The Time Machine - H.G. Wells Chapter 4

The Time Machine by H.G. Wells is a classic science fiction novel that follows an unnamed scientist, known as the Time Traveller, who invents a machine that allows him to travel through time. He journeys to the distant future, arriving in the year 802,701, where he encounters two distinct races: the gentle, childlike Eloi and the sinister, underground-dwelling Morlocks. As he explores this strange future, he realizes the dark implications of humanity’s evolution. The novel explores themes of class struggle, the passage of time, and the fate of civilization, making it one of the most influential works in science fiction history.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter four of The Time Machine by H. G. Wells.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Time Machine,
Chapter four. In another moment, we were standing face to
face I and this fragile thing out of futurity. He

(00:21):
came straight up to me and laughed into my eyes.
The absence from his bearing of any sign of fear
struck me at once. Then he turned to the two
others who were following him, and spoke to them in
a strange and very sweet and liquid tongue. There were
others coming, and presently a little group of perhaps eight
or ten of these exquisite creatures were about me. One

(00:44):
of them addressed me. It came into my head oddly
enough that my voice was too harsh and deep for them,
So I shook my head, and, pointing to my ears,
shook it again. He came a step forward, hesitated, and
then touched my hand. Then I felt other soft, little
tentacles upon my back and shoulders. They wanted to make

(01:06):
sure I was real. There was nothing in this at
all alarming. Indeed, there was something in these pretty little
people that inspired confidence, a graceful gentleness, a certain childlike ease.
And besides, they looked so frail that I could fancy
myself flinging the whole dozen of them about like nine pins.

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But I made a sudden motion to warn them when
I saw their little pig hands feeling the time machine happily. Then,
when it was not too late, I thought of a
danger I had hitherto forgotten, and reaching over the bars
of the machine, I unscrewed the little levers that would
set it in motion, and put these in my pocket.
Then I turned again to see what I could do

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in the way of communication, And then, looking more nearly
into their features, I saw some further peculiarities in their
Dresden China type of prettiness. Their hair, which was uniformly curly,
came to a sharp end at the neck and cheek.
There was not the faintest suggestion of it on the face,

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and their ears were singularly minute. Their mouths were small,
with bright red rather thin lips, and the little chins
ran to a point. The eyes were large and mild.
And this may seem egotism on my part, I fancied
even that there was a certain lack of the interest
I might have expected in them, as they made no

(02:31):
effort to communicate with me, but simply stood round me,
smiling and speaking in soft, cooing notes to each other.
I began the conversation. I pointed to the time machine
and to myself, Then, hesitating for a moment, how to
express time, I pointed to the sun at once. A
quaintly pretty little figure in checkered purple and white followed

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my gesture and then astonished me by imitating the sound
of thunder. For a moment, I staggered, Though the import
of his gesture was plain enough, the question had come
into my mind abruptly. Were these creatures fools? You may
hardly understand how it took me. You see, I had

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always anticipated that the people of the year eight hundred
and two thousand odd would be incredibly in front of
us in knowledge, art everything. Then one of them suddenly
asked me a question that showed him to be on
the intellectual level of one of our five year old children.
Asked me, in fact, if I had come from the
sun in a thunder storm. It let loose the judgment

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I had suspended upon their clothes, their frail, light limbs
and fragile features. A flow of disappointment rushed across my mind.
For a moment I felt that I had built the
time machine in vain. I nodded, pointed to the sun,
and gave them such a vivid rendering of a thunderclap
as startled them. They all withdrew apace or so and bowed.

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Then came one, laughing towards me, carrying a chain of
beautiful flowers, altogether new to me, and put it about
my neck. The idea was received with melodious applause, and
presently they were all running to and fro for flowers,
and laughingly flinging them upon me, until I was almost
smothered with blossom. You who have never seen the like

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can scarcely imagine what delicate and wonderful flowers countless years
of culture had created. Then someone suggested that their plaything
should be exhibited in the nearest building, and so I
was led past the sphinx of white marble, which it
seemed to watch me all the while with a smile
at my astonishment, towards a vast gray edifice of fretted stone.

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As I went with them, the memory of my confident
anticipations of a profoundly grave and intellectual posterity came with
irresistible merriment to my mind. The building had a huge
entry and was altogether of colossal dimensions. I was naturally
most occupied with the growing crowd of little people, and

(05:10):
with the big open portals that yawned before me, shadowy
and mysterious. My general impression of the world I saw
over their heads was a tangled waste of beautiful bushes
and flowers, a long, neglected and yet weedless garden. I
saw a number of tall spikes of strange white flowers,
measuring a foot perhaps across the spread of the waxen petals.

