Autosuggestion? Hypnosis—or the work of an ancient god? Unbelieving, skeptical, Edward Chesworth ventured into the spiritual ruins of the Inca culture—and found them as real as the material remnants of its temples—found his mind, his very sanity challenged by an outraged yesterday . . . and finally found himself dead, yet dreadfully alive!
Does a great civilization ever die? The question is as pregnant with meaning today as that of man's own immortality—and is one reason your editors find a unique timeliness in bringing you this masterful novel by one of fantasy's immortals. Tripping over our own present atomic "threshold," shall we, too plunge headlong into a future of our betters—our ignorance stronger than their knowledge, haunting our heirs forever?
The Threshold
of Fear
■ I was at the end of my tether.
It has been said that the world owes each of us a living. This may be so, but it goes with such an indifferent sense of obligation that the only way to extract the debt is to take the world by the throat and shake the living out of it. Such, at least, is my experience; and by some weakness of training or temperament that method of collecting the due is beyond me. Had I known how, I would have certainly tried it; but, lacking the highwayman's courage (or skill), I had been reduced to beggary, while the world went on its comfortable way with buttoned-up pockets. So this bright September morning found me, Richard Haldham, nearing my thirtieth year, seated in the grill-room of a Strand hotel, eating the last lunch for which I could hope to pay, and wondering where I was to obtain the next.
"London puts every man in his place, and it's the one city in the world where a woman may starve."
These words came to my mind as I sat there, in the midst of the thronged tables under green palms. I had heard, them from a Londoner during the war—one who had returned from the Far East at fifty to fight for the flag. I had smiled inwardly at his cynicism then, thinking it too severe to be true; but now I was not so sure. At any rate, London had put me in my place, and that was an embittering thought.
Copyright 1925 by Dodd, Mead, Inc. Second North American Magazine Rights
purchased from the publisher.
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