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“ I had at that time very vague ideas as to the course I should pursue . My first was to secure some safe place of refuge , and to make myself such arms of metal or stone as I could contrive . That necessity was immediate . In the next place , I hoped to procure some means of fire , so that I should have the weapon of a torch at hand , for nothing , I knew , would be more efficient against these Morlocks . Then I wanted to arrange some contrivance to break open the doors of bronze under the White Sphinx . I had in mind a battering ram . I had a persuasion that if I could enter those doors and carry a blaze of light before me I should discover the Time Machine and escape . I could not imagine the Morlocks were strong enough to move it far away . Weena I had resolved to bring with me to our own time . And turning such schemes over in my mind I pursued our way towards the building which my fancy had chosen as our dwelling . XI . The Palace of Green Porcelain “ I found the Palace of Green Porcelain , when we approached it about noon , deserted and falling into ruin . Only ragged vestiges of glass remained in its windows , and great sheets of the green facing had fallen away from the corroded metallic framework . It lay very high upon a turfy down , and looking north - eastward before I entered it , I was surprised to see a large estuary , or even creek , where I judged Wandsworth and Battersea must once have been . I thought then — though I never followed up the thought — of what might have happened , or might be happening , to the living things in the sea . “ The material of the Palace proved on examination to be indeed porcelain , and along the face of it I saw an inscription in some unknown character . I thought , rather foolishly , that Weena might help me to interpret this , but I only learnt that the bare idea of writing had never entered her head . She always seemed to me , I fancy , more human than she was , perhaps because her affection was so human . “ Within the big valves of the door — which were open and broken — we found , instead of the customary hall , a long gallery lit by many side windows . At the first glance I was reminded of a museum . The tiled floor was thick with dust , and a remarkable array of miscellaneous objects was shrouded in the same grey covering . Then I perceived , standing strange and gaunt in the centre of the hall , what was clearly the lower part of a huge skeleton . I recognised by the oblique feet that it was some extinct creature after the fashion of the Megatherium . The skull and the upper bones lay beside it in the thick dust , and in one place , where rain - water had dropped through a leak in the roof , the thing itself had been worn away .
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