I Would Rather Be A Superb Meteor,

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!

...men, Groping In The Arctic Darkness, Had Found A Yellow Metal, And Because Steamship And Transportation Companies Were Booming The Find, Thousands Of Men Were Rushing Into The Northland. These Men Wanted Dogs, And The Dogs They Wanted Were Heavy Dogs, With Strong Muscles By Which To Toil, And Furry Coats To Protect Them From The Frost.

Out Of This Pack-persecution He Learned Two Important Things: How To Take Care Of Himself In A Mass-fight Against Him; And How, On A Single Dog, To Inflict The Greatest Amount Of Damage In The Briefest Space Of Time.

On The Sled, In The Box, Lay A Third Man Whose Toil Was Over, - A Man Whom The Wild Had Conquered And Beaten Down Until He Would Never Move Nor Struggle Again. It Is Not The Way Of The Wild To Like Movement. Life Is An Offense To It, For Life Is Movement; And The Wild Aims Always To Destroy Movement.

The Hand Descended. Nearer And Nearer It Came. It Touched The Ends Of His Upstanding Hair. He Shrank Down Under It. It Followed Down After Him, Pressing More Closely Against Him. Shrinking, Almost Shivering. He Still Managed To Hold Himself Together. It Was A Torment, This Hand That Touched Him And Violated His Instinct. He Could Not Forget In A Day All The Evil That Had Been Wrought Him At The Hands Of Men.