by H. G. Wells
5 (p. 38) the poor mite: The phrase means “poor little thing.” Weena is not a person for the Time Traveller but a kind of pet. Her name may be a decayed form of Rowena, a mythological figure in English history. Rowena is alluring, while Weena is not. Two paragraphs down, the Time Traveller says he hasn’t come into the future to engage in “a miniature flirtation.”
6 (p. 41 ) Grant Allen’s: A member of the Fabian Society, Grant Allen was the author of Strange Stories (1884).
7 (p. 41) the younger Darwin: George Howard Darwin (1845—1912), son of Charles Darwin, speculated that the orbit of the earth around the sun would eventually decay—the earth would fall back into the sun. The Time Traveller finds the weather hot and wonders if the sun is hotter or if the earth is closer to the sun. The theory that the sun will someday die is brought to narrative life toward the end of the novel (chapter XI) when the Time Traveller visits the last age of planetary life.
8 (p. 42) little ape-like figure: The Time Traveller sees a Morlock. Their similarities to the Yahoos in Gulliver’s Travels reflects Wells’s admiration for Swift. The Time Traveller is disgusted at the sight of them, much preferring the Eloi, harmless, pretty, but inferior human types. If the Eloi are degenerate aristocrats, the Morlocks are degenerate factory workers.
9 (p. 43) the economic problem: The Time Traveller until now had been unable to see how the Eloi were fed and clothed. In the pages that follow, he links the Morlocks to the poor workers of his own day; gradually the workers have adapted to underground life. But the Time Traveller still thinks the Eloi are the masters and the Morlocks their slaves, not realizing the Eloi are nothing more than food for the Morlocks.
10 (p. 45) Morlocks: The Time Traveller uses the term for the first time, though it is not clear what its source is. In Wells’s socialism, the situation of the Morlocks is the result of labor unions, which eventually work in their own interest and not, as he would prefer, in the interest of the technological conquest of nature.
Chapter VI
1 (p. 47) If only I had had a companion: Weena is clearly no companion for the Time Traveller.
2 (p. 49) the language they had: The Morlocks and Eloi are so estranged as vestiges of ancient social classes that they cannot communicate ; they have no common language.
Chapter VII
1 (p. 54) The Time Traveller paused ... large white mallows, upon the little table: While the Time Traveller allows no interruptions, he does interrupt himself. Here the narrator, Hillyer, interjects a comment: He describes the withered flowers, “not unlike large white mallows,” the Time Traveller finds in his pockets. These flowers, which Weena stuffed into his jacket pockets, are the only evidence of his journey.
2 (p. 54) a Faun . . . minus the head: The faun, or satyr, is a mythological creature, human but with goat-like legs; it is often associated with pastoral literature. The world of the Eloi is pastoral, but they are the sheep the Morlocks slaughter. The faun is headless because no shepherd watches over the Eloi.
3 (p. 56) I pitied this last feeble rill from the great flood of humanity: The Time Traveller is sorry for the Eloi, the final little brook (rill) of the flood that was humanity. He is certain now that the Morlocks eat the Eloi.
4 (p. 57) Carlyle-like scorn of this wretched aristocracy in decay. Taking a cue from Thomas Carlyle (Sartor Resartus, 1833-1834), who considered aristocrats superfluous, the Time Traveller had scorned the Eloi as a useless class, but he still feels pity for them because they, unlike the Morlocks, look human. He sympathizes with their situation—they suffer “intellectual degradation” (stupidity), and they fear the dark. At the same time, he realizes the Morlocks are useful because they work.
Chapter VIII
1 (p. 58) Wandsworth and Battersea: The reference is to districts, formerly independent boroughs, on the south bank of the Thames, part of modern London. The Time Traveller has never left London, though now the city is on an estuary, an arm of the sea, or a creek, a small inlet or bay, rather than a river. He wonders about the evolution of sea animals but can make no observations.
2 (p. 58) more human than she was: The Time Traveller concludes that Weena is not human, that she is merely an animal capable of affection.
3 (p. 58) after the fashion of the Megatherium.... huge skeleton barrel of a Brontosaurus: These two extinct creatures—the former a giant ground sloth of the Oligocene epoch, the latter a giant, herbivorous dinosaur of the Jurassic period—represent evolutionary dead ends for Wells. They were doomed, as are the Eloi and the Morlocks, because they lacked intelligence.
4 (p. 60) footnote: The presence of a comment by an “editor” supports the notion that Hillyer published the Time Traveller’s account.
Chapter IX
1 (p. 69) horrible death of little Weena: The Time Traveller mourns the loss of Weena as if she were a favorite pet. He is consoled by the fact that the Morlocks did not get to eat her. Wells humanizes the Time Traveller, making him long for his friends and house, but this emotion fades.
