggered a little way,
• 2:33:23
  Speaker 1: and fell down. I lit another piece of camphor and
• 2:33:27
  Speaker 1: went on gathering my bonfire. Presently I noticed how dry
• 2:33:31
  Speaker 1: was some of the foliage above me. For since my
• 2:33:34
  Speaker 1: arrival on the time machine, a matter of a week,
• 2:33:37
  Speaker 1: no rain had fallen, so instead of casting about among
• 2:33:41
  Speaker 1: the trees for fallen twigs, I began leaping up and
• 2:33:44
  Speaker 1: dragging down branches. Very soon I had a choking, smoky
• 2:33:48
  Speaker 1: fire of green wood and dry sticks, and could economize
• 2:33:52
  Speaker 1: my camphor. Then I turned to where Weena lay beside
• 2:33:55
  Speaker 1: my iron mace. I tried what I could to revive her,
• 2:33:59
  Speaker 1: but she lay like one dead. I could not even
• 2:34:02
  Speaker 1: satisfy myself whether or not she breathed. Now the smoke
• 2:34:07
  Speaker 1: of the fire beat over towards me, and it must
• 2:34:09
  Speaker 1: have made me heavy of a sudden. Moreover, the vapor
• 2:34:13
  Speaker 1: of camphor was in the air. My fire would not
• 2:34:16
  Speaker 1: need replenishing for an hour or so. I felt very
• 2:34:20
  Speaker 1: weary after my exertion, and sat down. The wood, too,
• 2:34:25
  Speaker 1: was full of a slumbrous murmur that I did not understand.
• 2:34:29
  Speaker 1: I seemed just a nod and opened my eyes. But
• 2:34:32
  Speaker 1: all was dark, and the morlocks had their hands upon me,
• 2:34:37
  Speaker 1: flinging off their clinging fingers. I hastily felt in my
• 2:34:40
  Speaker 1: pocket for the match box, and it had gone. Then
• 2:34:44
  Speaker 1: they gripped and closed with me again. In a moment
• 2:34:47
  Speaker 1: I knew what had happened. I had slept, and my
• 2:34:51
  Speaker 1: fire had gone out, and the bitterness of death came
• 2:34:53
  Speaker 1: over my soul. The forest seemed full of the smell
• 2:34:57
  Speaker 1: of burning wood. I was caught by the neck, by
• 2:35:00
  Speaker 1: the hair, by the arms, and pulled down. It was
• 2:35:04
  Speaker 1: indescribably horrible in the darkness to feel all these soft
• 2:35:08
  Speaker 1: creatures heaped upon me. I felt as if I was
• 2:35:11
  Speaker 1: in a monstrous spider's web. I was overpowered and went down.
• 2:35:16
  Speaker 1: I felt little teeth nipping at my neck. I rolled over,
• 2:35:20
  Speaker 1: and as I did so, my hand came against my
• 2:35:23
  Speaker 1: iron lever. It gave me strength. I struggled up, shaking
• 2:35:28
  Speaker 1: the human rats from me and holding the bar short.
• 2:35:31
  Speaker 1: I thrust where I judged their faces might be. I
• 2:35:35
  Speaker 1: could feel the succulent giving of flesh and bone under
• 2:35:38
  Speaker 1: my blows, and for a moment I was free. The
• 2:35:41
  Speaker 1: strange exultation that so often seems to accompany hard fighting
• 2:35:45
  Speaker 1: came upon me. I knew that both I and Weena
• 2:35:48
  Speaker 1: were lost, but I determined to make the morlocks pay
• 2:35:51
  Speaker 1: for their meat. I stood with my back to a tree,
• 2:35:55
  Speaker 1: swinging the iron bar before me. The whole wood was
• 2:35:59
  Speaker 1: full of the stir and cries of them. A minute passed,
• 2:36:03
  Speaker 1: their voices seemed to rise to a higher pitch of excitement,
• 2:36:07
  Speaker 1: and their movements grew faster, yet none came within reach.
• 2:36:12
  Speaker 1: I stood glaring at the blackness. Then suddenly came hope,
• 2:36:17
  Speaker 1: what if the Morlocks were afraid? And close on the
• 2:36:20
  Speaker 1: heels of that came a strange thing. The darkness seemed
• 2:36:24
  Speaker 1: to grow luminous, very dimly. I began to see the
• 2:36:27
  Speaker 1: morlocks about me. Three battered at my feet, and then
• 2:36:30
  Speaker 1: I recognized, with incredulous surprise that the others were running
• 2:36:34
  Speaker 1: in an incessant stream, as it seemed, from behind me
• 2:36:38
  Speaker 1: and away through the wood in front, and their backs
• 2:36:41
  Speaker 1: seemed no longer white but reddish. As I stood agape,
• 2:36:45
  Speaker 1: I saw a little red spark go drifting across a
• 2:36:48
  Speaker 1: gap of starlight between the branches and vanish, And that
• 2:36:52
  Speaker 1: that I understood the smell of burning wood, the slumbrous
• 2:36:55
  Speaker 1: murmur that was growing now into a gusty roar, the
• 2:36:58
  Speaker 1: red glow, and the morlocks flight. Stepping out from behind
• 2:37:02
  Speaker 1: my tree, and looking back, I saw through the black
• 2:37:05
  Speaker 1: pillars of the nearer trees the flames of the burning forest.
• 2:37:10
  Speaker 1: It was my first fire coming after me. With that,
• 2:37:13
  Speaker 1: I looked for Weena, but she was gone. The hissing
• 2:37:17
  Speaker 1: and crackling behind me, the explosive thud as each fresh
• 2:37:20
  Speaker 1: tree burst into flame, left little time for reflection. My
• 2:37:25
  Speaker 1: iron bar still gripped, I followed in the morlock's path.
• 2:37:29
  Speaker 1: It was a close race. Once the flames crept forward
• 2:37:33
  Speaker 1: so swiftly on my right. As I ran that I
• 2:37:35
  Speaker 1: was out flanked and had to strike off to the left.
• 2:37:38
  Speaker 1: But at last I emerged upon a small open space,
• 2:37:41
  Speaker 1: and as I did so, a morlock came blundering towards
• 2:37:44
  Speaker 1: me and passed me and went on straight into the fire.
• 2:37:48
  Speaker 1: And now I was to see the most weird and
• 2:37:50
  Speaker 1: horrible thing I think of all that I beheld in
• 2:37:53
  Speaker 1: that future age. This whole space was as bright as
• 2:37:57
  Speaker 1: day with the reflection of the fire. In the center
• 2:38:00
  Speaker 1: was a hillock or tumulus, surmounted by a scorched hawthorn.
• 2:38:05
  Speaker 1: Beyond this was another arm of the burning forest, with
• 2:38:08
  Speaker 1: yellow tongues already writhing from it, completely encircling the space
• 2:38:12
  Speaker 1: with a fence of fire. Upon the hillside were some
• 2:38:16
  Speaker 1: thirty or forty morlocks, dazzled by the light and heat,
• 2:38:19
  Speaker 1: and blundering hither and thither against each other in their bewilderment.
