Far as it might have seemed, no man has ever seen very far into Wolf Larsen's soul, or seen it at all,--of this I am convinced.

It was a very lonely soul, I was to learn, that never unmasked, though at rare moments it played at doing so.
"I read immortality in your eyes," I answered, dropping the "sir,"-- an experiment, for I thought the intimacy of the conversation warranted it.
He took no notice.

"By that, I take it, you see something that is alive, but that necessarily does not have to live for ever." "I read more than that," I continued boldly.
"Then you read consciousness.

You read the consciousness of life that it is alive; but still no further away, no endlessness of life." How clearly he thought, and how well he expressed what he thought! From regarding me curiously, he turned his head and glanced out over the leaden sea to windward.

A bleakness came into his eyes, and the lines of his mouth grew severe and harsh.