Of the struggles, the wretched inward conflicts of this isolated mortal developing alone, unaided, avoided by humankind, it were terrible to speak. Physical maturity had come before the mental; and it was here, in this scene of lonely beauty, that he passed through the first, fierce stages of the new awakening. He was most miserably human; and all the faults of humanity raged within him, unrestrained and uncomprehended. He yearned constantly for that of which he could know nothing; and, helpless and half-mad, he was tossed upon a sea of morbid and lonely imaginings. At such times, the fact that he was an outcast seemed to him hideous and impossible. Rebelling, he would rise up and curse himself and the God of his creation. Then, when he had spent himself in tragical invective, the other side of him would take possession of his mind, and he would melt into tremulous weeping: weeping so piteous, so forlorn, that it would have melted the heart of any woman hearing it. Again, Oman was filled with a gentle and eager desire for something on which to expend affection:—a dog, a kitten, a bird,—any living thing that would accept his love. But nothing came to him. It seemed as if the very beasts avoided his haunts. A few apes were occasionally seen within the banyan grove; but no other living thing passed through there, nor even a snake slept in the shadow of its stones. Yet the hills beyond were alive with wild creatures. By night lions cried through the great darkness. Immense troops of monkeys chattered in the trees. Both the tiger and the bear dwelt in the ravines; and the buffalo and antelope found pasturage on sunny hillsides. The steepest crags were the resort of myriad wild goats, and birds of all kinds winged their way over the heights and found their nests by hundreds in the jungle trees. But in the midst of all this wild, free life, Oman dwelt alone, unsought, lost in the wilderness of his solitude.