• 2:38:23
  Speaker 1: At first I did not realize their blindness, and struck
• 2:38:26
  Speaker 1: furiously at them with my bar in a frenzy of
• 2:38:29
  Speaker 1: fear as they approached me, killing one and crippling several more.
• 2:38:34
  Speaker 1: But when I had watched the gestures of one of
• 2:38:36
  Speaker 1: them groping under the hawthorn against the red sky, and
• 2:38:39
  Speaker 1: heard their moans, I was assured of their absolute helplessness
• 2:38:43
  Speaker 1: and misery in the glare, and I struck no more
• 2:38:45
  Speaker 1: of them. Yet every now and then one would come
• 2:38:48
  Speaker 1: straight towards me, setting loose a quivering horror that made
• 2:38:51
  Speaker 1: me quick to elude him. At one time, the flames
• 2:38:55
  Speaker 1: died down somewhat, and I feared the foul creatures would
• 2:38:58
  Speaker 1: presently be able to see me. I was thinking of
• 2:39:01
  Speaker 1: beginning the fight by killing some of them before this
• 2:39:04
  Speaker 1: should happen, But the fire burst out again brightly, and
• 2:39:07
  Speaker 1: I stayed my hand. I walked about the hill among
• 2:39:10
  Speaker 1: them and avoided them, looking for some trace of Weena,
• 2:39:14
  Speaker 1: but Weena was gone. At last, I sat down on
• 2:39:17
  Speaker 1: the summit of the hillock and watched this strange, incredible
• 2:39:20
  Speaker 1: company of blind things, groping to and fro and making
• 2:39:24
  Speaker 1: uncanny noises to each other as the glare of the
• 2:39:26
  Speaker 1: fire beat on them. The coiling uprush of smoke streamed
• 2:39:30
  Speaker 1: across the sky and through the rare tatters of that
• 2:39:33
  Speaker 1: red canopy, remote as though they belonged to another universe
• 2:39:37
  Speaker 1: shown the little stars. Two or three morlocks came blundering
• 2:39:41
  Speaker 1: into me, and I drove them off with blows of
• 2:39:44
  Speaker 1: my fists, trembling as I did so. For the most
• 2:39:47
  Speaker 1: part of that night, I was persuaded it was a nightmare.
• 2:39:51
  Speaker 1: I bit myself and screamed in a passionate desire to awake.
• 2:39:55
  Speaker 1: I beat the ground with my hands, and got up
• 2:39:58
  Speaker 1: and sat down again, and wan here and there, and
• 2:40:01
  Speaker 1: again sat down. Then I would fall to rubbing my
• 2:40:04
  Speaker 1: eyes and calling upon God to let me awake. Thrice
• 2:40:08
  Speaker 1: I saw morlocks put their heads down in a kind
• 2:40:11
  Speaker 1: of agony, and rush into the flames. But at last,
• 2:40:15
  Speaker 1: above the subsiding red of the fire, above the streaming
• 2:40:18
  Speaker 1: masses of black smoke, and the widening and blackening tree stumps,
• 2:40:21
  Speaker 1: and the diminishing numbers of these dim creatures, came the
• 2:40:24
  Speaker 1: white light of the day. I searched again for traces
• 2:40:28
  Speaker 1: of Weena, but there were none. It was plain that
• 2:40:31
  Speaker 1: they had left her poor little body in the forest.
• 2:40:35
  Speaker 1: I cannot describe how it relieved me to think that
• 2:40:37
  Speaker 1: it had escaped the awful fate to which it seemed destined.
• 2:40:41
  Speaker 1: As I thought of that, I was almost moved to
• 2:40:43
  Speaker 1: begin a massacre of the helpless abominations about me, But
• 2:40:46
  Speaker 1: I contained myself. The hillock, as I have said, was
• 2:40:51
  Speaker 1: a kind of island in the forest. From its summit
• 2:40:54
  Speaker 1: I could now make out, through a haze of smoke,
• 2:40:56
  Speaker 1: the palace of green porcelain, and from that I could
• 2:40:59
  Speaker 1: get my bearings for the white Sphinx, and so leaving
• 2:41:03
  Speaker 1: the remnant of these damned souls still going hither and
• 2:41:05
  Speaker 1: thither and moaning. As the day grew clearer, I tied
• 2:41:08
  Speaker 1: some grass about my feet and limped on across smoking
• 2:41:11
  Speaker 1: ashes and among black stems that still pulsated internally with fire,
• 2:41:15
  Speaker 1: towards the hiding place of the time machine. I walked slowly,
• 2:41:20
  Speaker 1: for I was almost exhausted as well as lame, and
• 2:41:23
  Speaker 1: I felt the intensest wretchedness for the horrible death of
• 2:41:26
  Speaker 1: little Weena. It seemed an overwhelming calamity. Now in this old,
• 2:41:31
  Speaker 1: familiar room, it is more like the sorrow of a
• 2:41:34
  Speaker 1: dream than an actual loss. But that morning it left
• 2:41:37
  Speaker 1: me absolutely lonely again, terribly alone. I began to think
• 2:41:42
  Speaker 1: of this house of mine, of this fireside, of some
• 2:41:45
  Speaker 1: of you, and with such thoughts came a longing that
• 2:41:48
  Speaker 1: was pain. But as I walked over the smoking ashes
• 2:41:52
  Speaker 1: under the bright morning sky, I made a discovery. In
• 2:41:56
  Speaker 1: my trouser pocket were still some loose matches. The fox
• 2:42:00
  Speaker 1: must have leaked before it was lost. Thirteen the trap
• 2:42:05
  Speaker 1: of the White Sphinx. About eight or nine in the morning,
• 2:42:07
  Speaker 1: I came to the same seat of yellow metal from
• 2:42:10
  Speaker 1: which I had viewed the world upon the evening of
• 2:42:12
  Speaker 1: my arrival. I thought of my hasty conclusions upon that evening,
• 2:42:16
  Speaker 1: and could not refrain from laughing bitterly at my confidence.
• 2:42:20
  Speaker 1: Here was the same beautiful scene, the same abundant foliage,
• 2:42:24
  Speaker 1: the same splendid palaces and magnificent ruins, the same silver
• 2:42:28
  Speaker 1: river running between its fertile banks. The gay robes of
• 2:42:32
  Speaker 1: the beautiful people moved hither and thither among the trees.
• 2:42:36
  Speaker 1: Some were bathing in exactly the place where I had
• 2:42:39
  Speaker 1: saved Weena and that suddenly gave me a keen stab
• 2:42:42
  Speaker 1: of pain. And like blots upon the landscape rose the
• 2:42:45
  Speaker 1: cupolas above the ways to the underworld. I understood now
• 2:42:49
  Speaker 1: what all the beauty of the overworld people covered very pleasant?
