The Call of the Wild

by Jack London

And over this great demesne Buck ruled.

But Buck was neither house-dog nor kennel-dog. The whole realm was his.

for he was king,—king over all creeping, crawling, flying things of Judge Miller’s place, humans included.

All the pain he had endured was as nothing compared with the exquisite agony of this.

That club was a revelation. It was his introduction to the reign of primitive law, and he met the introduction halfway. The facts of life took on a fiercer aspect; and while he faced that aspect uncowed, he faced it with all the latent cunning of his nature aroused.

And not only did he learn by experience, but instincts long dead became alive again.

And when, on the still cold nights, he pointed his nose at a star and howled long and wolflike, it was his ancestors, dead and dust, pointing nose at star and howling down through the centuries and through him.

Thus, as token of what a puppet thing life is, the ancient song surged through him and he came into his own again;

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.

Buck was content to adore at a distance.

He was a thing of the wild, come in from the wild to sit by John Thornton’s fire,

He was older than the days he had seen and the breaths he had drawn.