But even assuming all this to be true; yet, were it not for the whiteness,
you would not have that intensified terror.
As for the white shark, the white gliding ghostliness of repose
in that creature, when beheld in his ordinary moods, strangely tallies
with the same quality in the Polar quadruped. This peculiarity is most
vividly hit by the French in the name they bestow upon that fish.
The Romish mass for the dead begins with "Requiem eternam"
(eternal rest), whence Requiem denominating the mass itself,
and any other funeral music. Now, in allusion to the white,
silent stillness of death in this shark, and the mild deadliness
of his habits, the French call him Requin.
Bethink thee of the albatross, whence come those clouds of spiritual
wonderment and pale dread, in which that white phantom sails
in all imaginations? Not Coleridge first threw that spell;
but God's great, unflattering laureate, Nature.*
*I remember the first albatross I ever saw. It was during
a prolonged gale, in waters hard upon the Antarctic seas.
From my forenoon watch below, I ascended to the overclouded deck;
and there, dashed upon the main hatches, I saw a regal, feathery thing
of unspotted whiteness, and with a hooked, Roman bill sublime.
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