But even stripped of these supernatural surmisings, there was enough
in the earthly make and incontestable character of the monster
to strike the imagination with unwonted power. For, it was not
so much his uncommon bulk that so much distinguished him from
other sperm whales, but, as was elsewhere thrown out--a peculiar
snow-white wrinkled forehead, and a high, pyramidical white hump.
These were his prominent features; the tokens whereby,
even in the limitless, uncharted seas, he revealed his identity,
at a long distance, to those who knew him.
The rest of his body was so streaked, and spotted,
and marbled with the same shrouded hue, that, in the end,
he had gained his distinctive appellation of the White Whale;
a name, indeed, literally justified by his vivid aspect,
when seen gliding at high noon through a dark blue sea,
leaving a milky-way wake of creamy foam, all spangled
with golden gleamings.
Nor was it his unwonted magnitude, nor his remarkable hue, nor yet his
deformed lower jaw, that so much invested the whale with natural terror,
as that unexampled, intelligent malignity which, according to
specific accounts, he had over and over again evinced in his assaults.
More than all, his treacherous retreats struck more of dismay than
perhaps aught else.
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