Old-world

Dr. Mortimer turned the manuscript to the light, and read in a high, crackling voice the following curious, old-world narrative.

What might not have happened to men? What if cruelty had grown into a common passion? What if in this interval the race had lost its manliness, and had developed into something inhuman, unsympathetic, and overwhelmingly powerful? I might seem some old-world savage animal, only the more dreadful and disgusting for our common likeness— a foul creature to be incontinently slain.