Woman, the love-seeker, obsessing and
possessing, fragile and fierce, soft and venomous, prouder than
Lucifer and as prideless, holds a perpetual, almost morbid,
attraction for the thinker. What is this flame of her, blazing
through all her contradictions and ignobilities?--this ruthless
passion for life, always for life, more life on the planet? At times
it seems to me brazen, and awful, and soulless. At times I am made
petulant by it. And at other times I am swayed by the sublimity of
it. No; there is no escape from woman. Always, as a savage returns
to a dark glen where goblins are and gods may be, so do I return to
the contemplation of woman.
Mr. Pike's voice interrupted my musings. From for'ard, on the main
deck, I heard him snarl:
"On the main-topsail-yard, there!--if you cut that gasket I'll split
your damned skull!"
Again he called, with a marked change of voice, and the Henry he
called to I concluded was the training-ship boy.
"You, Henry, main-skysail-yard, there!" he cried. "Don't make those
gaskets up! Fetch 'em in along the yard and make fast to the tye!"
Thus routed from my reverie, I decided to go below to bed.
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