"There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond
which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living,
this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes
as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive.
This ecstasy, this forgetfulness of living, comes to the artist,
caught up and out of himself in a sheet of flame; it comes to
the soldier, war-mad on a stricken field, and refusing quarter,
and it came to Buck, leading the pack, sounding the old
wolf-cry, straining after the food that was alive and
that fled swiftly before him through the moonlight.
He was sounding the deeps of his nature, and of the
parts of his nature that were deeper than he, going back
into the womb of Time. He was mastered by the sheer
surging of life, the tidal wave of being, the perfect joy
of each separate muscle, joint, and sinew in that it
was everything that was not death, that it was
aglow and rampant, expressing itself in movement,
flying exultantly under the stars, and over the
face of the dead matter that did not move."
An excerpt from
"The Dominant Primordial Beast"
The 3rd chapter of the book,
"The Call Of The Wild"
(1903)
By Jack London
(1976-1916)
American novelist
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