They Were Firemakers! They Were Gods! [humans]

San Francisco Is Gone. Nothing Remains Of It But Memories.

The Man, With His Brain, Can Pierce The Intoxicating Mirage Of Things And Contemplate A Frozen Universe In The Most Perfect Indifference To Him And His Dreams.

Life Creeps Slowly Upward.... When Some Forgotten Inventor Of The Older World Smote His Rival Or Enemy With A Branch Of Wood And Found That It Was Good And Thereafter Made A Practice Of Smiting Rivals And Enemies With Branches Of Wood, Then, And On That Day, Artificiality May Be Said To Have Begun. Then, And On That Day, Was Begun A Revolution Destined To Change The History Of Life. Then, And On That Day, Was Laid The Cornerstone Of That Most Tremendous Of Artifices, Civilization!

He Was Mastered By The Sheer Surging Of Life, The Tidal Wave Of Being, The Perfect Joy Of Each Separate Muscle, Joint, And Sinew In That It Was Everything That Was Not Death, That It Was Aglow And Rampant, Expressing Itself In Movement, Flying Exultantly Under The Stars.

Fear Urged Him To Go Back, But Growth Drove Him On.