He laughed good-naturedly, acknowledging the check. "I believe that to be
the truth," he replied, his face instantly grave again. "It was the
impression of uncommon bulk that heated my intuition--blessed if I know
how--leading me to the other. The size of his body did not smother, as so
often is the case with big people: rather, it revealed. At the moment I
could conceive no possible connection, of course. Only this overwhelming
attraction of the man's personality caught me and I longed to make
friends. That's the way with me, as you know," he added, tossing the hair
back from his forehead impatiently,"--pretty often. First impressions.
Old man, I tell you, it was like a possession."

"I believe you," I said. For Terence O'Malley all his life had never
understood half measures.




II

"The friendly and flowing savage, who is he? Is he waiting for
civilization, or is he past it, and mastering it?"

--WHITMAN

"We find ourselves today in the midst of a somewhat peculiar state of
society, which we call Civilization, but which even to the most
optimistic among us does not seem altogether desirable. Some of us,
indeed, are inclined to think that it is a kind of disease which the
various races of man have to pass through....