The Time Machine - International World History Project

The Time Machinereflecting light, are common features of nocturnal things—witness the owl and the cat. And last of all, that evidentconfusion in the sunshine, that hasty yet fumblingawkward flight towards dark shadow, and that peculiarcarriage of the head while in the light—all reinforced thetheory of an extreme sensitiveness of the retina.‘Beneath my feet, then, the earth must be tunnelledenormously, and these tunnellings were the habitat of thenew race. The presence of ventilating shafts and wellsalong the hill slopes—everywhere, in fact except along theriver valley —showed how universal were itsramifications. What so natural, then, as to assume that itwas in this artificial Underworld that such work as wasnecessary to the comfort of the daylight race was done?The notion was so plausible that I at once accepted it, andwent on to assume the how of this splitting of the humanspecies. I dare say you will anticipate the shape of mytheory; though, for myself, I very soon felt that it fell farshort of the truth.‘At first, proceeding from the problems of our own age,it seemed clear as daylight to me that the gradual wideningof the present merely temporary and social differencebetween the Capitalist and the Labourer, was the key tothe whole position. No doubt it will seem grotesque77 of 148