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

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The Time Machine, Chapter one. The time Traveler, for so
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: it will be convenient to speak of him, was expounding
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: a recondite matter to us. His gray eyes shone and twinkled,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: and his usually pale face was flushed and animated. The
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: fire burned brightly, and the soft radiance of the incandescent
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: lights in the lilies of silver caught the bubbles that
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: flashed and passed in our glasses. Our chairs, being his patents,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: embraced and caressed us, rather than submitted to be sat upon.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: And there was that luxurious after dinner atmosphere when thought
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Romes gracefully free of the trammels of precision, and he
• 0:43
  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 his new paradox as we thought it,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: and his fecundity. You must follow me carefully. I shall
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: have to controvert nor two ideas that are almost universally accepted.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: The geometry, for instance, they taught you at school, is
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: founded on a misconception. Is not that a rather large
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: thing to expect us to begin upon? Said philby an
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: argumentative person with red hair. I do not mean to
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: ask you to accept anything without reasonable ground for it.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: You will soon admit as much as I need from you.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: You know, of course, that a mathematical line, a line
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: of thickness nil, has no real existence. They taught you
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: that neither has a mathematical plane. These things are mere abstractions.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: That is all right, said the psychologist. Nor having only length,
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: breadth and thickness. Can a cube have a real existence? There,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: I object, said Philby. Of course a solid body may
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: exist all real things, so most people think. But wait
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: a moment, can an instantaneous cube exist? Don't follow you,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: said Philby? Can a cube that does not last for
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: any time at all? Have a real existence? Philby became pensive. Clearly,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: the time traveler proceeded, Any real body must have extension
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: in four directions. It must have length, breadth, thickness, and duration.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: But through a natural infirmity of the flesh, which I
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: will explain to you in a moment, we incline to
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: overlook this fact. There are really four dimensions, three which
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: we call the three planes of space, and a fourth time.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: There is, however, a tendency to draw an unreal distinction
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: between the former three dimensions, and the latter because it
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: happens that our consciousness moves intermittently in one direction along
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: the ladder from the beginning to the end of our lives.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: That said a very young man, making spasmodic efforts to
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: relight his cigar over the lamp. That very clear. Indeed,
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: now it is very remarkable that this is so extensively overlooked,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: continued the time traveler, with a slight accession of cheerfulness. Really,
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: this is what is meant by the fourth dimension. Though
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: some people who talk about the fourth dimension do not
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: know they mean it. It is only another way of
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: looking at time. There is no difference between time and
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: any of the three dimensions of space, except that our
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: consciousness moves along it. But some foolish people have got
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: hold of the wrong side of that idea. You have
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: all heard what they have to say about this fourth dimension.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: I have not said the provincial mayor. It is simply
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: this that space, as our mathematicians have it, is spoken
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: of as having three dimensions, which one may call length, breadth,
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: and thickness, and is always definable by reference to three planes,
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: each at right angles to the others. But some philosophical
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: people have been asking why three dimensions, particularly why not
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: another direction at right angles to the other three, and
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: have even tried to construct a four dimension geometry. Professor
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: Simon Knucomb was expounding this to the New York Mathematical
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: Society only a month or so ago. You know how
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: on a flat surface which has only two dimensions, we
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: can represent a figure of a three dimensional solid. And
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: similarly they think that by models of three dimensions they
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: could represent one of four if they could master the
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: perspective of the thing. See I think so, murmured the
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: provincial mayor, and knitting his brows, he lapsed into an
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: introspective state, his lips moving as one who repeats me
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: mystic words. Yes, I think I see it now, he said,
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: after some time, brightening in a quite transitory manner. Well,
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: I do not mind telling you I have been at
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: work upon this geometry of four dimensions for some time.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: Some of my results are curious. For instance, here is
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: a portrait of a man at eight years old, another
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: at fifteen, another at seventeen, another at twenty three, and
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: so on. All these are evidently sections, as it were,
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  Speaker 1: three dimensional representations of his four dimensioned being, which is
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  Speaker 1: a fixed and unalterable thing. Scientific people proceeded the time traveler,
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: after the pause required for the proper assimilation of this,
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: know very well that time is only a kind of space.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: Here is a popular scientific diagram, a weather record. This
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: line I traced with my finger shows the movement of
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: the barometer. Yesterday it was so high. Yesterday night it fell.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: Then this morning it rose again, and so gently upward
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: to here. Surely the mercury did not trace this line
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: in any of the dimensions of space generally recognized. But
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: certainly it traced such a line, And that line, therefore,
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: we must conclude, was along the time dimension. But said
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: the medical man, staring hard at a coal in the fire,
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: if time is really only a fourth dimension of space,
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: why is it, and why has it always been regarded
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  Speaker 1: as something different? And why cannot we move in time
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  Speaker 1: as we move about in the other dimensions of space?
