1906 white fang jack london - pinkmonke - Pink Monkey

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alone in his isolation, get out of his way when he elected to walk
among them, and at all times acknowledge his mastery over them.
A hint of stiff leggedness on their part, a lifted lip or a bristle of
hair, and he would be upon them, merciless and cruel, swiftly
convincing them of the error of their way.
He was a monstrous tyrant. His mastery was rigid as steel. He
oppressed the weak with a vengeance. Not for nothing had he been
exposed to the pitiless struggle for life in the days of his cubhood,
when his mother and he, alone and unaided, held their own and
survived in the ferocious environment of the Wild. And not for
nothing had he learned to walk softly when superior strength went
by. He oppressed the weak, but he respected the strong. And in the
course of the long journey with Gray Beaver he walked softly
indeed amongst the full-grown dogs in the camps of the strange
man-animals they encountered.
The months passed by. Still continued the journey of Gray Beaver.
White Fang’s strength was developed by the long hours on the trail
and the steady toil at the sled; and it would have seemed that his
mental development was well-nigh complete. He had come to
know quite thoroughly the world in which he lived.
His outlook was bleak and materialistic. The world as he saw it
was a fierce and brutal world, a world without warmth, a world in
which caresses and affection and the bright sweetnesses of the
spirit did not exist.
He had no affection for Gray Beaver. True, he was a god, but a
most savage god. White Fang was glad to acknowledge his
lordship, but it was a lordship based upon superior intelligence
and brute strength. There was something in the fibre of White
Fang’s being that made this lordship a thing to be desired, else he
would not have come back from the Wild when he did to tender
his allegiance.
There were deeps in his nature which had never been sounded. A
kind word, a caressing touch of the hand, on the part of Gray
Beaver, might have sounded these deeps; but Gray Beaver did not
caress nor speak kind words. It was not his way.
His primacy was savage, and savagely he ruled, administering
justice with a club, punishing transgression with the pain of a
blow, and rewarding merit, not by kindness, but by withholding a
blow.
So White Fang knew nothing of the heaven a man’s hand might
contain for him. Besides, he did not like the hands of the mananimals.
He was suspicious of them. It was true that they
sometimes gave meat, but more often they gave hurt.