This Simian World

Purchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary.ORG - - Last Sunday, Potter took me out driving along upper Broadway, where those long rows of tall new apartment houses were built a few years ago. It was a mild afternoon and great crowds of people were out. Sunday afternoon crowds. They were not going anywhere, - they were just strolling up and down, staring at each other, and talking. There were thousands and thousands of them. Awful, aren't they! said Potter. I didn't know what he meant. When he added, Why, these crowds, I turned and asked, Why, what about them? I wasn't sure whether he had an idea or a headache. Other creatures don't do it, he replied, with a discouraged expression. Are any other beings ever found in such masses, but vermin? Aimless, staring, vacant-minded, - look at them! I can get no sense whatever of individual worth, or of value in men as a race, when I see them like this. It makes one almost despair of civilization.