THE TIME MACHINE

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people avoided me. It may have been my fancy, or it may have had
something to do with my hammering at the gates of bronze. Yet I felt
tolerably sure of the avoidance. I was careful, however, to show no
concern and to abstain from any pursuit of them, and in the course
of a day or two things got back to the old footing. I made what
progress I could in the language, and in addition I pushed my
explorations here and there. Either I missed some subtle point or
their language was excessively simple--almost exclusively composed
of concrete substantives and verbs. There seemed to be few, if any,
abstract terms, or little use of figurative language. Their
sentences were usually simple and of two words, and I failed to
convey or understand any but the simplest propositions. I determined
to put the thought of my Time Machine and the mystery of the bronze
doors under the sphinx as much as possible in a corner of memory,
until my growing knowledge would lead me back to them in a natural
way. Yet a certain feeling, you may understand, tethered me in a
circle of a few miles round the point of my arrival.