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: The time traveler smiled, Are you sure we can move
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  Speaker 1: freely in space? Right and left? We can go backward
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: and forward freely enough, and men always have done so.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: I admit we move freely in two dimensions, But how
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: about up and down? Gravitation limits us? There not exactly,
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: said the medical man. There are balloons. But before the balloons,
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: say for spasmodic jumping, and the inequalities of the surface,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: man had no freedom of vertical movement. Still they could
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: move a little up and down, said the medical man, easier,
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: far easier down than up. And you cannot move at
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: all in time. You cannot get away from the present moment,
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: my dear sir. That is just where you are wrong.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: That is just where the whole world has gone wrong.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: We are always getting away from the present moment. Our
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: mental existences, which are immaterial and have no dimensions, are
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: passing along the time dimension with a uniform velocity from
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: the cradle to the grave, just as we should travel
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: down if we began our existence fifty miles above the
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: earth serve. But the great difficulty is this, interrupted the psychologist.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: You can move about in all directions of space, but
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  Speaker 1: you cannot move about in time. That is the germ
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  Speaker 1: of my great discovery. But you are wrong to say
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: that we cannot move about in time. For instance, if
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  Speaker 1: I am recalling an incident very vividly, I go back
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  Speaker 1: to the instant of its occurrence. I become absent minded.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: As you say, I jump back for a moment. Of course,
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  Speaker 1: we have no means of staying back for any length
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  Speaker 1: of time, any more than a savage or an animal
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: has of staying six feet above the ground. But a
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: civilized man is better off than the savage in this respect.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: He can go up against gravitation in a balloon. And
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: why should he not hope that ultimately he may be
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: able to stop or accelerate his drift along the time dimension,
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: or even turn about and travel the other way. Oh,
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: this began Philby, is all, why not, said the time traveler.
