The Sea-Wolf

no more than a toy, and he valued me no more than a child values a toy. My function was to amuse, and so long as I amused all went well; but let him become bored, or let him hav

an whom he did not despise. He seemed consuming with the tremendous power that was in him and that seemed never to have found adequ

air-haired savages who created that terrible pantheon were of the same fiber as he. The frivolity of the laughter-loving Latins was no part of him. When he laughed it was from a humor that was nothing else than ferocious

d for him but to be devilish. Had he not been so terrible a man, I could sometimes have felt sorry for him, as, for instance, one morning when I went into his state-room to fill his water-bottle and came unexpectedly upon him. He did not see me. His head was buri

headache, and by evening, strong man that he wa

his room. 'Nor did I ever have a headache except the time my head wa

ered as wild animals suffer, as it seemed the way on ship

well and hard at work. Table and bunk were littered with designs and calculations. On a large transpar

ally. 'I'm just finished the finis

t is it?'

d is one star in the sky on dirty night to know instantly where you are. Look. I place the transparent scale on this star-map, revolving the scale on the North Pole. On the scale I've worked out the circ

ce, and his eyes, clear blue this morni

d you go to school?' 'Never saw the inside of one, worse

me?' He laughed one of his horrible mocking laughs. 'Not at all. To get it patented, to make money from it, to revel i

tive joy,'

the joy of life in that it is alive, the triumph of movement over matter, of t

continued copying lines and figures upon the transparent scale. It was a task requiring the utmost nicety and

sinfulness, in his face. It was the face, I am convinced, of a man who did no wrong. And by this I do not wish to be misunderstood. What I mean is that it was the face of a man who either did nothing contrary to the dictates of his conscience, or who ha

firmness, almost harshness, which is characteristic of thin lips. The set of his mouth, his chin, his jaw, was likewise firm or harsh, with all the fierceness and indomitableness of the male; the nose also. It was the nose of a being born to conquer and command. It just hinted of the eagle beak. It might have been Grecian, it might have been R

s he? What was he? How had he happened to be? All powers seemed his, all potentialities; why, then, was he no more than

rst from me in a

he top of your life, where diminishing and dying begin, living an obscure and sordid existence hunting sea-animals for the satisfaction of woman's vanity and love of decoration, reveling in a piggishness, to use your own words, which is anything and everythi

d me complacently until I had done and stood before him breathless and di

where there was not much earth, and forthwith they sprung up because they had no deepness of earth. And when the sun was up, they w

l?' I

tulantly. 'It was not well.

d the copying. I finished my work, and had o

I am a Dane. My father and mother were Danes, and how they ever came to that bleak bight of land on the west coast I do not know. I never heard. Outside of that, there is nothing mysterious. They were p

objected. 'It is st

the mature age of ten on the coastwise, old-country ships; of the rough fare and rougher usage, where kicks and blows were bed and breakfast and took the place of speech, and fear and hatred and pain were my only soul-experiences? I do not care to remember. A madness comes up in my brain even now as I think of it. But there were coas

ave never seen the inside of a school, how

nite loneliness, receiving neither help nor sympathy, I did it all for myself- navigation, mathematics, science, literature, and what not. And of what use has it been? Master and owner o

f slaves who rose to

n ever did was to know it when it came to them. The Corsican knew. I have dreamed as greatly as the Corsican. I should have known the opportunity, bu

is he? And

' was the answer. 'We will meet him most probably

involuntarily cried

f an animal without any

ness,' I

d- all my brutishness; but h

r philosophized o

And he is all the happier for leaving life alone. He is too busy liv