I drew a breath, set my teeth, gripped the starting lever with

both hands, and went off with a thud. The laboratory got

hazy and went dark. Mrs. Watchett came in and walked,

apparently without seeing me, towards the garden door. I

suppose it took her a minute or so to traverse the place, but

to me she seemed to shoot across the room like a rocket. I

pressed the lever over to its extreme position. The night

came like the turning out of a lamp, and in another moment

came tomorrow. The laboratory grew faint and hazy, then

fainter and ever fainter. Tomorrow night came black, then

day again, night again, day again, faster and faster still. An

eddying murmur filled my ears, and a strange, dumb

confusedness descended on my mind. “I am afraid I cannot

convey the peculiar sensations of time travelling. They are

excessively unpleasant. There is a feeling exactly like that

one has upon a switchback—of a helpless headlong

motion! I felt the same horrible anticipation, too, of an

imminent smash. As I put on pace, night followed day like

the flapping of a black wing. The dim suggestion of the

laboratory seemed presently to fall away from me, and I

saw the sun hopping swiftly across the sky, leaping it every

minute, and every minute marking a day.