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  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,
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: But you will never convince me. Possibly not, said the
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: time traveler. But now you begin to see the object
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: of my investigations into the geometry of four dimensions. Long ago,
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: I had a vague inkling of a machine to travel
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  Speaker 1: through time, exclaimed the very young man, that shall travel
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  Speaker 1: indifferently in any direction of space and time, as the
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: driver determines. Philby contented himself with laughter. But I have
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: experimental verification, said the time traveler. It would be remarkably
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: convenient for the historian. The psychologist suggested one might travel
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: back and verify the accepted account of the Battle of Hastings,
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: for instance. Don't you think you would attract attention, said
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: the medical man. Our ancestors had no great tolerance for anachronisms.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: One might get one's Greek from the very lips of
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: Homer and Plato, the very young man thought, in which
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: case they would certainly plow you for the little go.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: The German scholars have improved Greek so much. Then there
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: is the future, said the very young man. Just think
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: one might invest all one's money, leave it to accumulated interest,
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  Speaker 1: and hurry on ahead to discover a society, said I
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  Speaker 1: erected on a strictly communistic basis of all the wild,
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  Speaker 1: extravagant theories, began the psychologist. Yes, so it seemed to me,
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  Speaker 1: and so I never talked of it until experimental verification,
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: cried I you are going to verify that the experiment,
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: cried Philby, who was getting brain weary. Let us see
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  Speaker 1: your experiment, anyhow, said the psychologist. Though it's all humbug,
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  Speaker 1: you know. The time traveler smiled round at us, then,
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  Speaker 1: still smiling faintly, and with his hands deep in his
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  Speaker 1: trousers pockets. He walked slowly out of the room, and
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  Speaker 1: we heard his slipper shuffling down the long passage to
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: his laboratory. The psychologist looked at us. I wonder what
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: he's got. Some sleight of hand trick or other, said
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: the medical man, and Philby tried to tell us about
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: a conjurer he had seen at Burslem, But before he
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: had finished his preface, the time traveler came back, and
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: Philby's anecdote collapsed. The thing the time traveler held in
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  Speaker 1: his hand was a glittering metallic framework, scarcely larger than
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: a small clock, and very delicately made. There was ivory
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: in it, and some transparent crystalline substance. And now I
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: must be explicit for this that follows, unless his explanation
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: is to be accepted, is an absolutely unaccountable thing. He
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: took one of the small octagonal tables that were scattered
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  Speaker 1: about the room and set it in front of the fire,
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: with two legs on the hearth rug. On this table
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: he placed the mechanism. Then he drew up a chair
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  Speaker 1: and sat down. The only other object on the table
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: was a small shaded lamp. The bright light of which
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: fell upon the model. There were also perhaps a dozen candles,
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: about two in brass candlesticks upon the mantle, 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
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: this forward so as to be almost between the time
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: traveler and the fireplace. Philby sat behind him, looking over
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  Speaker 1: his shoulder. The medical man and the provincial mayor watched
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  Speaker 1: him in profile, from the right, the psychologist from the left.
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  Speaker 1: The very young man stood behind the psychologist. We were
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  Speaker 1: all on the alert. It appears incredible to me that
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  Speaker 1: any kind of trick, however subtly conceived and however adroitly done,
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: could have been played upon us under these conditions. The
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  Speaker 1: time traveler looked at us, and then at the mechanism. Well,
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: said the psychologist. This little affair, said the time traveler,
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: resting his elbows upon the table and pressing his hands
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  Speaker 1: together above. The apparatus is only a model. It is
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  Speaker 1: my plan for a machine to travel through time. You
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: will notice that it looks singularly askew, and that there
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: is an odd twinkling appearance about this bar, as though
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: it was in some way unreal. He pointed to the
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: part with his finger. Also, here is one little white lever,
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: and here is another. The medical man got up out
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  Speaker 1: of his chair and peered into the thing. It's beautifully made,
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: he said, it took two years to make, retorted the
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: time traveler. Then, when we had all imitated the action
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: of the medical man, he said, now I want you
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  Speaker 1: clearly to understand that this lever being pressed over sends
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: the machine gliding into the future, and this other reverses
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: the motion. This saddle represents the seat of a time traveler. Presently,
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  Speaker 1: I am going to press the lever, and off the
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: machine will go. It will vanish, pass into future time
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  Speaker 1: and disappear. Have a good look at the thing, look
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: at the table too, and satisfy yourselves there is no trickery.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: I don't want to waste this model and then be
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: I'm a quack. There was a minute's pause. Perhaps the