• 2:42:53
  Speaker 1: Was their day as pleasant as the day of the
• 2:42:56
  Speaker 1: cattle in the field. Like the cattle, they knew of
• 2:42:59
  Speaker 1: no enemies and provided against no needs, and their end
• 2:43:04
  Speaker 1: was the same. I grieved to think how brief the
• 2:43:07
  Speaker 1: dream of the human intellect had been. It had committed suicide,
• 2:43:12
  Speaker 1: It had set itself steadfastly towards comfort and ease, a
• 2:43:16
  Speaker 1: balanced society with security and permanency as its watchword. It
• 2:43:20
  Speaker 1: had attained its hopes. To come to this at last,
• 2:43:23
  Speaker 1: once life and property must have reached almost absolute safety.
• 2:43:28
  Speaker 1: The rich had been assured of his wealth and comfort,
• 2:43:30
  Speaker 1: the dweller assured of his life and work. No doubt.
• 2:43:34
  Speaker 1: In that perfect world there had been no unemployed problem,
• 2:43:37
  Speaker 1: no social question left unsolved, and a great quiet had followed.
• 2:43:43
  Speaker 1: It is a law of nature we overlook that intellectual
• 2:43:46
  Speaker 1: versatility is the compensation for change, danger, and trouble. An
• 2:43:51
  Speaker 1: animal perfectly in harmony with its environment is a perfect mechanism.
• 2:43:56
  Speaker 1: Nature never appeals to intelligence until habit and instinct are useless.
• 2:44:02
  Speaker 1: There is no intelligence where there is no change and
• 2:44:04
  Speaker 1: no need of change. Only those animals partake of intelligence
• 2:44:08
  Speaker 1: that have to meet a huge variety of needs and dangers. So,
• 2:44:13
  Speaker 1: as I see it, the upper world man had drifted
• 2:44:16
  Speaker 1: towards his feeble prettiness, and the underworld to mere mechanical industry.
• 2:44:21
  Speaker 1: But that perfect state had lacked one thing even for
• 2:44:23
  Speaker 1: mechanical perfection, absolute permanency. Apparently, as time went on, the
• 2:44:29
  Speaker 1: feeding of an underworld, however it was affected, had become disjointed.
• 2:44:34
  Speaker 1: Mother necessity, who had been staved off for a few
• 2:44:37
  Speaker 1: thousand years, came back again, and she began below the
• 2:44:41
  Speaker 1: underworld being in contact with machinery, which, however perfect, still
• 2:44:46
  Speaker 1: needs some little thought. Outside habit had probably retained perforce
• 2:44:50
  Speaker 1: rather more initiative, if less of every other human character
• 2:44:53
  Speaker 1: than the upper And when other meat failed them, they
• 2:44:57
  Speaker 1: turned to what old habit had hitherto forbidden. So I
• 2:45:01
  Speaker 1: say I saw it in my last view of the
• 2:45:03
  Speaker 1: world of eight hundred and two thousand, seven hundred and one.
• 2:45:06
  Speaker 1: It may be as wrong an explanation as mortal wit
• 2:45:09
  Speaker 1: could invent. It is, how the thing shaped itself to me,
• 2:45:13
  Speaker 1: and as that I give it to you. After the fatigues,
• 2:45:16
  Speaker 1: excitements and terrors of the past days, and in spite
• 2:45:20
  Speaker 1: of my grief, this seat and the tranquil view and
• 2:45:22
  Speaker 1: the warm sunlight were very pleasant. I was very tired
• 2:45:26
  Speaker 1: and sleepy, and soon my theorizing passed into dozing. Catching
• 2:45:31
  Speaker 1: myself at that, I took my own hint and spreading
• 2:45:34
  Speaker 1: myself out upon the turf. I had a long and
• 2:45:36
  Speaker 1: refreshing sleep. I awoke a little before sunsetting. I now
• 2:45:41
  Speaker 1: felt safe against being caught napping by the morlocks, and
• 2:45:45
  Speaker 1: stretching myself, I came on down the hill towards the
• 2:45:48
  Speaker 1: white Sphynx. I had my crowbar in one hand, and
• 2:45:52
  Speaker 1: the other hand played with the matches in my pocket.
• 2:45:55
  Speaker 1: And now came a most unexpected thing. As I approached
• 2:45:59
  Speaker 1: the pedestal of the Sphinx, I found the bronze valves
• 2:46:02
  Speaker 1: were open. They had slid down into grooves. At that
• 2:46:07
  Speaker 1: I stopped short before them, hesitating to enter. Within was
• 2:46:11
  Speaker 1: a small apartment, and on a raised place in the
• 2:46:14
  Speaker 1: corner of this was the time machine. I had the
• 2:46:17
  Speaker 1: small levers in my pocket, so here, after all my
• 2:46:21
  Speaker 1: elaborate preparations for the siege of the White Sphinx was
• 2:46:24
  Speaker 1: a meek surrender. I threw my iron bar away, almost
• 2:46:28
  Speaker 1: sorry not to use it. A sudden thought came into
• 2:46:31
  Speaker 1: my head as I stooped towards the portal. For once,
• 2:46:35
  Speaker 1: at least, I grasped the mental operations of the Morlocks.
• 2:46:40
  Speaker 1: Suppressing a strong inclination to laugh, I stepped through the
• 2:46:43
  Speaker 1: bronze frame and up to the time machine. I was
• 2:46:46
  Speaker 1: surprised to find it had been carefully oiled and cleaned.
• 2:46:50
  Speaker 1: I have suspected since that the Morlocks had even partially
• 2:46:53
  Speaker 1: taken it to pieces while trying in their dim way
• 2:46:55
  Speaker 1: to grasp its purpose. Now, as I stood and examined it,
• 2:47:00
  Speaker 1: finding a pleasure in the mere touch of the contrivance,
• 2:47:02
  Speaker 1: the thing I had expected happened. The bronze panels suddenly
• 2:47:06
  Speaker 1: slid up and struck the frame with a clang. I
• 2:47:10
  Speaker 1: was in the dark, trapped, so the Morlocks thought at that.
• 2:47:15
  Speaker 1: I chuckled gleefully. I could already hear their murmuring laughter
• 2:47:19
  Speaker 1: as they came towards me. Very calmly, I tried to
• 2:47:22
  Speaker 1: strike the match. I had only to fix on the
• 2:47:26
  Speaker 1: levers and depart then like a ghost. But I had
• 2:47:29
  Speaker 1: overlooked one little thing. The matches were of that abominable
• 2:47:33
  Speaker 1: kind that light only on the box. You may imagine
• 2:47:37
  Speaker 1: how all my calm vanished. The little brutes were close
• 2:47:40
  Speaker 1: upon me. One touched me. I made a sweeping blow
• 2:47:45
  Speaker 1: in the dark at them with the levers, and began
• 2:47:47
  Speaker 1: to scramble into the saddle of the machine. Then came
• 2:47:51
  Speaker 1: one hand upon me, and then another. Then I had
• 2:47:54
  Speaker 1: simply to fight against their persistent fingers for my levers,
• 2:47:58
  Speaker 1: and at the same time feel for the studs over
• 2:48:00
  Speaker 1: which these fitted. One Indeed, they almost got away from me,
• 2:48:05
  Speaker 1: as it slipped from my hand. I had to but
• 2:48:08
  Speaker 1: in the dark with my head I could hear the
• 2:48:10
  Speaker 1: morlock's skull ring to recover it. It was a nearer
• 2:48:14
  Speaker 1: thing than the fight in the forest, I think this
• 2:48:16
  Speaker 1: last scramble. But at last the lever was fixed and
• 2:48:20
  Speaker 1: pulled over. The clinging hands slipped from me. The darkness
• 2:48:25
  Speaker 1: presently fell from my eyes. I found myself in the
• 2:48:29
  Speaker 1: same gray light and tumult. I have already described fourteen.
