In a strait-jacket, he swung to the mad rockings of the gales.
And, when running into more sufferable latitudes, the ship,
with mild stun'sails spread, floated across the tranquil tropics,
and, to all appearances, the old man's delirium seemed left behind
him with the Cape Horn swells, and he came forth from his dark
den into the blessed light and air; even then, when he bore
that firm, collected front, however pale, and issued his calm
orders once again; and his mates thanked God the direful madness
was now gone; even then, Ahab, in his hidden self, raved on.
Human madness is oftentimes a cunning and most feline thing.
When you think it fled, it may have but become transfigured
into some still subtler form. Ahab's full lunacy subsided not,
but deepeningly contracted; like the unabated Hudson, when that noble
Northman flows narrowly, but unfathomably through the Highland gorge.
But, as in his narrow-flowing monomania, not one jot of Ahab's
broad madness had been left behind; so in that broad madness,
not one jot of his great natural intellect had perished.
That before living agent, now became the living instrument.
If such a furious trope may stand, his special lunacy stormed
his general sanity, and carried it, and turned all its concentred
cannon upon its own mad mark; so that far from having lost
his strength, Ahab, to that one end, did now possess a thousand
fold more potency than ever he had sanely brought to bear upon
any one reasonable object.
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