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: psychologist seemed about to speak to me, but changed his mind.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: Then the time traveler put forth his finger towards the lever. No,
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: he said, suddenly, lend me your hand, And turning to
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: the psychologist, he took that individual's hand in his own
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: and told him to put out his forefinger, so that
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: it was the psychologist himself who sent forth the model
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: time machine on its interminable voyage. We all saw the
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: lever turn. I am absolutely certain there was no trickery.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: There was a breath of wind, and the lamp flame jumped.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: One of the candles on the mantel was blown out,
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: and the little machine suddenly swung round, became indistinct, was
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: seen as a ghost for a second, perhaps as an
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: eddy of faintly glittering brass and ivory. And it was gone, vanished,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: save for the lamp. The table was bare. Everyone was
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: silent for a minute. Then Philby said he was damned.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: The psychologist recovered from his stupor and suddenly looked under
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: the table at that. The time traveler laughed cheerfully. Well,
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: he said, with a reminiscence of the psychologist. Then, getting up,
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: he went to the tobacco jar on the mantel, and,
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: with his back to us, began to fill his pipe.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: We stared at each other. Look here, said the medical man.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: Are you in earnest about this? Do you seriously believe
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: that that machine has traveled into time? Certainly, said the
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: time traveler, stooping to light a spill at the fire.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: Then he turned, lighting his pipe to look at the
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: psychologist's face. The psychologist, to show that he was not unhinged,
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: helped himself to a cigar and tried to light it uncut.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: What is more, I have a big machine nearly finished
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: in there, he indicated the laboratory, and when that is
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: put together, I mean to have a journey on my
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: own account. You mean to say that that machine has
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: traveled into the future, said Philby. Into the future or
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: the past. I don't for certain know which. After an interval,
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: the psychologist had an inspiration. It must have gone into
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: the past, if it has gone anywhere, He said, why,
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: said the time traveler, Because I presume that it has
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: not moved in space, and if it traveled into the future,
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: it would still be here all this time, since it
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: must have traveled through this time. But I said, if
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: it traveled into the past, it would have been visible
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: when we came first into this room, and last Thursday
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: when we were here, and the thursday before that, and
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: so forth. Serious objections, remarked the provincial mayor, with an
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: air of impartiality, turning towards the time traveler. Not a bit,
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: said the time traveler. And to the psychologist, you think
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: you can explain that its presentation below the threshold, you know,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: diluted presentation, of course, said the psychologist, and reassured us
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: that's a simple point of psychology. I should have thought
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: of it. It's plain enough and helps the paradox delightfully.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: We cannot see it, nor can we appreciate this machine
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: any more than we can. Thus spoke of a wheel
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: spinning or a bullet flying through the air. If it
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: is traveling through time fifty times or a hundred times
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: faster than we are. If it gets through a minute
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: while we get through a second, the impression it creates will,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: of course, be only one fiftieth or one hundredth of
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: what it would make if it were not traveling in time.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: That's plain enough. He passed his hand through the space
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: in which the machine had been. You see, he said, laughing.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: We sat and stared at the vacant table for a
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: minute or so. Then the time traveler asked us what
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: we thought of it all. It sounds plausible enough to night,
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: said the medical man. But wait until tomorrow, wait for
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: the common sense of the morning. Would you like to
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: see the time machine itself, asked the time traveler, and therewith,
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: taking the lamp in his hand, he led the way
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: down the long, drafty corridor to his laboratory. I remember
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: vividly the flickering light, his queer broad head in silhouette,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: the dance of the shadows. How we all followed him,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: puzzled but incredulous. And how there in the laboratory we
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: beheld a larger edition of the little mechanism which we
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: had seen vanish from before our eyes. Parts were of nickel,
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: parts of ivory. Parts had certainly been filed or sawn
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: out of rock crystal. The thing was generally complete, but
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: the twisted crystaline bars lay unfinished upon the bench beside
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: some sheets of drawings, and I took one up for
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: a better look at it. Quartz, it seemed to be.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: Look here, said the medical man. Are you perfectly serious?
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: Or is this a trick like that ghost you showed
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: us last Christmas? Upon that machine, said the time traveler,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: holding the lamp aloft. I intend to explore time. Is
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: that plain? I was never more serious in my life.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: None of us quite knew how to take it. I
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: caught Philbey's eye over the shoulder of the medical man,
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: and he winked at me solemnly. End of Chapter one