The Time Machine

I.
Introduction

The Time Traveller (for so it will be convenient to speak of him) wasexpounding a recondite matter to us. His pale grey eyes shone and twinkled, andhis usually pale face was flushed and animated. The fire burnt brightly,and the soft radiance of the incandescent lights in the lilies of silvercaught the bubbles that flashed and passed in our glasses. Our chairs,being his patents, embraced and caressed us rather than submitted to be satupon, and there was that luxurious after-dinner atmosphere, when thoughtruns gracefully free of the trammels of precision. And he put it to us inthis way—marking the points with a lean forefinger—as we satand lazily admired his earnestness over this new paradox (as we thought it)and his fecundity.

“You must follow me carefully. I shall have to controvert one ortwo ideas that are almost universally accepted. The geometry, for instance,they taught you at school is founded on a misconception.”

“Is not that rather a large thing to expect us to beginupon?” said Filby, an argumentative person with red hair.

“I do not mean to ask you to accept anything without reasonableground for it. You will soon admit as much as I need from you. You know ofcourse that a mathematical line, a line of thickness nil, has noreal existence. They taught you that? Neither has a mathematical plane.These things are mere abstractions.”

“That is all right,” said the Psychologist.

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

“There I object,” said Filby. “Of course a solid bodymay exist. All real things—”

“So most people think. But wait a moment. Can aninstantaneous...