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They grew scattered, as if wild, among the variegated shrubs,
but as I say, I did not examine them closely.
At this time, the time machine was left deserted on
the turf among the rhododendrons. The arch of the doorway
was richly carved, but naturally I did not observe the
carving very narrowly, though I fancied. I saw suggestions of

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old Phoenician decorations as I passed through, and it struck
me that they were very badly broken and weather worn.
Several more brightly clad people met me in the doorway,
and so we entered I dressed in dingy nineteenth century garments,
looking grotesque enough, garlanded with flowers, and surrounded by an

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eddying mass of bright, soft colored robes and shining white limbs.
In a melodious whirl of laughter and laughing speech, the
big doorway opened into a proportionately great hall, hung with brown.
The roof was in shadow, and the windows, partially glazed
with colored glass and partially unglazed, admitted a tempered light.

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The floor was made up of huge blocks of some
very hard white metal, not plates nor slabs, blocks, and
it was so much worn, as I judged by the
going to and fro of past generations, as to be
deeply channeled. Along the more frequented ways. Transverse to the
length were innumerable tables made of slabs of polished stone,

(07:04):
raised perhaps a foot from the floor, And upon these
were heaps of fruits saw I recognized as a kind
of hypertrophied raspberry and orange, but for the most part
they were strange. Between the tables was scattered a great
number of cushions. Upon these my conductors seated themselves, signing

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for me to do likewise. With a pretty absence of ceremony,
they began to eat the fruit with their hands, flinging
peel and stalks, and so forth into the round openings
in the sides of the tables. I was not loath
to follow their example, for I felt thirsty and hungry.
As I did so, I surveyed the hall at my leisure,

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and perhaps the thing that struck me most was its
dilapidated look. The stained glass windows, which displayed only a
geometrical pattern, were broken in many places, and the curtains
that hung across the lower end were thick with dust.
And it caught my eye that the corner of the
marble table near me was fractured. Nevertheless, the general effect

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was extremely rich and picturesque. There were perhaps a couple
of hundred people dining in the hall, and most of them,
seated as near to me as they could come, were
watching me with interest, their little eyes shining over the
fruit they were eating. All were clad in the same
soft and yet strong, silky material. Fruit, by the bye

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was all their diet. These people of the remote future
were strict vegetarians, and while I was with them, in
spite of some carnal cravings, I had to be frugivous. Also. Indeed,
I found afterwards that horses, cattle, sheep dogs had followed
the ichtheosaurus into extinction. But the fruits were very delightful.

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One in particular, had seemed to be in season all
the time I was there. A flowery thing in a
three sided husk was especially good, and I made it
my staple. At first I was puzzled by all these
strange fruits and by the strange flowers I saw, But
later I began to perceive their import However, I am

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telling you of my fruit dinner in the distant future. Now,
so soon as my appetite was a little checked, I
determined to make a resolute attempt to learn the speech
of these new men of mine. Clearly, that was the
next thing to do. The fruits seemed a convenient thing
to begin upon, and holding one of these up, I

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began a series of interrogative sounds and gestures. I had
some considerable difficulty in conveying my meaning. At first my
efforts met with a stare of surprise or inextinguishable laughter.
But presently a fair haired little creature seemed to grasp
my intention and repeated a name. They had to chatter

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and explain the business at great leng length to each other,
and my first attempts to make the exquisite little sounds
of their language caused an immense amount of amusement. However,
I felt like a schoolmaster amidst children, and persisted, and
presently I had a score of noun substantives at least
at my command, and then I got to demonstrate pronouns

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and even the verb to eat. But it was slow work,
and the little people soon tired and wanted to get
away from my interrogations. So I determined, rather of necessity,
to let them give their lessons in little doses when
they felt inclined, and very little doses I found they
were before long, for I never met people more indolent

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or more easily fatigued. A queer thing I soon discovered
about my little hosts, and that was their lack of interest.
They would come to me with eager cries of astonishment,
like children, but like children, they would soon stop examining
me and wander away after some other toy. The dinner

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and my conversation beginnings ended, I noted for the first
time that almost all those who had surrounded me at
first were gone. It is odd, too, how speedily I
came to disregard these little people. I went out through
the portal into the sunlit world again as soon as
my hunger was satisfied. I was continually meeting more of

(11:24):
these men of the future, who would follow me at
a little distance, chatter and laugh about me, and, having
smiled and gesticulated in a friendly way, leave me again
to my own devices. The calm of evening was upon
the world as I emerged from the Great Hall, and
the scene was lit by the warm glow of the
setting sun. At first things were very confusing. Everything was

