Project Gutenberg #35
The Time Machine
H. G. Wells
1895Wells's foundational time-travel novella, prepared section by section from Project Gutenberg plaintext.
Project Gutenberg #35 Public domain in the United States Cover source Local typographic cover created for MojiMori from public-domain source metadata
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AI Summary
Chapter 8 — VIII. Explanation Central question What are the Eloi and Morlocks really? Main argument The Traveller theorizes that the surface-dwelling Eloi are descendants of the leisure classes and the underground...
of the Morlocks—that, by the bye, was the name by which these
creatures were called—I could imagine that the modification of the
human type was even far more profound than among the ‘Eloi,’ the
beautiful race that I already knew.
“Then came troublesome doubts. Why had the Morlocks taken my Time
Machine? For I felt sure it was they who had taken it. Why, too, if the
Eloi were masters, could they not restore the machine to me? And why
were they so terribly afraid of the dark? I proceeded, as I have said,
to question Weena about this Underworld, but here again I was
disappointed. At first she would not understand my questions, and
presently she refused to answer them. She shivered as though the topic
was unendurable. And when I pressed her, perhaps a little harshly, she
burst into tears. They were the only tears, except my own, I ever saw
in that Golden Age. When I saw them I ceased abruptly to trouble about
the Morlocks, and was only concerned in banishing these signs of her
human inheritance from Weena’s eyes. And very soon she was smiling and
clapping her hands, while I solemnly burnt a match.