The Star Rover

by Jack London

Oh, make no mistake. I am no callow, ardent youth. I am an elderly man, broken in health and body, and soon to die. I am a scientist and a philosopher. I, as all the generations of philosophers before me, know woman for what she is—her weaknesses, and meannesses, and immodesties, and ignobilities, her earth-bound feet, and her eyes that have never seen the stars. But—and the everlasting, irrefragable fact remains: HER FEET ARE BEAUTIFUL, HER EYES ARE BEAUTIFUL, HER ARMS AND BREASTS ARE PARADISE, HER CHARM IS POTENT BEYOND ALL CHARM THAT HAS EVER DAZZLED MEN; AND, AS THE POLE WILLY- NILLY DRAWS THE NEEDLE, JUST SO, WILLY-NILLY, DOES SHE DRAW MEN. Woman has made me laugh at death and distance, scorn fatigue and sleep. I have slain men, many men, for love of woman, or in warm blood have baptized our nuptials or washed away the stain of her favour to another. I have gone down to death and dishonour, my betrayal of my comrades and of the stars black upon me, for woman's sake—for my sake, rather, I desired her so. And I have lain in the barley, sick with yearning for her, just to see her pass and glut my eyes with the swaying wonder of her and of her hair, black with the night, or brown or flaxen, or all golden-dusty with the sun. For woman IS beautiful … to man. She is sweet to his tongue, and fragrance in his nostrils. She is fire in his blood, and a thunder of trumpets; her voice is beyond all music in his ears; and she can shake his soul that else stands steadfast in the dra...