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Melville, Herman, 1819-1891

"Moby Dick: or, the White Whale"


Such is the endlessness, yea, the intolerableness of all earthly effort.
Gaining the more open water, the bracing breeze waxed fresh; the little
Moss tossed the quick foam from her bows, as a young colt his snortings.
How I snuffed that Tartar air!--how I spurned that turnpike earth!--
that common highway all over dented with the marks of slavish heels
and hoofs; and turned me to admire the magnanimity of the sea which will
permit no records.
At the same foam-fountain, Queequeg seemed to drink and reel with me.
His dusky nostrils swelled apart; he showed his filed and pointed teeth.
On, on we flew, and our offing gained, the Moss did homage to the blast;
ducked and dived her bows as a slave before the Sultan. Sideways leaning,
we sideways darted; every ropeyarn tingling like a wire;
the two tall masts buckling like Indian canes in land tornadoes.
So full of this reeling scene were we, as we stood by the
plunging bowsprit, that for some time we did not notice the jeering
glances of the passengers, a lubber-like assembly, who marvelled
that two fellow beings should be so companionable; as though
a white man were anything more dignified than a whitewashed negro.
But there were some boobies and bumpkins there, who, by their intense
greenness, must have come from the heart and centre of all verdure.


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