Ursus, a _tête-à-tête_, into which the wolf gently thrust his nose. If
Ursus could have had his way, he would have been a Caribbee; that being
impossible, he preferred to be alone. The solitary man is a modified
savage, accepted by civilization. He who wanders most is most alone;
hence his continual change of place. To remain anywhere long suffocated
him with the sense of being tamed. He passed his life in passing on his
way. The sight of towns increased his taste for brambles, thickets,
thorns, and holes in the rock. His home was the forest. He did not feel
himself much out of his element in the murmur of crowded streets, which
is like enough to the bluster of trees. The crowd to some extent
satisfies our taste for the desert. What he disliked in his van was its
having a door and windows, and thus resembling a house. He would have
realized his ideal, had he been able to put a cave on four wheels and
travel in a den.

He did not smile, as we have already said, but he used to laugh;
sometimes, indeed frequently, a bitter laugh. There is consent in a
smile, while a laugh is often a refusal.

His great business was to hate the human race. He was implacable in that
hate. Having made it clear that human life is a dreadful thing; having
observed the superposition of evils, kings on the people, war on kings,
the plague on war, famine on the plague, folly on everything; having
proved a certain measure of chastisement in the mere fact of existence;
having recognized that, death is a deliverance--when they brought him a
sick man he cured him; he had cordials and beverages to prolong the
lives of the old. He put lame cripples on their legs again, and hurled
this sarcasm at them, "There, you are on your paws once more; may you
walk long in this valley of tears!" When he saw a poor man dying of
hunger, he gave him all the pence he had about him, growling out, "Live