Unit 8D, Literature Exercise 3, page 146.0:01
I told some of you last Thursday about the principles of the time machine and showed you the actual thing itself incomplete in the workshop.0:23
A little travel worn truly, and one of the ivory bars is cracked and a brass rail bent, but the rest of it is sound enough.0:33
I expected to finish it on Friday, but on Friday, when the putting together was nearly done, I found that one of the nickel bars was exactly one inch too short, and this I had to get remade so that0:44
it was not complete until this morning.0:58
It was at 10 o' clock today that the first time machine ever began its career.1:01
I gave it a last tap, tried all the screws again, put one more drop of oil on the quartz rod and sat myself in the saddle.1:07
I took the starting lever in one hand and the stopping one in the other.1:16
Press the first and almost immediately the second.1:21
Then a nightmare sensation of falling.1:27
But looking round, I saw the laboratory exactly as before.1:29
Had anything happened?1:34
For a moment I suspected that my intellect had tricked me.1:36
Then I noted the clock.1:40
A moment before, as it seemed it had been a minute or so past 10.1:43
Now it was nearly half past three.1:48
I drew a breath, set my teeth, gripped the starting lever with both hands and went off with a thud.1:51
The laboratory went hazy and then dark.1:59
Mrs. Watchett came in and walked, apparently without seeing me, towards the garden door.2:02
I suppose it took her a minute or so to cross the place, but to me she seemed to shoot across the room like a rocket.2:08
I pushed the lever to full power.2:16
The night came like the turning out of a lamp, and in another moment came tomorrow.2:18
The laboratory grew faint and hazy, then fainter and ever fainter.2:25
Night came black, then day again, night again, day again, still faster and faster.2:31
A whirling murmur filled my ears and a strange confusedness descended on my mind.2:38
I am afraid I cannot convey the peculiar sensations of time travelling.2:44
They are excessively unpleasant.2:50
There is a feeling exactly like that one has at on a switchback of a helpless headlong motion.2:53
I felt the same horrible anticipation, too, of an imminent smash as I increased speed.3:00
Night followed day like the flapping of a black wing.3:08
The dim outline of the laboratory seemed presently to fall away from me and I saw the sun hopping swiftly across the sky, leaping it every minute and every minute marking a day.3:12
I supposed the laboratory had been destroyed and I had come into the open air.3:25
I had a dim impression of scaffolding, but I was already going too fast.3:31
To be conscious of any moving things.3:36
The slowest snail that ever crawled dashed by too fast for me.3:39
The twinkling succession of darkness and light was excessively painful to the eye.3:44
Then, in the darkness, I saw the moon spinning swiftly through her quarters from new to full, and had a faint glimpse of the circling stars as I went on, still gaining speed.3:50
The appearance of night and day merged into one continuous greyness.4:03
The sky took on a wonderful deepness of blue, a splendid, luminous colour like that of early twilight.4:08
The sun became a streak of fire, a brilliant arch in space, the moon a fainter, changing band, and I could see nothing of the stars except a brighter circle flickering in the blue.4:15
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