As Humphrey spends more time with Wolf Larsen, he begins to understand how lonely the captain is. The captain’s “chief vent to this primal melancholy has been religion in its more agonizing forms” (75), as Larsen attempts to understand the concept of immortality in relation to his materialism and sense of purpose. Humphrey walks in on Larsen during one of Larsen’s headaches, which begin to seriously impair the captain’s functioning for several days at a time. After suffering alone for three days, Larsen is suddenly better, and he shows Humphrey a schematic he has been working on for a navigation device. He mentions that his motives behind the invention were not for notoriety, but rather “to make money from it, to revel in piggishness” (76) and for the happiness he feels during the creative process itself.

Humphrey continues studying Larsen’s character: “I cannot say how greatly the man had come to interest me” (77). The kindliness and masculine beauty of Larsen’s visage does not match what Humphrey has learned of his inner morality. Humphrey cannot fathom how such a man, with intellect and strength, came to be the captain of a ship so far from civilization. Humphrey asks the captain why he didn’t do more with his life, to which the captain replies by telling Humphrey his life’s story: