“Where before there was only great desolation and invincible roar, now stands a man, erect, of full stature, not struggling frantically in this wild movement, not buried and crushed and shaken by these mighty monsters , but standing above all, calm and superb, poised on the dizzying peak, his feet buried in the swirling foam, the salty smoke up to his knees, and all the rest of him out in the open and in the flashing sun, and he flies through the air, he moves forward, he flies fast like the wave he’s standing on. It is a Mercury, a brown Mercury. These heels are winged, and in them is the swiftness of the sea.” Jack London “A Royal Sport”