• 2:48:34
  Speaker 1: The further vision I have already told you of the
• 2:48:37
  Speaker 1: sickness and confusion that comes with time traveling, and this
• 2:48:40
  Speaker 1: time I was not seated properly in the saddle, but
• 2:48:43
  Speaker 1: sideways and in an unstable fashion. For an indefinite time.
• 2:48:48
  Speaker 1: I clung to the machine as it swayed and vibrated,
• 2:48:50
  Speaker 1: quite unheeding how I went. And when I brought myself
• 2:48:53
  Speaker 1: to look at the dials again, I was amazed to
• 2:48:55
  Speaker 1: find where I had arrived. One dial records days, and
• 2:48:59
  Speaker 1: another thousands of days, another millions of days, and another
• 2:49:03
  Speaker 1: thousands of millions. Now, instead of reversing the levers, I
• 2:49:08
  Speaker 1: had pulled them over so as to go forward with them.
• 2:49:10
  Speaker 1: And when I came to look at these indicators, I
• 2:49:13
  Speaker 1: found that the thousands hand was sweeping round as fast
• 2:49:16
  Speaker 1: as the second's hand of a watch into futurity. As
• 2:49:19
  Speaker 1: I drove on, a peculiar change crept over the appearance
• 2:49:23
  Speaker 1: of things. The palpitating grayness grew darker. Then, though I
• 2:49:27
  Speaker 1: was still traveling with prodigious velocity, the blinking succession of
• 2:49:31
  Speaker 1: day and night, which was usually indicative of a slower pace,
• 2:49:35
  Speaker 1: returned and grew more and more marked. This puzzled me
• 2:49:39
  Speaker 1: very much at first. The alternations of night and day
• 2:49:42
  Speaker 1: grew slower and slower, and so did the passage of
• 2:49:45
  Speaker 1: the Sun across the sky, until they seemed to stretch
• 2:49:48
  Speaker 1: through centuries. At last, a steady twilight brooded over the Earth,
• 2:49:53
  Speaker 1: a twilight only broken now and then when a comet
• 2:49:56
  Speaker 1: glared across the darkling sky. The band of light that
• 2:49:59
  Speaker 1: had indicated the Sun had long since disappeared, For the
• 2:50:03
  Speaker 1: Sun had ceased to set. It simply rose and fell
• 2:50:06
  Speaker 1: in the west, and grew ever broader and more red.
• 2:50:09
  Speaker 1: All trace of the Moon had vanished. The circling of
• 2:50:13
  Speaker 1: the stars, growing slower and slower, had given place to
• 2:50:16
  Speaker 1: creeping points of light. At last, some time before I stopped,
• 2:50:21
  Speaker 1: the sun, red and very large, halted motionless upon the horizon,
• 2:50:26
  Speaker 1: a vast dome, glowing with a dull heat, and now
• 2:50:29
  Speaker 1: and then suffering a momentary extinction. At one time it had,
• 2:50:33
  Speaker 1: for a little while glowed more brilliantly again, but it
• 2:50:35
  Speaker 1: speedily reverted to its sullen red heat. I perceived, by
• 2:50:40
  Speaker 1: this slowing down of its rising and setting, that the
• 2:50:42
  Speaker 1: work of the tidal drag was done. The Earth had
• 2:50:45
  Speaker 1: come to rest with one face to the Sun, even
• 2:50:48
  Speaker 1: as in our own time the Moon faces the Earth
• 2:50:51
  Speaker 1: very cautiously, for I remembered my former headlong fall. I
• 2:50:55
  Speaker 1: began to reverse my motion. Slower and slower went the
• 2:50:59
  Speaker 1: circling hand, until the thousands one seemed motionless, and the
• 2:51:02
  Speaker 1: daily one was no longer a mere mist upon its scale,
• 2:51:06
  Speaker 1: Still slower, until the dim outlines of a desolate beach
• 2:51:10
  Speaker 1: grew visible. I stopped very gently and sat upon the
• 2:51:14
  Speaker 1: thyme machine, looking round. The sky was no longer blue.
• 2:51:19
  Speaker 1: Northeastward it was inky black, and out of the blackness
• 2:51:22
  Speaker 1: shone brightly and steadily the pale white stars. Overhead it
• 2:51:26
  Speaker 1: was a deep Indian red and starless. And southeastward it
• 2:51:30
  Speaker 1: grew brighter to a glowing scarlet. Ware cut by the
• 2:51:32
  Speaker 1: horizon lay the huge hull of the sun, red and motionless.
• 2:51:37
  Speaker 1: The rocks about me were of a harsh reddish color,
• 2:51:40
  Speaker 1: and all the trace of life that I could see
• 2:51:42
  Speaker 1: at first was the intensely green vegetation that covered every
• 2:51:45
  Speaker 1: projecting point on their southeastern face. It was the same
• 2:51:49
  Speaker 1: rich green that one sees on forest moss or on
• 2:51:52
  Speaker 1: the lichen in caves, plants which like these grow in
• 2:51:55
  Speaker 1: a perpetual twilight. The machine was standing on a sloping beach.
• 2:52:00
  Speaker 1: The sea stretched away to the southwest to rise into
• 2:52:03
  Speaker 1: a sharp, bright horizon against the wan sky. There were
• 2:52:07
  Speaker 1: no breakers and no waves, for not a breath of
• 2:52:09
  Speaker 1: wind was stirring. Only a slight, oily swell rose and
• 2:52:14
  Speaker 1: fell like a gentle breathing, and showed that the eternal
• 2:52:16
  Speaker 1: sea was still moving and living. And along the margin
• 2:52:20
  Speaker 1: where the water sometimes broke was a thick incrustation of
• 2:52:23
  Speaker 1: salt pink under the lurid sky. There was a sense
• 2:52:27
  Speaker 1: of oppression in my head, and I noticed that I
• 2:52:30
  Speaker 1: was breathing very fast. The sensation reminded me of my
• 2:52:34
  Speaker 1: only experience of mountaineering, and from that I judged the
• 2:52:37
  Speaker 1: air to be more rarefied than it is now. Far
• 2:52:41
  Speaker 1: away up the desolate slope, I heard a harsh scream
• 2:52:43
  Speaker 1: and saw a thing like a huge white butterfly ghost slanting,
• 2:52:47
  Speaker 1: fluttering up into the sky and circling disappear over some
• 2:52:51
  Speaker 1: low hillocks beyond the sound of its voice was so
• 2:52:54
  Speaker 1: dismal that I shivered and seated myself more firmly upon
• 2:52:57
  Speaker 1: the machine. Looking round me again, I saw that quite
• 2:53:01
  Speaker 1: near what I had taken to be a reddish mass
• 2:53:04
  Speaker 1: of rock, was moving slowly towards me. Then I saw
• 2:53:08
  Speaker 1: the thing was really a monstrous crablike creature. Can you
• 2:53:12
  Speaker 1: imagine a crab as large as yonder table, with its
• 2:53:14
  Speaker 1: many legs moving slowly and uncertainly, its big claws swaying,
• 2:53:19
  Speaker 1: its long antennae like Carter's whips waving and feeling, and
• 2:53:23
  Speaker 1: its stalked eyes gleaming at you on either side of
• 2:53:25
  Speaker 1: its metallic front. Its back was corrugated and ornamented with
• 2:53:29
  Speaker 1: ungainly bosses, and a greenish incrustace blotched it. Here and there.
