And with a thankful gesture, as of one who lectures on the impending extinction of cannibalism, the speaker returned to his seat; while, much to my chagrin, I noted that his words had apparently found high favor with his audience. And those that arose in the ensuing discussion were not less narrow-minded than the principal reviewer himself; they seemed to imagine that my book had been intended as a sort of catalogue of horrors instead of as a restrained and veracious history; and either they suggested that I must have exaggerated hopelessly, or else they agreed that the upper world was so decadent that a second “Good Destruction” would be desirable. “Blood-curdling,” “Sepulchral,” “An able story of depravity and crime,” “The last word in thrills and terror”--these were some of the expressions used by the various commentators; and, to judge from their remarks, one might have thought that I had written a popular novel of mystery and murder instead of a sober history. But while all Atlantis was reading the book and being provoked and shocked by my most commonplace statements, I was surprised to observe one effect which I deplored even more than the gross misunderstanding of upper world standards and ideals. For the “History” had acted like a bombshell against the Party of Emergence! Deserters from our standards were now legion, and in a few weeks we had lost all that we had gained following the discovery of the crack in the wall. It was as if the people had been frightened by my picture of the lands above seas, frightened so that they wished to shun all contact with the earth as they might shun things unclean and evil; and despite all that Xanocles and the other Emergence leaders could do, it was impossible to shake the masses free of this ridiculous attitude. At a test vote of an Emergence measure two months after the appearance of the “History of the Upper World,” we were defeated more decisively than even our foes had predicted, defeated by the overwhelming ratio of ten to one!--And, in my disappointment and self-accusing despair, I bitterly regretted that I had not written my book from a less realistic point of view, for I knew that nothing short of a catastrophe or a miracle could now open up the lanes back to the earth. CHAPTER XXXII A Happy Consummation