The Time Machine: Chapters 1–3

The Time Traveller (for so it will be convenient to speak of him) was expounding a recondite matter to us.

The fire burnt brightly, and the soft radiance of the incandescent lights in the lilies of silver caught the bubbles that flashed and passed in our glasses.

Our chairs, being his patents, embraced and caressed us rather than submitted to be sat upon, and there was that luxurious after-dinner atmosphere when thought roams gracefully free of the trammels of precision.

And he put it to us in this way—marking the points with a lean forefinger—as we sat and lazily admired his earnestness over this new paradox (as we thought it) and his fecundity.

I shall have to controvert one or two ideas that are almost universally accepted.

You know of course that a mathematical line, a line of thickness nil, has no real existence. They taught you that? Neither has a mathematical plane. These things are mere abstractions.

“Nor, having only length, breadth, and thickness, can a cube have a real existence.”

“Can a cube that does not last for any time at all, have a real existence?”
Filby became pensive.

...any real body must have extension in four directions: it must have Length, Breadth, Thickness, and—Duration. But through a natural infirmity of the flesh, which I will explain to you in a moment, we incline to overlook this fact.

There are really four dimensions, three which we call the three planes of Space, and a fourth, Time. There is, however, a tendency to draw an unreal distinction between the former three dimensions and the latter, because it happens that our consciousness moves intermittently in one direction along the latter from the beginning to the end of our lives.

“Now, it is very remarkable that this is so extensively overlooked,” continued the Time Traveller, with a slight accession of cheerfulness.

But some philosophical people have been asking why three dimensions particularly—why not another direction at right angles to the other three?—and have even tried to construct a Four-Dimensional geometry. Professor Simon Newcomb was expounding this to the New York Mathematical Society only a month or so ago.

"I think so," murmured the Provincial Mayor; and, knitting his brows, he lapsed into an introspective state, his lips moving as one who repeats mystic words.

"Yes, I think I see it now," he said after some time, brightening in a quite transitory manner.

“That shall travel indifferently in any direction of Space and Time, as the driver determines.”

“Don’t you think you would attract attention?” said the Medical Man. "Our ancestors had no great tolerance for anachronisms."

“Of all the wild extravagant theories!” began the Psychologist.

“Let’s see your experiment anyhow,” said the Psychologist, “though it’s all humbug, you know.”

The thing the Time Traveller held in his hand was a glittering metallic framework, scarcely larger than a small clock, and very delicately made.

And now I must be explicit, for this that follows—unless his explanation is to be accepted—is an absolutely unaccountable thing.

We were all on the alert. It appears incredible to me that any kind of trick, however subtly conceived and however adroitly done, could have been played upon us under these conditions.

“This little affair,” said the Time Traveller, resting his elbows upon the table and pressing his hands together above the apparatus, “is only a model. It is my plan for a machine to travel through time. You will notice that it looks singularly askew, and that there is an odd twinkling appearance about this bar, as though it was in some way unreal.”

So that it was the Psychologist himself who sent forth the model Time Machine on its interminable voyage.

One of the candles on the mantel was blown out, and the little machine suddenly swung round, became indistinct, was seen as a ghost for a second perhaps, as an eddy of faintly glittering brass and ivory; and it was gone—vanished!

“Look here,” said the Medical Man, “are you in earnest about this? Do you seriously believe that that machine has travelled into time?”

After an interval the Psychologist had an inspiration.

“Serious objections,” remarked the Provincial Mayor, with an air of impartiality, turning towards the Time Traveller.

“It sounds plausible enough tonight,” said the Medical Man; “but wait until tomorrow. Wait for the common sense of the morning.”

I remember vividly the flickering light, his queer, broad head in silhouette, the dance of the shadows, how we all followed him, puzzled but incredulous, and how there in the laboratory we beheld a larger edition of the little mechanism which we had seen vanish from before our eyes.

The fact is, the Time Traveller was one of those men who are too clever to be believed: you never felt that you saw all round him; you always suspected some subtle reserve, some ingenuity in ambush, behind his lucid frankness.

Had Filby shown the model and explained the matter in the Time Traveller’s words, we should have shown him far less scepticism.

The serious people who took him seriously never felt quite sure of his deportment; they were somehow aware that trusting their reputations for judgment with him was like furnishing a nursery with eggshell china.

There was some speculation at the dinner-table about the Time Traveller’s absence, and I suggested time travelling, in a half- jocular spirit.

His face was ghastly pale; his chin had a brown cut on it—a cut half-healed; his expression was haggard and drawn, as by intense suffering.

Then, “Remarkable Behaviour of an Eminent Scientist,” I heard the Editor say, thinking (after his wont) in headlines.

“What’s the game?” said the Journalist. “Has he been doing the Amateur Cadger? I don’t follow.”

Conversation was exclamatory for a little while with gaps of wonderment; and then the Editor got fervent in his curiosity.

And then, as the idea came home to him, he resorted to caricature. Hadn’t they any clothes-brushes in the Future? The Journalist too, would not believe at any price, and joined the Editor in the easy work of heaping ridicule on the whole thing.

They were both the new kind of journalist—very joyous, irreverent young men.

“I’d give a shilling a line for a verbatim note,” said the Editor.