• 2:53:34
  Speaker 1: I could see the many palps of its complicated mouth
• 2:53:37
  Speaker 1: flickering and feeling as it moved. As I stared at
• 2:53:41
  Speaker 1: this sinister apparition crawling towards me, I felt a tickling
• 2:53:44
  Speaker 1: on my cheek, as though a fly had lighted there.
• 2:53:48
  Speaker 1: I tried to brush it away with my hand, but
• 2:53:50
  Speaker 1: in a moment it returned, and almost immediately came another
• 2:53:53
  Speaker 1: by my ear. I struck at this and caught something threadlike.
• 2:53:59
  Speaker 1: It was drawn out of my hand with a frightful qualm.
• 2:54:03
  Speaker 1: I turned, and I saw that I had grasped the
• 2:54:05
  Speaker 1: antenna of another monster crab that stood just behind me.
• 2:54:09
  Speaker 1: Its evil eyes were wriggling on their stalks. Its mouth
• 2:54:12
  Speaker 1: was all alive with appetite, and its vast, ungainly claws,
• 2:54:16
  Speaker 1: smeared with an algal slime, were descending upon me. In
• 2:54:20
  Speaker 1: a moment, my hand was on the lever, and I
• 2:54:22
  Speaker 1: had placed a month between myself and these monsters. But
• 2:54:26
  Speaker 1: I was still on the same beach, and I saw
• 2:54:29
  Speaker 1: them distinctly. Now, as soon as I stopped, dozens of
• 2:54:32
  Speaker 1: them seemed to be crawling here and there in the
• 2:54:35
  Speaker 1: somber light, among the foliated sheets of intense green. I
• 2:54:39
  Speaker 1: cannot convey the sense of abominable desolation that hung over
• 2:54:42
  Speaker 1: the world. The red eastern sky, the northward blackness, the
• 2:54:47
  Speaker 1: salt dead sea, the stony beach crawling with these fowl,
• 2:54:51
  Speaker 1: slow stirring monsters, the uniform, poisonous looking green of the
• 2:54:54
  Speaker 1: likeness plants, the thin air that hurts one's lungs all
• 2:54:58
  Speaker 1: contributed to an appalling effect. I moved on a hundred years,
• 2:55:02
  Speaker 1: and there was the same red sun, a little larger,
• 2:55:05
  Speaker 1: a little duller, the same dying sea, the same chill air,
• 2:55:09
  Speaker 1: and the same crowd of earthy crustacea creeping in and
• 2:55:12
  Speaker 1: out among the green weed and the red rocks, and
• 2:55:15
  Speaker 1: in the westward sky I saw a curved, pale line
• 2:55:18
  Speaker 1: like a vast new moon. So I traveled, stopping ever
• 2:55:22
  Speaker 1: and again in great strides of a thousand years or more,
• 2:55:26
  Speaker 1: drawn on by the mystery of the Earth's fate, watching
• 2:55:29
  Speaker 1: with a strange fascination, the Sun grow larger and duller
• 2:55:32
  Speaker 1: in the westward sky, and the life of the old
• 2:55:34
  Speaker 1: Earth eboway at last more than thirty million years. Hence
• 2:55:39
  Speaker 1: the huge red hot dome of the Sun had come
• 2:55:41
  Speaker 1: to obscure nearly a tenth part of the darkling heavens.
• 2:55:45
  Speaker 1: Then I stopped once more, for the crawling multitude of
• 2:55:48
  Speaker 1: crabs had disappeared, and the red beach, save for its
• 2:55:51
  Speaker 1: livid green liverworts and lichens, seemed lifeless. And now it
• 2:55:56
  Speaker 1: was flecked with white. A bitter cold assailed me rare
• 2:56:01
  Speaker 1: white flakes. Ever and again came eddying down to the northeastward.
• 2:56:06
  Speaker 1: The glare of snow lay under the starlight of the
• 2:56:08
  Speaker 1: sable sky, and I could see an undulating crest of
• 2:56:11
  Speaker 1: hillocks pinkish white. There were fringes of ice along the
• 2:56:15
  Speaker 1: sea margin, with drifting masses farther out, but the main
• 2:56:18
  Speaker 1: expanse of that salt ocean, all bloody under the eternal sunset,
• 2:56:22
  Speaker 1: was still unfrozen. I looked about me to see if
• 2:56:25
  Speaker 1: any traces of animal life remained. A certain indefinable apprehension
• 2:56:30
  Speaker 1: still kept me in the saddle of the machine. But
• 2:56:33
  Speaker 1: I saw nothing moving in Earth, or sky or sea.
• 2:56:38
  Speaker 1: The green slime on the rocks alone testified that life
• 2:56:41
  Speaker 1: was not extinct. A shallow sand bank had appeared in
• 2:56:44
  Speaker 1: the sea, and the water had receded from the beach.
• 2:56:48
  Speaker 1: I fancied I saw some black object flopping about upon
• 2:56:51
  Speaker 1: this bank, but it became motionless as I looked at it,
• 2:56:54
  Speaker 1: and I judged that my eye had been deceived, and
• 2:56:56
  Speaker 1: that the black object was merely a rock. The stars
• 2:57:00
  Speaker 1: in the sky were intensely bright and seemed to me
• 2:57:03
  Speaker 1: to twinkle very little. Suddenly I noticed that the circular
• 2:57:07
  Speaker 1: westward outline of the sun had changed, that a concavity
• 2:57:10
  Speaker 1: a bay, had appeared in the curve. I saw this
• 2:57:14
  Speaker 1: grow larger for a minute. Perhaps I stared aghast at
• 2:57:18
  Speaker 1: this blackness that was creeping over the day, and then
• 2:57:20
  Speaker 1: I realized that an eclipse was beginning. Either the moon
• 2:57:24
  Speaker 1: or the planet mercury was passing across the Sun's disk naturally.
