I have already told some of you the principles of the Time Machine, and shown you the actual thing but at ten o'clock today the first of all Time Machines began its career. I tried all the screws again, put in one more drop of oil and sat in it. I took the starting lever in one hand and the stopping lever in the other, pressed the first, and almost immediately the second. I felt as if i was falling but, looking round, I saw the laboratory exactly as before. Had anything happened? For a moment I thought that my mind had tricked me. Then I looked at the clock. A moment before, it was ten o'clock; now it was nearly half-past three!
I took the starting lever in both hands. The laboratory went dark.
Mrs Watchett came in and walked, without seeing me, towards thr garden door. I suppose it took her a minute or so but she seemed to shoot across the room like a rocket. I pressed the lever fainter. It became night, then day again, night again, day again, faster and faster still.
It's difficult to describe the strange feeling of time traveling. It is extremely unpleasant. Night followed day like the flapping of a black wing. The image of the laboratory seemed to fall away and I saw the sun hopping across the sky. I thought the laboratory had been destroyed and I had come into the ipen air.
The whole surface of the earth seemed changed, melting under my eyes. The dials that registered my speed went round faster and faster. Soon I began to wonder. What strange developments of humanity might appear when I came to look closely at the world that raced and moved before my eyes! And so I began to think about how to stop.
Like an impatient fool, I pulled the lever hard. Suddenly the machine went over and over, and I was thrown high into the air. Hail was falling and I found myself sitting on soft grass in front of the overturned machine. I looked around. I could just make out a colossal figure, carved in some white stone, in the distance.
My feelings would be hard to describe. As the hail grew less, I saw the white figure more clearly. It was very large and made of white marble, in the shape of somenthing like a winged sphinx. The I began to think about what I had done and where I was. What might have happened to the race of men? What if we had become more cruel? What if we had developed into somenthing inhuman, unsympathetic, and powerful? To them I might seem like some old-world savage animal, even more dreadful and disgusting because of our similar appearance. What would they think of me? What would they do to me?

1.choose two or three phrases in the text which you would like to understand better. Discuss their meaning with other students. Refer to an English-English dictionary if necessary.

Dau coronita!