Just So Much Foam

All man's toil upon the planet was just so much foam. He domesticated the serviceable animals, destroyed the hostile ones, and cleared the land of its wild vegetation. And then he passed, and the flood of primordial life rolled back again, sweeping his handiwork away — the weeds and the forest inundated his fields, the beasts of prey swept over his flocks, and now there are wolves on the Cliff House beach.

James Howard Smith The Scarlet Plague (1912) by Jack London

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Context: The old man watches his grandsons drive wolves away from their goats on a beach where a great city once stood.

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Source: Chapter I

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