Page:Fifty years hence, or, What may be in 1943 - a prophecy supposed to be based on scientific deductions by an improved graphical method (IA fiftyyearshenceo00grim).pdf/82

 the ruin which the fire-fiend was working to me—and of course to Brathwaite—but how can man, born of woman, feel more for his fellows than for himself? Why affect a nobility not of the nineteenth century? Why lay claim to emotions which may belong to those to come—which may have belonged to those gone by—but not of the genius of this eager, selfish present? True, I felt for Brathwaite; but for Ainsworth—for Ainsworth again—and for Ainsworth still again, the pity, the regret, the mad sense of baffled ambition, rose ever up and obscured the finer feelings.

The fire had gained the mastery over the great building, before my arrival, and the principal efforts of the firemen were directed to saving the piano-factory, with its stock of kiln-dried lumber, of costly veneers, and of inflammable varnishes. From that repository of so many almost priceless volumes, so many absolutely priceless chart, and of that Key which should enable the possessor to avail himself of half a century's work by another—great sheets of flame arose from beds of fire. Red sullen gusts, "fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell," bore on their hurtling wings the treasures of a lifetime