OMIGOSH! This story was in a sci-fi compendium that my Dad had. It made a huge impression on me what I was about 12 years old. I must have read it at least 3

OMIGOSH! This story was in a sci-fi compendium that my Dad had. It made a huge impression on me what I was about 12 years old. I must have read it at least 3 times. At that time, the name of the author (E. M. Forster) meant nothing to me, and I had no idea just how early (1909) the story was in the history of science fiction. In a way, the fact that it's so early means this work has aged better than more recent works. An author in, say, the 1970s, would look at the technology around him, and base his version of The Machine on that. But in E.M. Forster's time it just didn't exist (apart from the airships) so he had to use his imagination.