“He was a ferocious man. He had been ill-made in the making. He had not been born right, and he had not been helped any by the molding he had received at the hands of society. The hands of society are harsh, and this man was a striking sample of its handiwork. He was a beast - a human beast, it is true, but nevertheless so terrible a beast that he can best be characterized as carnivorous.”

“The clay of White Fang had been molded until he became what he was, morose and lonely, unloving and ferocious, the enemy of all his kind.”

“They were his environment, these men, and they were moulding the clay of him into a more ferocious thing than had been intended by Nature. Nevertheless, Nature had given him plasticity. Where many another animal would have died or had its spirit broken, he adjusted himself and lived, and at no expense of the spirit.”

“He had killed man, the noblest game of all, and he had killed in the face of the law of club and fang.”

“In short, Beauty Smith was a monstrosity, and the blame of it lay elsewhere. He was not responsible. The clay of him had been moulded in the making.”

“He had been suddenly jerked from the heart of civilization and flung into the heart of things primordial.”

“The hand descended. Nearer and nearer it came. It touched the ends of his upstanding hair. He shrank down under it. It followed down after him, pressing more closely against him. Shrinking, almost shivering. He still managed to hold himself together. It was a torment, this hand that touched him and violated his instinct. He could not forget in a day all the evil that had been wrought him at the hands of men.”