uld starve or be suffocated for arrears. Such of them as were
so constituted as to be miserable and rebellious would die; and, in
the end, the balance being permanent, the survivors would become as
well adapted to the conditions of underground life, and as happy in
their way, as the Upper-world people were to theirs. As it seemed to
me, the refined beauty and the etiolated pallor followed naturally
enough.

'The great triumph of Humanity I had dreamed of took a different
shape in my mind. It had been no such triumph of moral education and
general co-operation as I had imagined. Instead, I saw a real
aristocracy, armed with a perfected science and working to a logical
conclusion the industrial system of to-day. Its triumph had not been
simply a triumph over Nature, but a triumph over Nature and the
fellow-man. This, I must warn you, was my theory at the time. I had
no convenient cicerone in the pattern of the Utopian books. My
explanation may be absolutely wrong. I still think it is the
most plausible one. But even on this supposition the balanced
civilization that was at last attained must have long since passed
its zenith, and was now far fallen into decay. The too-perfect
security of the Upper-worlders had led them to a slow movement of
degeneration, to a general dwindling in size, strength, and
intelligence. That I could see clearly enough already. What had
happened to the Under-grounders I did not yet suspect; but from what
I had seen of the Morlocks--that, by the by, was the name by which
these creatures were called--I could imagine that the modification
of the human type was even far more profound than among the "Eloi,"
the beautiful race that I already knew.

'Then came troublesome doubts. Why had the Morlocks taken my Time
Machine? For I felt sure it was they who had taken it. Why, too, if
the Eloi were masters, could they not restore the machine to me? And
why were they so terribly afraid of the dark? I proceeded, as I have
said, to question Weena about this Under-world, but here again I was
disappointed. At first she would not understand my questions, and
presently she refused to answer them. She shivered as though the
topic was unendurable. And when I pressed her, perhaps a little
harshly, she burst into tears. They were the only tears, except my
own, I ever saw in that Golden Age. When I saw them I ceased
abruptly to trouble about the Morlocks, and was only concerned in
banishing these signs of the human