question:  What is ironic about Eric's contempt for the glass edifice over New York City?
context: A disciple of A. Merritt, he attempted to imitate in style, mood and subject the magic of that late lamented master of fantasy. It is especially important because it stylistically forecast a later trend to accept the background for granted, regardless of the quantity of wonders, and proceed with the story. Two hundred yards across it rose an immense pyramidal building—an artistic structure, gleaming with white marble and bright metal, striped with the verdure of terraced roof-gardens, its slender peak rising to help support the gray, steel-ribbed glass roof above. Beyond, the park stretched away in illimitable vistas, broken with the graceful columned buildings that held up the great glass roof. Above the glass, over this New York of 2432 A. D., a freezing blizzard was sweeping. But small concern was that to the lightly clad man at the window, who was inhaling deeply the fragrant air from the plants below—air kept, winter and summer, exactly at 20° C. With another yawn, Mr. Eric Stokes-Harding turned back to the room, which was bright with the rich golden light that poured in from the suspended globes of the cold ato-light that illuminated the snow-covered city. There was a whole shelf of his books on the wall, in bright jackets, red and blue and green, that brought a thrill of pleasure to the young novelist's heart when he looked up from his clattering machine. And a hundred million read Eric's novels, and watched the dramatization of them on the television screens. Recklessly, he slammed the machine back into its place, and resolved to forget that his next "red-blooded action thriller" was due in the publisher's office at the end of the month. Even though the whole world had grown up into a city, the birds were extinct, there were no wild flowers, and no one had time to bother about sunsets. It has a thick, cloudy atmosphere, and low, rainy forests. He's not supposed to take passengers except between the offices they have scattered about the world.
output:  Something similar might have protected him and Nada from the harsh Venusian elements
options:  If the glass was penetrated, he and Nada and all of New York would immediately perish  Its invention was inspired by the author of one of Eric's favorite science fiction novels  Something similar might have protected him and Nada from the harsh Venusian elements  Similar inventions are main features in his science fiction novels