Chapter X
1 (p. 70) Like the cattle... their end was the same: The Time Traveller half-quotes verses from the Bible, the Book of Psalms, where God says it is He who provides grass for animals and His Word for humans. His meaning appears below, where he says mankind labored to provide itself with “comfort and ease,” that its “watchword” or slogan was “security and permanency.” Absolute balance in society ended in the Eloi and the Morlocks. For Wells, this society at peace with itself creates no challenges to the intellect, no changes to deal with.
Chapter XI
1 (p. 74) the work of the tidal drag was done: Wells falls back on G. H. Darwin’s theory (see chapter V, note 7) that the earth will eventually stop rotating. The sun, grown old, barely warms the one side of the earth facing it.
Chapter XII
1 (p. 81) 1 seemed to see a ghostly, indistinct figure ... for a moment. Wells reverses the perspective. Now instead of the Time Traveller seeing Hillyer, it is Hillyer who sees the Time Traveller departing on his second voyage.
Epilogue
1 (p. 82) he swept back into the past: In this paragraph, Hillyer lists a number of remote periods from the past, imagining prehistoric humans as “blood-drinking, hairy savages” not unlike the Morlocks, wondering if the Time Traveller has gone as far back into the past as he went into the future.
2 (p. 83) gratitude and a mutual tenderness: Hillyer seems to romanticize the Time Traveller’s relationship with Weena, elevating it into love.
a
Difficult, obscure.
b
The incandescent lights are not electric but gas; there is no electricity in the Time Traveller’s house. The lilies of silver are a lily pattern in the silverware.
c
Fertility of mind.
d
Outburst.
e
Things or people chronologically out of place.
f
Cheap magic trick of the sort practiced by conjurers, or entertainer-magicians.
g
The model will travel time forever.
h
Upset.
i
Drafty; there is no central heat in the Time Traveller’s house.
j
Capriciousness or eccentricity.
k
Delicate china.
l
German university town.
m
One swallow.
n
Put on evening dress, a tuxedo, for dinner.
o
The Journalist says the Time Traveller has made himself up to look like a vagrant asking for handouts.
p
A crossing is a contrivance thieves use to make their victims stop or detour. In the Bible, the Book of Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar was a king God punished by making him walk on all fours and eat grass.
q
Facetious remark.
r
A racehorse, winner of the 1894 Derby.
s
Protein.<
br />
t
The Editor will pay a shilling (one twentieth of a pound or 12 pence) for a firsthand account—a goodly sum.
u
To summon the servants.
v
Bicycle seat.
w
Roller coaster.
x
The two times (June 22 and December 22) when the ecliptic, the apparent path of the earth’s orbit as seen from the sun, is farthest from the celestial equator.
y
A luminous substance.
z
Helter-skelter.
aa
Green, rust-like film that forms on bronze.
ab
Recklessness.
ac
Walkways.
ad
Boots or sandals that lace up to the knee.
ae
Suffering with tuberculosis; flushed red with fever.
af
The Eloi’s hands seem boneless, like the tentacles of an octopus.
ag
Pins used in a bowling game.
ah
Decorated Decorated with interlaced patterns.
ai
Ancient trading people of the Mediterranean who invented the alphabet; they would seem superior to the Eloi.
aj
Excessively large.
ak
Fruit-eating.
al
Ancient reptile that lived in the sea.
am
The names of things.
an
The Time Traveller’s machine says the year is 802,701 A.D.
ao
Face.
ap
Mythical animals, half eagle, half lion.
aq
Improving, bettering.
ar
Vexed, annoyed.
as
More than a half moon, but not completely full.
at
A Morlock, the subterranean creatures who share the planet with the Eloi; there are no wild animals in the future.
au
Impassive, expressionless.
av
Western, or European; he associates contemplation with the East, or the Orient.
aw
Obsession.
ax
Sewage pipes, telegraph keys, and trains.
ay
Money orders.
az
Shelter.
ba
A sea-anemone is a sea creature that resembles a flower; it has a cylindrical body at the top of which is a central mouth surrounded by tentacles (palps).
bb
Three.
bc
Ventilation chimneys with heat waves shimmering above them.
bd
Primitive primate found only on Madagascar.
be
Nevertheless.
bf
Blind, albino carp in Mammoth Cave.
bg
The owners of industry inhabit the surface; the industrial workers live underground.
bh
The London subway.
bi
London slum-dweller.
bj
Unpaid rent.
bk
Feeble, sickly paleness.
bl
The Time Traveller feels closer to the Eloi because they are more human.
bm
Indirect, roundabout route.
bn
Wall.
bo
Fishes that live at great depths or fishes living in caves.
bp
Foul odor.
bq
Wooden matches that can be struck on any hard surface.
