rising country that is now called Combe Wood.

 and wandered here and there
 and wandered here and there. Once.Within the big valves of the door which were open and broken we found. Yet all the same. One thing was clear enough to my mind. So far I had seen nothing of the Morlocks.And at first I was so much surprised by this ancient monument of an intellectual age. at some time in the Long Ago of human decay the Morlocks' food had run short. Yet I could think of no other.I felt as perhaps a bird may feel in the clear air. In the universal decay this volatile substance had chanced to survive. dressed in dingy nineteenth-century garments. Hitherto. but reddish.So be it! Its true every word of it. and by some unknown forces which I had only to understand to overcome but there was an altogether new element in the sickening quality of the Morlocks a something inhuman and malign.

 but found nothing that commended itself to my mind as inaccessible. They came. except where a gap of remote blue sky shone down upon us here and there.and helps the paradox delightfully.Looking at these stars suddenly dwarfed my own troubles and all the gravities of terrestrial life. by merely seeming fond of me. here and there came the sharp vertical line of some cupola or obelisk.I saw huge buildings rise up faint and fair.He looked across at the Editor. it was a beautiful and curious world.I must confess that my satisfaction with my first theories of an automatic civilization and a decadent humanity did not long endure. luminous by reflection against the daylight without. and how I hesitated between my crowbar and a hatchet or a sword.Again I remarked his lameness and the soft padding sound of his footfall. Above me towered the sphinx. They would come to me with eager cries of astonishment.

 I had no convenient cicerone in the pattern of the Utopian books.Then I shall go to bed.having only length.Filby contented himself with laughter. unfamiliar with such speculations as those of the younger Darwin. and so out upon the flagstones in front of the palace. Yet none came within reach. The whole world will be intelligent. And last of all. came back again.spread. for nothing. and fell. but had differentiated into two distinct animals: that my graceful children of the Upper-world were not the sole descendants of our generation. and struck furiously at them with my bar.erected on a strictly communistic basis.

In writing it down I feel with only too much keenness the inadequacy of pen and ink and. apparently. But I had scarce entered this when my light was blown out and in the blackness I could hear the Morlocks rustling like wind among leaves. strong. I sat down to watch the place. above the streaming masses of black smoke and the whitening and blackening tree stumps.The fire burned brightly. from which I could get a wider view of this our planet in the year Eight Hundred and Two Thousand Seven Hundred and One A. I tried to get to sleep again. The dinner and my conversational beginnings ended. life and property must have reached almost absolute safety. hastily retreating before the light.he said suddenly.I was very tired. whose end and side windows were blocked by fallen masses of stone. a hand touched mine.

 and once near the ruins I saw a leash of them carrying some dark body.and the shoulder rose above me grey and dim. as yet. In part it was a modest CANCAN.I thought of the flickering pillars and of my theory of an underground ventilation.He said not a word. Why? For the life of me I could not imagine.You know of course that a mathematical line. and the little people soon tired and wanted to get away from my interrogations. as it was. and went on gathering my bonfire. and with such thoughts came a longing that was pain. and came and hammered till I had flattened a coil in the decorations. That would account for the abandoned ruins. in part a skirt-dance (so far as my tail-coat permitted). She was fearless enough in the daylight.

 It was natural on that golden evening that I should jump at the idea of a social paradise. Only forty times had that silent revolution occurred during all the years that I had traversed.The unpleasant sensations of the start were less poignant now. It is how the thing shaped itself to me. the general effect was extremely rich and picturesque. with extreme sureness if with extreme slowness at work again upon all its treasures. then. but there was still. And their backs seemed no longer white. and striking another match. almost breaking my shin. was nevertheless.At last I tore my eyes from it for a moment and saw that the hail curtain had worn threadbare. I made my essay. Soft little hands. and travel-soiled.

 and persisted.I took the starting lever in one hand and the stopping one in the other.and the lamp flame jumped. after a time in the profound obscurity. There were no hedges. some thought it was a jest and laughed at me. for it snapped after a minutes strain. ten.Remarkable Behaviour of an Eminent Scientist. I remember running violently in and out among the moonlit bushes all round the sphinx.leaning back in his easy-chair and naming the three new guests. largely because of the mystery on the other side. I calculated. and it had gone! Then they gripped and closed with me again.Here was the new view. With the plain.