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so entirely different from the world I had known, even
the flowers. The big building I had left was situated
on the slope of a broad river valley, but the
Thames had shifted perhaps a mile from its present position.
I resolved to mount to the summit of a crest
perhaps a mile and a half away, from which I
could get a wider view of this our planet in

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the year eight hundred and two thousand, seven hundred and
one A d for that I should explain was the
date the little dials of my machine recorded. As I walked,
I was watched for every impression that could possibly help
to explain the condition of ruinous splendor in which I
found the world for ruinous. It was a little way

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up the hill, for instance, was a great heap of
granite bound together by masses of aluminium, a vast labyrinth
of precipitous walls and crumpled heaps. Amidst which were thick
heaps of very beautiful pagoda like plants, nettles, possibly but
wonderfully tinted with brown about the leaves, and incapable of stinging.

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It was evidently that derelict remains of some vast structure.
To what end built I could not determine. It was
here that I was destined, at a later date to
have a very strange experience, the first intimation of a
still stranger discovery. But of that I will speak in
its proper place. Looking round with a sudden thought from

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a terrace on which I rested for a while, I
realized that there were no small houses to be seen.
Apparently the single house, and possibly even the household, had vanished.
Here and there among the greenery were palace like buildings,
but the house and the cottage, which formed such characteristic
features of our own English landscape, had disappeared. Communism, said

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I to myself, and on the heels of that came
another thought. I looked at the half dozen little figures
that were following me. Then in a flash, I perceived
that all had the same form of costume, the same soft,
hairless visage, and the same girlish rotundity of limb. It

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may seem strange, perhaps that I had not noticed this before,
But everything was so strange now I saw the fact
plainly enough. In costume, and in all the differences of
texture and bearing that now mark off the sexes from
each other. These people of the future were alike, and

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the children seemed to my eyes to be but the
miniatures of their parents. I judged then that the children
of that time were extremely precocious physically at least, and
I found afterwards abundant verification of my opinion. Seeing the
ease and security in which these people were living, I
felt that this close resemblance of the sexes was, after all,

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what one would expect for the strength of a man
and the softness of a woman. The institution of the
family and the differentiation of occupations are mere littletant necessities
of an age of physical force, where population is balanced
and abundant. Much child bearing becomes an evil rather than
a blessing. To the state where violence comes but rarely,

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and offspring are secure, there is less necessity. Indeed, there
is no necessity for an efficient family, and the specialization
of the sexes with reference to their children's needs disappears.
We see some beginnings of this even in our own time,
and in this future age it was complete. This, I

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must remind you, was my speculation at the time. Later
I was to appreciate how far it fell short of
the reality. While I was musing upon these things, my
attention was attracted by a pretty little structure, like a
well under a cupula. I thought, in a transitory way
of the oddness of well still existing, and then resumed

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the thread of my speculations. There were no large buildings
towards the top of the hill, and as my walking
powers were evidently miraculous, I was presently left alone for
the first time. With a strange sense of freedom and adventure,
I pushed on up to the crest. There I found
a seat of some yellow metal that I did not recognize,

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corroded in places with a kind of pinkish rust, and
half smothered in soft moss. The armrests cast and filed
into the resemblance of Griffin's heads. I sat down on it,
and I surveyed the broad view of our old world
under the sunset of that long day. It was as
sweet and fair a view as I have ever seen.

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The sun had already gone below the horizon, and the
west was flaming gold, touched with some horizontal bars of
purple and crimson. Below was the valley of the Thames,
in which the river lay like a band of burnished steel.
I have already spoken of the great palaces dotted about
among the variegated greenery, some in ruins and some still occupied.

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Here and there rose a white or silvery figure in
the waste garden of the earth. Here and there came
the sharp vertical line of some cupula or obelisk. There
were no hedges, no signs of proprietary rites, no evidences
of agriculture. The whole earth had become a garden. So watching,

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I began to put my interpretation upon the things I
had seen, And as it shaped itself to me that
evening my interpretation was something. In this way, Afterwards I
found I had got only a half truth, or only
a glimpse of one facet of the truth. It seemed
to me that I had happened upon humanity upon the wane.

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The ruddy sunset set me thinking of the sunset of
mankind for the first time, I began to realize an
odd conscertquence of the social effort in which we are
at present engaged, and yet come to think it is
a logical consequence. Enough strength is the outcome of need.