br
Unconscious.
bs
Those who ran their machines.
bt
The merely decorative kings who followed Charlemagne in France during the Dark Ages (the ninth and tenth centuries).
bu
By consent of the Morlocks.
bv
Easily climbed.
bw
Spire.
bx
Growing dark.
by
Plants with white or yellow flowers in clusters.
bz
Tree trunks.
ca
The Dog Star, the brightest star in the sky.
cb
According to Isaac Newton, every 25,000 years, as the earth turns on its polar axis, the axis itself rotates.
cc
Grassy, raised flatland.
cd
Mere.
ce
Sections of the double door.
cf
Splayed out.
cg
Home of London’s Museum of Natural History.
ch
Compared to the dull present in which he finds himself.
ci
Sulphur, saltpeter, and nitrates are chemicals necessary for making gunpowder.
cj
Dissolved or melted.
ck
Clear evolutionary changes.
cl
It may be, of course, that the floor did not slope, but that the museum was built into the side of a hill.—Ed.4
cm
Garden outside a basement window.
cn
Signal tower.
co
Warped bindings.
cp
Journal of the Royal Society, founded in 1660; until the nineteenth century, scientists were “natural philosophers.”
cq
Scottish song title that translates as The Land of the Dead. The Time Traveller may think of the future as a land of the dead or may simply be elated—if the land of the dead is paradise—that he has found some matches. His dancing combines popular and folk styles.
cr
Camphor is a flammable substance, derived from the camphor tree, that is often used in liniments. Paraffin is a waxy substance that is also flammable.
cs
Cuttlefish.
ct
The Time Traveller cannot resist the temptation to deface a steatite (soapstone) deity, probably as a way of mocking religion.
cu
Soft coal.
cv
The iron bar becomes a medieval club.
cw
Wave.
cx
Recognize.
cy
Garnets; dark-red semiprecious stones.
cz
Drowsy.
da
Small hill or mound used as a burial site.
db
Domes.
dc
Ghostly pale.
dd
Protuberances, studs.
de
Segmented mouth area of an arthropod.
df
Without a ray of light.
dg
Sandbar.
dh
Soccer ball.
di
The narrator; the Time Traveller sees him on his way back, but what he is actually seeing is the moment when he departs on his second journey.
dj
London newspaper to which Wells contributed articles.
dk
The pistils or female parts.
dl
Make that appointment.
dm
Random.
dn
Rolling elevated flatland, usually with no trees and poor soil.
do
Public living room adjacent to the bar.
dp
Obsolete gold coins each worth £1.
dq
Sluggish.
dr
Brilliance (French); used ironically here.
ds
Side panels.
dt
Low panel in front of the fire to keep coals from popping out onto the floor or rug.
du
Napkin.
dv
Shade.
dw
Frame for hanging clothing.
dx
/>
Potatoes.
dy
One-horse carriage.
dz
Taking care of him.
ea
Light meal served in the late afternoon.
eb
Clock repairman.
ec
Red stop lights.
ed
Laboratory scientist.
ee
Experiments.
ef
Deceiving, shamming.
eg
Surely, certainly.
eh
Drinking.
ei
Strange character.
ej
Scolded.
ek
Women.
el
Connoisseur who enjoys the arts (Italian); Griffin is a rare item.
em
Nonsense.
en
Why did he bite him?
eo
Sealed by searing with a hot iron.
ep
Plugs.
eq
Tall chest of drawers.
er
Pharmacist’s.
es
Coin worth one-twentieth of a pound.
et
Nails used in making rough workingmen’s boots.
eu
Crackling noise.
ev
Flesh color.
ew
Spotted with different colors.
ex
Solution.
ey
Artists.
ez
Ironic; people are religious on Sunday but neglect religion on workdays.
fa
Bogeymen, monsters.
fb
One who earns his living using his mind rather than working with his hands.
fc
Mysterious appearance.
fd
Still up after bedtime.
fe
Fearfully.
ff
Fossil.
fg
Donation.
fh
Formula.
fi
Artificial arm.
fj
Blinders that keep horses from seeing things at their side; the reference is to Griffin’s wrap-around glasses.
fk
Day after Whitsunday (see chapter IV, endnote 7).
fl
Two pounds plus ten shillings, all coins.
fm
Metal container for carrying coal.
fn
Room for washing dishes and kitchen utensils.
fo
Oddly, comically clothed.
fp
Melting away.
fq
Awakened, aroused.
fr
Have you got what I want?
fs
‘Tas means “ ’tis,” uz means “his,” and ‘e ent is “he ain’t.”
ft
Business.
fu
Alcoholic beverages.
fv
I’m damned if that isn’t witchcraft.
fw
Used not only as good luck charms, but to ward off spirits.