• 2:57:29
  Speaker 1: At first I took it to be the moon, But
• 2:57:31
  Speaker 1: there is much to incline me to believe that what
• 2:57:33
  Speaker 1: I really saw was the transit of an inner planet
• 2:57:36
  Speaker 1: passing very near to the Earth. The darkness grew apace,
• 2:57:40
  Speaker 1: A cold wind began to blow in freshening gusts from
• 2:57:43
  Speaker 1: the east, and the showering white flakes in the air
• 2:57:46
  Speaker 1: increased in number. From the edge of the sea came
• 2:57:49
  Speaker 1: a ripple and whisper. Beyond these lifeless sounds, the world
• 2:57:53
  Speaker 1: was silent, silent. It would be hard to convey the
• 2:57:58
  Speaker 1: stillness of it. All the sounds of man, the bleating
• 2:58:02
  Speaker 1: of sheep, the cries of birds, the hum of insects,
• 2:58:05
  Speaker 1: the stir that makes the background of our lives, All
• 2:58:08
  Speaker 1: that was over. As the darkness thickened, the eddying flakes
• 2:58:12
  Speaker 1: grew more abundant, dancing before my eyes, and the cold
• 2:58:15
  Speaker 1: of the air more intense. At last, one by one, swiftly,
• 2:58:20
  Speaker 1: one after the other, the white peaks of the distant
• 2:58:23
  Speaker 1: hills vanished into blackness. The breeze rose to a moaning wind.
• 2:58:28
  Speaker 1: I saw the black central shadow of the eclipse sweeping
• 2:58:31
  Speaker 1: towards me. In another moment, the pale stars alone were visible.
• 2:58:36
  Speaker 1: All else was rayless obscurity. The sky was absolutely black.
• 2:58:42
  Speaker 1: A horror of this great darkness came on me. The
• 2:58:46
  Speaker 1: cold that smote to my marrow, and the pain I
• 2:58:49
  Speaker 1: felt in breathing overcame me. I shivered, and the deadly
• 2:58:53
  Speaker 1: nausea seized me. Then like a red hot bough in
• 2:58:57
  Speaker 1: the sky appeared the edge of the sun. I got
• 2:59:00
  Speaker 1: off the machine to recover myself. I felt giddy and
• 2:59:03
  Speaker 1: incapable of facing the return journey. As I stood, sick
• 2:59:08
  Speaker 1: and confused, I saw again the moving thing upon the shoal.
• 2:59:11
  Speaker 1: There was no mistake now that it was a moving
• 2:59:13
  Speaker 1: thing against the red water of the sea. It was
• 2:59:17
  Speaker 1: a round thing, the size of a football perhaps, or
• 2:59:20
  Speaker 1: it may be bigger, and tentacles trailed down from it.
• 2:59:24
  Speaker 1: It seemed black against the weltering blood red water, and
• 2:59:27
  Speaker 1: it was hopping fitfully about. Then I felt I was fainting,
• 2:59:32
  Speaker 1: but a terrible dread of lying helpless in that remote
• 2:59:34
  Speaker 1: and awful twilight sustained me while I clambered upon the saddle.
• 2:59:39
  Speaker 1: Fifteen the time travelers returned, So I came back for
• 2:59:43
  Speaker 1: a long time. I must have been insensible upon the machine.
• 2:59:47
  Speaker 1: The blinking succession of the days and nights was resumed.
• 2:59:50
  Speaker 1: The sun got golden again, the sky blue. I breathed
• 2:59:54
  Speaker 1: with greater freedom. The fluctuating contours of the land ebbed
• 2:59:58
  Speaker 1: and flowed. The hands spun backward upon the dials. At
• 3:00:03
  Speaker 1: last I saw again the dim shadows of houses, the
• 3:00:06
  Speaker 1: evidences of decadent humanity. These two changed and passed, and
• 3:00:12
  Speaker 1: others came presently. When the million dial was at zero,
• 3:00:16
  Speaker 1: I slackened speed. I began to recognize our own pretty
• 3:00:20
  Speaker 1: and familiar architecture. The thousands hand ran back to the
• 3:00:24
  Speaker 1: starting point. The night and day flapped slower and slower.
• 3:00:28
  Speaker 1: Then the old walls of the laboratory came round me
• 3:00:32
  Speaker 1: very gently. Now I slowed the mechanism down. I saw
• 3:00:36
  Speaker 1: one little thing that seemed odd to me. I think
• 3:00:40
  Speaker 1: I have told you that when I set out before,
• 3:00:42
  Speaker 1: my velocity became very high. Missus Watchett had walked across
• 3:00:46
  Speaker 1: the room, traveling, as it seemed to me, like a rocket.
• 3:00:50
  Speaker 1: As I returned, I passed again across that minute when
• 3:00:53
  Speaker 1: she traversed the laboratory. But now her every motion appeared
• 3:00:57
  Speaker 1: to be the exact inversion of her previous one ones.
• 3:01:01
  Speaker 1: The door at the lower end opened, and she glided
• 3:01:04
  Speaker 1: quietly up the laboratory back foremost, and disappeared behind the
• 3:01:08
  Speaker 1: door by which she had previously entered. Just before that,
• 3:01:12
  Speaker 1: I seemed to see Hillier for a moment, but he
• 3:01:14
  Speaker 1: passed like a flash. Then I stopped the machine and
• 3:01:18
  Speaker 1: saw about me again the old familiar laboratory, my tools,
• 3:01:22
  Speaker 1: my appliances, just as I had left them. I got
• 3:01:25
  Speaker 1: off the thing very shakily and sat down upon my bench.
• 3:01:29
  Speaker 1: For several minutes. I trembled violently. Then I became calmer.
• 3:01:35
  Speaker 1: Around me was my old workshop again, exactly as it
• 3:01:38
  Speaker 1: had been. I might have slept there, and the whole
• 3:01:41
  Speaker 1: thing have been a dream, And yet not exactly. The
• 3:01:46
  Speaker 1: thing had started from the southeast corner of the laboratory,
• 3:01:50
  Speaker 1: it had come to rest again in the northwest, against
• 3:01:53
  Speaker 1: the wall where you saw it. That gives you the
• 3:01:56
  Speaker 1: exact distance from my little lawn to the pedestal of
• 3:01:58
  Speaker 1: the white sphynx into which the Morlocks had carried my machine.
• 3:02:03
  Speaker 1: For a time, my brain went stagnant. Presently I got
• 3:02:07
  Speaker 1: up and came through the passage here, limping because my
• 3:02:10
  Speaker 1: heel was still painful, and feeling sorely begrimed. I saw
• 3:02:14
  Speaker 1: the pall mall gazette on the table by the door.
• 3:02:18
  Speaker 1: I found the date was indeed to day, and looking
• 3:02:20
  Speaker 1: at the time piece, saw the hour was almost eight o'clock.
• 3:02:24
  Speaker 1: I heard your voices and the clatter of plates. I hesitated.
