Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (39 page)
Read Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) Online
Authors: Travelers In Time
sons
of
men
----
!
I
tried
to
look
at
the
thing
in
a
scientific
spirit.
After
all,
they
were
less
human
and
more
remote
than
our
cannibal
ancestors
of
three
or
four
thousand
years
ago.
And
the
intelligence
that would
have
made
this
state
of
things
a
torment
had
gone.
Why
should
i
trouble
myself?
These
Eloi
were
mere
fatted
cattle,
which
the
antlike
Morlocks
preserved
and
preyed
upon—probably
saw
to
the
breeding
of.
And
there
was
Weena
dancing
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
fulness
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
building
which
my fancy
had
chosen
as
our
dwelling.
8
$6*
"I
found
the
Palace
of
Green
Porcelain,
when
we
approached
it about
noon,
deserted
and
falling
into
ruin.
Only
ragged
vestiges
of glass
remained
in
its
windows,
and
great
sheets
of
the
green
facing
had fallen
away
from
the
corroded
metallic
framework.
It
lay
very
high upon
a
turfy
down,
and
looking
north-eastward
before
I
entered
it,
I was
surprised
to
see
a
large
estuary,
or
even
creek,
where
I
judged Wandsworth
and
Battersea
must
once
have
been.
I
thought
then— though
I
never
followed
up
the
thought—of
what
might
have
happened,
or
might
be
happening,
to
the
living
things
in
the
sea.