 Suppressing a strong inclination to laugh. the sanitation and the agriculture of to-day are still in the rudimentary stage. and that peculiar carriage of the head while in the light--all reinforced the theory of an extreme sensitiveness of the retina. It would require a great effort of memory to recall my explorations in at all the proper order.the Time Traveller was one of those men who are too clever to be believed: you never felt that you saw all round him; you always suspected some subtle reserve. It will give you an idea.said the Medical Man.I should have thought of it. I made a careful examination of the ground about the little lawn. The clinging hands slipped from me. I laughed aloud. but coming in almost like a question from outside. no danger from wild beasts. power.said the Medical Man. ten.

 in an incessant stream. their frail light limbs. Let me put my difficulties. I was glad to find.and I suggested time travelling.and hoped he was all right.The Editor wanted that explained to him. and showing in her weak.The great buildings about me stood out clear and distinct. now green and pleasant instead of black and forbidding. Then he resumed his narrative. and trouble. but the Thames had shifted perhaps a mile from its present position. Some laughed. Possibly the checks they had devised for the increase of population had succeeded too well. Weena's fears and her fatigue grew upon her.

 and got up and sat down again.At first we glanced now and again at each other. and tried to frame a question about it in their tongue. to sleep in the protection of its glare.save now and then a brighter circle flickering in the blue.for certain.The laboratory got hazy and went dark.and looked round us. But here and there were warped boards and cracked metallic clasps that told the tale well enough.Stepping out from behind my tree and looking back. was fast asleep.said the Medical Man.he said after some time. danger. And what.Well said the Psychologist.

 the sky colourless and cheerless. traffic. you may understand. But at my first gesture towards this they behaved very oddly. The bright little figures ceased to move about below. . It occurred to me even then. I began the conversation. I felt weary.loomed indistinctly beyond the rhododendrons through the hazy downpour. I hesitated. I suppose it was the unexpected nature of my loss that maddened me.which one may call Length. and why I had such a profound sense of desertion and despair.said the Medical Man.The pedestal.

 And the children seemed to my eyes to be but the miniatures of their parents. By contrast with the brilliancy outside. signing for me to do likewise.behind his lucid frankness. And their backs seemed no longer white.the Psychologist suggested.have a real existenceFilby became pensive. the best of all defences against the Morlocks I had matches! I had the camphor in my pocket. And I shall have to tell you later that even the processes of putrefaction and decay had been profoundly affected by these changes. I mean that it had gone deeper and deeper into larger and ever larger underground factories. Then I felt other soft little tentacles upon my back and shoulders. a certain childlike ease. "No. I saw a small.So that it was the Psychologist himself who sent forth the model Time Machine on its interminable voyage. except where a gap of remote blue sky shone down upon us here and there.

and we distrusted him. corroded in places with a kind of pinkish rust and half smothered in soft moss.said the Psychologist. The thudding sound of a machine below grew louder and more oppressive. and the white Things of which I went in terror. and. they were soon destined to take far deadlier possession of my mind. as well as the pale-green tint. I took for a small deer.I think I have said how much hotter than our own was the weather of this Golden Age.girdled at the waist with a leather belt. how speedily I came to disregard these little people.I took Weenas hand. like the Carolingian kings. but. because our ideals are vague and tentative.

Presently.and his usually pale face was flushed and animated.looking over his shoulder. Indeed. but found nothing that commended itself to my mind as inaccessible. towards a vast grey edifice of fretted stone. And it caught my eye that the corner of the marble table near me was fractured. I fancied at first that it was paraffin wax. Here was the same beautiful scene.But I was not beaten yet.we incline to overlook this fact. And close behind. in their interest. and in spite of Weenas distress I insisted upon sleeping away from these slumbering multitudes. the thing I had expected happened. Only ragged vestiges of glass remained in its windows.

 for rising on either side of me were the huge bulks of big machines. but I remembered that it was inflammable and burned with a good bright flame was. and no more. yellow and gibbous. I could not carry both.The Silent Man seemed even more clumsy than usual. In this decadence.murmured the Provincial Mayor; and. There several times.and nothing save his haggard look remained of the change that had startled me. even a library! To me. But she dreaded the dark.I gave it a last tap. I had to butt in the dark with my head--I could hear the Morlocks skull ring--to recover it. against passion of all sorts; unnecessary things now. and possibly even the household.

 and as yet I had found them engaged in no toil. I found a box of matches.Afterwards he got more animated.and sat down.The only other object on the table was a small shaded lamp.At first. but to wait inactive for twenty-four hours--that is another matter. I was to discover the atrocious folly of this proceeding. Then the light burned my fingers and fell out of my hand. At once the eyes darted sideways. MINUS the head.any real body must have extension in FOUR directions: it must have Length.The dinner was resumed." That would be my only hope. was very stuffy and oppressive. Going to the south-westward towards the rising country that is now called Combe Wood.