• 3:02:29
  Speaker 1: I felt so sick and weak. Then I sniffed good
• 3:02:32
  Speaker 1: wholesome meat and opened the door on you. You know
• 3:02:36
  Speaker 1: the rest. I washed and dined, and now I am
• 3:02:40
  Speaker 1: telling you the story. Sixteen after the story, I know,
• 3:02:45
  Speaker 1: he said, after a pause, that all this will be
• 3:02:47
  Speaker 1: absolutely incredible to you, But to me, the one incredible
• 3:02:51
  Speaker 1: thing is that I am here to night, in this old,
• 3:02:53
  Speaker 1: familiar room, looking into your friendly faces, and telling you
• 3:02:56
  Speaker 1: these strange adventures. He looked at the medical man. No,
• 3:03:01
  Speaker 1: I cannot expect you to believe it. Take it as
• 3:03:04
  Speaker 1: a lie or a prophecy. Say I dreamed it in
• 3:03:08
  Speaker 1: the workshop. Consider I have been speculating upon the destinies
• 3:03:12
  Speaker 1: of our race until I have hatched this fiction. Treat
• 3:03:16
  Speaker 1: my assertion of its truth as a mere stroke of
• 3:03:18
  Speaker 1: art to enhance its interest, and taking it as a story.
• 3:03:22
  Speaker 1: What do you think of it? He took up his
• 3:03:25
  Speaker 1: pipe and began, in his old accustomed manner, to tap
• 3:03:28
  Speaker 1: with it nervously upon the bars of the grate. There
• 3:03:32
  Speaker 1: was a momentary stillness. Then chairs began to creak, in
• 3:03:36
  Speaker 1: shoes to scrape upon the carpet. I took my eyes
• 3:03:39
  Speaker 1: off the time Traveler's face and looked round at his audience.
• 3:03:44
  Speaker 1: They were in the dark, and little spots of color
• 3:03:46
  Speaker 1: swam before them. The medical man seemed absorbed in the
• 3:03:50
  Speaker 1: contemplation of our host. The editor was looking hard at
• 3:03:54
  Speaker 1: the end of his cigar the sixth. The journalist fumbled
• 3:03:58
  Speaker 1: for his watch. The others, as far as I remember,
• 3:04:02
  Speaker 1: were motionless. The editor stood up with a sigh. What
• 3:04:07
  Speaker 1: a pity it is. You're not a writer of stories,
• 3:04:09
  Speaker 1: he said, putting his hand on the time Traveler's shoulder.
• 3:04:13
  Speaker 1: You don't believe it, well, I thought not. The time
• 3:04:17
  Speaker 1: traveler turned to us. Where are the matches, he said?
• 3:04:22
  Speaker 1: He lit one and spoke over his pipe, puffing to
• 3:04:26
  Speaker 1: tell you the truth. I hardly believe it myself. And
• 3:04:31
  Speaker 1: yet his eye fell with a mute inquiry upon the
• 3:04:34
  Speaker 1: withered white flowers upon the little table. Then he turned
• 3:04:38
  Speaker 1: over the hand holding his pipe, and I saw he
• 3:04:40
  Speaker 1: was looking at some half healed scars on his knuckles.
• 3:04:44
  Speaker 1: The medical man rose, came to the lamp and examined
• 3:04:47
  Speaker 1: the flowers. The genesium's odd, he said. The psychologist leant
• 3:04:53
  Speaker 1: forward to see, holding out his hand for a specimen.
• 3:04:57
  Speaker 1: I'm hanged if it isn't a quarter to one, said
• 3:04:59
  Speaker 1: the journalist. How shall we get home? Plenty of cabs
• 3:05:04
  Speaker 1: at the station, said the psychologist. It's a curious thing,
• 3:05:09
  Speaker 1: said the medical man. But I certainly don't know the
• 3:05:11
  Speaker 1: natural order of these flowers? May I have them? The
• 3:05:16
  Speaker 1: time traveler hesitated. Then suddenly, certainly not where did you
• 3:05:22
  Speaker 1: really get them? Said the medical man. The time traveler
• 3:05:25
  Speaker 1: put his hand to his head. He spoke like one
• 3:05:28
  Speaker 1: who was trying to keep hold of an idea that
• 3:05:30
  Speaker 1: eluded him. They were put into my pocket by Weena
• 3:05:34
  Speaker 1: when I traveled into time. He stared round the room.
• 3:05:39
  Speaker 1: I'm damned if it isn't all going This room and
• 3:05:42
  Speaker 1: you and the atmosphere of every day is too much
• 3:05:45
  Speaker 1: for my memory. Did I ever make a time machine
• 3:05:48
  Speaker 1: or a model of a time machine? Or is it
• 3:05:51
  Speaker 1: all only a dream? They say life is a dream,
• 3:05:55
  Speaker 1: a precious, poor dream at times. But I can't stand
• 3:05:58
  Speaker 1: another that won't fit. It's madness. And where did the
• 3:06:02
  Speaker 1: dream come from? I must look at that machine, if
• 3:06:07
  Speaker 1: there is one. He caught up the lamp swiftly and
• 3:06:10
  Speaker 1: carried it flaring red, through the door into the corridor.
• 3:06:15
  Speaker 1: We followed him. Therein the flickering light of the lamp
• 3:06:18
  Speaker 1: was the machine, sure enough, squat ugly, And ask you
• 3:06:22
  Speaker 1: a thing of brass, ebony, ivory and translucent, glimmering quartz,
• 3:06:27
  Speaker 1: solid to the touch. For I put out my hand
• 3:06:30
  Speaker 1: and felt the rail of it, and with brown spots
• 3:06:32
  Speaker 1: and smears upon the ivory, and bits of grass and
• 3:06:35
  Speaker 1: moss upon the lower parts, and one rail bent awry.
• 3:06:39
  Speaker 1: The time traveler put the lamp down on the bench
• 3:06:42
  Speaker 1: and ran his hand along the damaged rail. It's all
• 3:06:46
  Speaker 1: right now, he said. The story I told you was true.
• 3:06:51
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry to have brought you out here in the cold.
• 3:06:54
  Speaker 1: He took up the lamp, and in an absolute silence,
• 3:06:58
  Speaker 1: we returned to the smoking room. He came into the
• 3:07:01
  Speaker 1: hall with us and helped the editor on with his coat.
• 3:07:04
  Speaker 1: The medical man looked into his face, and with a
• 3:07:07
  Speaker 1: certain hesitation, told him he was suffering from overwork, at
• 3:07:10
  Speaker 1: which he laughed hugely. I remember him standing in the
• 3:07:14
  Speaker 1: open doorway bawling good night. I shared a cab with
• 3:07:18
  Speaker 1: the editor. He thought the tale a gaudy lie. For
• 3:07:23
  Speaker 1: my own part one was unable to come to a conclusion.
• 3:07:26
  Speaker 1: The story was so fantastic and incredible, the telling so
• 3:07:30
  Speaker 1: credible and sober. I lay awake most of the night
• 3:07:33
  Speaker 1: thinking about it. I determined to go next day and
• 3:07:37
  Speaker 1: see the time traveler again. I was told he was
• 3:07:40
  Speaker 1: in the laboratory, and, being on easy terms in the house,
• 3:07:43
  Speaker 1: I went up to him. The laboratory, however, was empty.
