stirring passions of primordial
life!"

* * * * *

He was impartial as to the source of his thrills--provided they were
distant enough from modern civilization. His hero was likely to be an
ape-man roaring through the jungle, with a bloody rock in one hand and a
beautiful girl in the other. Or a cowboy, "hard-riding, hard-shooting,"
the vanishing hero of the ancient ranches. Or a man marooned with a
lovely woman on a desert South Sea island. His heroes were invariably
strong, fearless, resourceful fellows, who could handle a club on equal
terms with a cave-man, or call science to aid them in defending a
beautiful mate from the terrors of a desolate wilderness.

And a hundred million read Eric's novels, and watched the dramatization
of them on the television screens. They thrilled at the simple, romantic
lives his heroes led, paid him handsome royalties, and subconsciously
shared his opinion that civilization had taken all the best from the
life of man.

Eric had settled down to the artistic satisfaction of describing the
sensuous delight of his hero in the roasted marrow-bones of a dead
mammoth, when the pretty woman in the other room stirred, and presently
came tripping into the study, gay and vivacious, and--as her husband of
a few months most justly thought--altogether beautiful in a bright silk
dressing gown.

Recklessly, he slammed the machine back into its place, and resolved to
forget that his next "red-blooded action thriller" was due in the
publisher's office at the end of the month. He sprang up to kiss his
wife, held her embraced for a long happy moment. And then they went hand
in hand, to the side of the room and punched a series of buttons on a
panel--a simple way of ordering breakfast sent up the automatic shaft
from the kitchens below.

Nada Stokes-Harding was also an author. She wrote poems--"back to nature
stuff"--simple lyrics of the sea, of sunsets, of bird songs, of bright
flowers and warm winds, of thrilling communion with Nature, and growing
things. Men read her poems and called her a genius. Even though the
whole world had grown up into a city, the birds were extinct, there were
no wild flowers, and no one had time to bother about sunsets.

"Eric, darling," she said, "isn't it terrible to be cooped up here in
this little flat, away from the things we both love?"

"Yes, dear. Civilization has ruined the world. If we could only have
lived a thousand years ag