Who shall say that, let loose in the crowded centers of population, it may not one day engulf us all?
Is this rank pessimism or merely the vagaries of an old man dropping back into second childhood, who does not see that the world is wiser and better than ever it was, mankind and womankind, surely on the way to perfection?
V One thing is certain: We are not standing still.

Since "Adam delved and Eve span"-- if they ever did--in the Garden of Eden, "somewhere in Asia," to the "goings on" in the Garden of the Gods directly under Pike's Peak--the earth we inhabit has at no time and nowhere wanted for liveliness--but surely it was never livelier than it now is; as the space-writer says, more "dramatic"; indeed, to quote the guidebooks, quite so "picturesque and interesting." Go where one may, on land or sea, he will come upon activities of one sort and another.

Were Timon of Athens living, he might be awakened from his misanthrophy and Jacques, the forest cynic, stirred to something like enthusiasm.

Is the world enduring the pangs of a second birth which shall recreate all things anew, supplementing the miracles of modern invention with a corresponding development of spiritual life; or has it reached the top of the hill, and, mortal, like the human atoms that compose it, is it starting downward on the other side into an abyss which the historians of the future will once again call "the dark ages ?" We know not, and there is none to tell us.

That which is actually happening were unbelievable if we did not see it, from hour to hour, from day to day.