• 3:07:49
  Speaker 1: I stared for a minute at the time machine and
• 3:07:51
  Speaker 1: put out my hand and touched the lever. At that
• 3:07:54
  Speaker 1: the squat substantial looking mass swayed like a bough shaken
• 3:07:57
  Speaker 1: by the wind. Its instable. He startled me extremely, and
• 3:08:01
  Speaker 1: I had a queer reminiscence of the childish days when
• 3:08:04
  Speaker 1: I used to be forbidden to meddle. I came back
• 3:08:07
  Speaker 1: through the corridor. The time traveler met me in the
• 3:08:11
  Speaker 1: smoking room. He was coming from the house. He had
• 3:08:15
  Speaker 1: a small camera under one arm and a knapsack under
• 3:08:18
  Speaker 1: the other. He laughed when he saw me and gave
• 3:08:21
  Speaker 1: me an elbow to shake. I'm frightfully busy, said he
• 3:08:26
  Speaker 1: with that thing in there? But is it not some hoax?
• 3:08:30
  Speaker 1: I said, do you really travel through time? Really? And truly?
• 3:08:35
  Speaker 1: I do? And he looked frankly into my eyes. He
• 3:08:39
  Speaker 1: hesitated his I wandered about the room. I only want
• 3:08:44
  Speaker 1: half an hour, he said, I know why you came,
• 3:08:48
  Speaker 1: and it's awfully good of you. There's some magazines here.
• 3:08:52
  Speaker 1: If you'll stop to lunch, i'll prove you this time
• 3:08:55
  Speaker 1: traveling up to the hilt, specimens and all, if you'll
• 3:08:59
  Speaker 1: forgive my leaving you now. I consented, hardly comprehending than
• 3:09:03
  Speaker 1: the full import of his words, and he nodded and
• 3:09:06
  Speaker 1: went on down the corridor. I heard the door of
• 3:09:09
  Speaker 1: the laboratory slam, seated myself in a chair and took
• 3:09:12
  Speaker 1: up a daily paper. What was he going to do
• 3:09:15
  Speaker 1: before lunch time? Then suddenly I was reminded by an
• 3:09:19
  Speaker 1: advertisement that I had promised to meet Richardson, the publisher,
• 3:09:23
  Speaker 1: at two. I looked at my watch and saw that
• 3:09:26
  Speaker 1: I could barely save that engagement. I got up and
• 3:09:30
  Speaker 1: went down the passage to tell the time traveler as
• 3:09:33
  Speaker 1: I took hold of the handle of the door. I
• 3:09:35
  Speaker 1: heard an exclamation oddly truncated at the end, and a
• 3:09:39
  Speaker 1: click and a thud. A gust of air whirled round
• 3:09:42
  Speaker 1: me as I opened the door, and from within came
• 3:09:45
  Speaker 1: the sound of broken glass falling on the floor. The
• 3:09:48
  Speaker 1: time traveler was not there. I seemed to see a ghostly,
• 3:09:53
  Speaker 1: indistinct figure sitting in a whirling mass of black and
• 3:09:56
  Speaker 1: brass for a moment, a figure so transparent that the
• 3:09:58
  Speaker 1: bench behind, with its sheets of drawings was absolutely distinct.
• 3:10:02
  Speaker 1: But this phantasm vanished as I rubbed my eyes. The
• 3:10:06
  Speaker 1: time machine had gone. Save for a subsiding stir of dust.
• 3:10:11
  Speaker 1: The further end of the laboratory was empty. A pane
• 3:10:14
  Speaker 1: of the skylight had apparently just been blown in. I
• 3:10:18
  Speaker 1: felt an unreasonable amazement. I knew that something strange had happened,
• 3:10:23
  Speaker 1: and for the moment, could not distinguish what the strange
• 3:10:26
  Speaker 1: thing might be. As I stood staring, the door into
• 3:10:30
  Speaker 1: the garden opened and the man servant appeared. We looked
• 3:10:34
  Speaker 1: at each other. Then ideas began to come. Has mister
• 3:10:39
  Speaker 1: gone out that way? Said I, No, sir, no one
• 3:10:43
  Speaker 1: has come out this way. I was expecting to find
• 3:10:46
  Speaker 1: him here. At that I understood, at the risk of
• 3:10:50
  Speaker 1: disappointing Richardson, I stayed on waiting for the Time Traveler,
• 3:10:54
  Speaker 1: waiting for the second, perhaps still stranger story, and the
• 3:10:58
  Speaker 1: specimens and photographs he would bring with him. But I
• 3:11:01
  Speaker 1: am beginning now to fear that I must wait a lifetime.
• 3:11:05
  Speaker 1: The time Traveler vanished three years ago, and as everybody
• 3:11:09
  Speaker 1: knows now, he has never returned epilogue. One cannot choose,
• 3:11:14
  Speaker 1: but wonder will he ever return? It may be that
• 3:11:18
  Speaker 1: he swept back into the past and fell among the
• 3:11:21
  Speaker 1: blood drinking, hairy savages of the age of unpolished stone,
• 3:11:25
  Speaker 1: into the abysses of the Cretaceous sea, or among the
• 3:11:28
  Speaker 1: grotesque saurians, the huge reptilian brutes of the Jurassic times.
• 3:11:34
  Speaker 1: He may even, now, if I may use the phrase,
• 3:11:37
  Speaker 1: be wandering on some plesiosaurus haunted oolitic coral reef, or
• 3:11:41
  Speaker 1: beside the lonely saline seas of the Triassic Age. Or
• 3:11:45
  Speaker 1: did he go forward into one of the nearer ages
• 3:11:48
  Speaker 1: in which men are still men? But with the riddles
• 3:11:51
  Speaker 1: of our own time answered and its wearisome problem solved
• 3:11:55
  Speaker 1: into the manhood of the race. For I for my
• 3:11:57
  Speaker 1: own part, cannot think that these latter days, days of
• 3:12:00
  Speaker 1: weak experiment, fragmentary theory, and mutual discord, are indeed man's
• 3:12:05
  Speaker 1: culminating time. I say, for my own part, he I know,
• 3:12:11
  Speaker 1: for the question had been discussed among us long before
• 3:12:13
  Speaker 1: the time machine was made. Thought but cheerlessly of the
• 3:12:16
  Speaker 1: advancement of mankind, and saw in the growing pile of
• 3:12:20
  Speaker 1: civilization only a foolish heaping that must inevitably fall back
• 3:12:23
  Speaker 1: upon and destroy its makers in the end. If that
• 3:12:27
  Speaker 1: is so, it remains for us to live as though
• 3:12:29
  Speaker 1: it were not so. But to me the future is
• 3:12:32
  Speaker 1: still black and blank, is a vast ignorance, lit at
• 3:12:35
  Speaker 1: a few casual places by the memory of his story.
• 3:12:39
  Speaker 1: And I have by me for my comfort two strange
• 3:12:42
  Speaker 1: white flowers, shriveled now and brown and flat and brittle,
• 3:12:46
  Speaker 1: to witness that even when mind and strength had gone,
• 3:12:49
  Speaker 1: gratitude and a mutual tenderness still lived on in the
• 3:12:52
  Speaker 1: heart of man. The end. Thanks for listening.