'Still, however helpless the little people in the presence of their

mysterious Fear, I was differently constituted. I came out of this

age of ours, this ripe prime of the human race, when Fear does not

paralyse and mystery has lost its terrors. I at least would defend

myself. Without further delay I determined to make myself arms and a

fastness where I might sleep. With that refuge as a base, I could

face this strange world with some of that confidence I had lost in

realizing to what creatures night by night I lay exposed. I felt

I could never sleep again until my bed was secure from them. I

shuddered with horror to think how they must already have examined

me.

'I wandered during the afternoon along the valley of the Thames, but

found nothing that commended itself to my mind as inaccessible. All

the buildings and trees seemed easily practicable to such dexterous

climbers as the Morlocks, to judge by their wells, must be. Then the

tall pinnacles of the Palace of Green Porcelain and the polished

gleam of its walls came back to my memory; and in the evening,

taking Weena like a child upon my shoulder, I went up the hills

towards the south-west. The distance, I had reckoned, was seven or

eight miles, but it must have been nearer eighteen. I had first seen

the place on a moist afternoon when distances are deceptively

diminished. In addition, the heel of one of my shoes was loose, and

a nail was working through the sole--they were comfortable old shoes

I wore about indoors--so that I was lame. And it was already long

past sunset when I came in sight of the palace, silhouetted black

The Time Machine