But the tendency to rapid sinking in this substance was in the present
instance materially counteracted by the other parts of the head remaining
undetached from it, so that it sank very slowly and deliberately indeed,
affording Queequeg a fair chance for performing his agile obstetrics
on the run, as you may say. Yes, it was a running delivery,
so it was.
Now, had Tashtego perished in that head, it had been a very
precious perishing; smothered in the very whitest and daintiest
of fragrant spermaceti; coffined, hearsed, and tombed in
the secret inner chamber and sanctum sanctorum of the whale.
Only one sweeter end can readily be recalled--the delicious
death of an Ohio honey-hunter, who seeking honey in the crotch
of a hollow tree, found such exceeding store of it, that leaning
too far over, it sucked him in, so that he died embalmed.
How many, think ye, have likewise fallen into Plato's honey head,
and sweetly perished there?
CHAPTER 79
The Prairie
To scan the lines of his face, or feel the bumps on the head of
this Leviathan; this is a thing which no Physiognomist or Phrenologist
has as yet undertaken. Such an enterprise would seem almost as
hopeful as for Lavater to have scrutinized the wrinkles on the Rock
of Gibraltar, or for Gall to have mounted a ladder and manipulated
the Dome of the Pantheon.
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