at my side!

'Then I tried to preserve myself from the horror that was coming

upon me, by regarding it as a rigorous punishment of human

selfishness. Man had been content to live in ease and delight upon

the labours of his fellow-man, had taken Necessity as his watchword

and excuse, and in the fullness of time Necessity had come home to

him. I even tried a Carlyle-like scorn of this wretched aristocracy

in decay. But this attitude of mind was impossible. However great

their intellectual degradation, the Eloi had kept too much of the

human form not to claim my sympathy, and to make me perforce a

sharer in their degradation and their Fear.

'I had at that time very vague ideas as to the course I should

pursue. My first was to secure some safe place of refuge, and to

make myself such arms of metal or stone as I could contrive. That

necessity was immediate. In the next place, I hoped to procure some

means of fire, so that I should have the weapon of a torch at hand,

for nothing, I knew, would be more efficient against these Morlocks.

Then I wanted to arrange some contrivance to break open the doors of

bronze under the White Sphinx. I had in mind a battering ram. I had

a persuasion that if I could enter those doors and carry a blaze of

light before me I should discover the Time Machine and escape. I

could not imagine the Morlocks were strong enough to move it far

away. Weena I had resolved to bring with me to our own time. And

turning such schemes over in my mind I pursued our way towards the

The Time Machine