Having gone down into the lair of the Morlocks themselves,
and made the interesting observation that the Morlocks were carnivores, the Time
Traveller is struck by the horror of a conclusion that he avoids thinking through there
and then. It is only later, when he considers the terror that the Eloi have of night and
the way that they sleep together in huge huddles, and the way that the Morlocks are only
able to go out of their subterranean dwellings at night that the full horror of the
truth comes upon him. Note the following conclusion:
I tried to look at the thing in a scientific
spirit. After all, they were less human and more remote than our cannibal ancestors of
three or four thousand years ago. And the intelligence that would have made this state
of things a torment had gone. Why should I trouble myself? These Eloi were mere fatted
cattle, which the antlike Morlocks preserved and preyed upon--probably saw to the
breeeding of. And there was Weena dancing at my
side!
What is interesting
about this quote is the way in which the Time Traveller tries to talk rationally about
his conclusions, in a "scientific spirit." However, in spite of his attempts of
attaining rationalism, what prevents him is the very real presence of Weena, an example
of an Eloi, dancing there beside him in all of her beauty. The love that the Time
Traveller has for Weena prevents him looking at this conclusion with anything else but
the utmost abhorrence.
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