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Security sets a premium on feebleness. The work of ameliorating
the conditions of life, the true civilizing process that makes
life more and more secure, had gone steadily on to
a climax. One triumph of a united humanity over nature
had followed another. Things that are now mere dreams had

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become projects, deliberately put in hand and carried forward. And
the harvest was what I saw. After all, the sanitation
and the agriculture of today are still in the rudimentary stage.
The science of our time has attacked but a little
department of the field of human disease. But even so

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it spreads its operations very steadily and persistently. Our agriculture
and horticulture disc ltroya weed just here and there, and
cultivate perhaps a score or so of wholesome plants, leaving
the greater number to fight out a balance as they can.
We improve our favorite plants and animals, and how few

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they are, gradually by selective breeding. Now a new and
better peach, now a seedless grape, now a sweeter and
larger flower, Now a more convenient breed of cattle. We
improve them gradually because our ideals are vague and tentative,
and our knowledge is very limited, because nature, too is

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shy and slow in our clumsy hands. Someday all this
will be better organized, and still better, that is the
drift of the current. In spite of the eddies, the
whole world will be intelligent, educated, and cooperating. Things will
move faster and faster towards the subjugation of nature. In

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the end, wisely and carefully we shall readjust the balance
of animal and vegetable to suit our human needs. This adjustment,
I say, must have been done, and done well done. Indeed,
for all time, in the space of time across which
my machine had leaped, the air was free from gnats,

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the earth from weeds or fungi. Everywhere were fruits and
sweet and delightful flowers, brilliant butterflies flew hither and thither.
The ideal of preventive medicine was attained. Diseases had been
stamped out. I saw no evidence of any contagious diseases
during all my stay, and I shall have to tell

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you later that even the processes of putrification and decay
had been profoundly affected by these changes. Social triumphs too
had been affected. I saw mankind housed in splendid shelters,
gloriously clothed, and as yet I had found them engaged
in no toil. There were no science of struggle, neither

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social nor economical struggle. The shop, the advertisement traffic, all
that commerce which constitutes the body of our world was gone.
It was natural, on that golden evening that I should
jump at the idea of a social paradise. The difficulty
of increasing population had been met, I guessed, and population

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had ceased to increase. But with this change and condition
comes inevitably adaptations to the change. What, unless biological science
is a mass of errors, is the cause of human
intelligence and vigor, hardship, and freedom. Conditions under which the active,
strong and subtle survive and the weaker go to the wall.

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Conditions that put a premium upon the loyal alliance of
capable men, upon self restraint, patience and decision, and the
institution of the family, and the emotions that are rise
therein the fierce jealousy, the tenderness for offspring, parental self devotion,
all found their justification and support in the imminent dangers

(22:10):
of the young. Now where are these imminent dangers? There
is a sentiment arising, and it will grow against connubial jealousy,
against fierce maternity, against passion of all sorts, unnecessary things
now and things that make us uncomfortable, savage survivals, discords

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in a refined and pleasant life. I thought of the
physical slightness of the people, their lack of intelligence, and
those big abundant ruins, and it strengthened my belief in
a perfect conquest of nature. For after the battle comes quiet.
Humanity had been strong, energetic, and intelligent, and had used

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all its abundant vitality to alter the conditions under which
it lived. And now came the reaction of the altered conditions,
under the new conditions of perfect comfort and security. That
restless energy that with us is strength, would become weakness.
Even in our own time, certain tendencies and desires, once

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necessary to survival, are a constant source of failure. Physical
courage and the love of battle, for instance, are no
great help, may even be hindrances to a civilized man,
and in a state of physical balance and security, power
intellectual as well as physical, would be out of place.

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For countless years, I judge, there had been no danger
of war or solitary violence, no danger from wild beasts,
no wasting disease to require strength of constitution, no need
of toil for such a life. What we should call
the weak are as well equipped as the strong are,
indeed no longer week better equipped indeed they are, for

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the strong would be fretted by an energy for which
there was no outlet. No doubt, the exquisite beauty of
the buildings I saw was the outcome of the last
surgings of the now purposeless energy of mankind, before it
settled down into perfect harmony with the conditions under which
it lived, the flourish of that triumph which began the

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last great peace. This has ever been the fate of
energy in security. It takes to art and to eroticism,
and then come languor and decay, even this artistic impetus
would at last die away. Had almost died in the
time I saw to adorn themselves with flowers, to dance,

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to sing in the sunlight. So much was left of
the artistic spirit, and no more even that would fade
in the end into a contented inactivity. We are kept
keen on the grindstone of pain and necessity. And it
seemed to me that here was that hateful grindstone broken

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at last. As I stood there in the gathering dark,
I thought that in this simple explanation I had mastered
the problem of the world, mastered the whole secret of
these delicious people. Possibly the checks they had devised for
the increase of population had succeeded too well, and their

(25:26):
numbers had rather diminished than kept stationary. That would account
for the abandoned ruins. Very simple was my explanation, and
plausible enough, as most wrong theories are. End of Chapter
four