The trouble with him was that he was without imagination. He was quick and alert in the things of life, but only in the things, and not in the signif… - Jack London

He was quick and alert in the things of life, but only in the things, and not in their significances.

Mercedes nursed a special grievance - the grievance of sex. She was pretty and soft, and had been chivalrously treated all her days. But the present treatment by her husband and brother was everything save chivalrous. It was her custom to be helpless. They complained. Upon which impeachment of what to her was her most essential sex pregorative, she made their lives unendurable.

And how have I lived? Frankly and openly, though crudely. I have not been afraid of life. I have not shrunk from it. I have taken it for what it was at its own valuation. And I have not been ashamed of it. Just as it was, it was mine.

This expression of abandon and surrender, of absolute trust, he reserved for the master alone.