To trail the genealogies of these high mortal miseries,
carries us at last among the sourceless primogenitures of the gods;
so that, in the face of all the glad, hay-making suns,
and softcymballing, round harvest-moons, we must needs give
in to this: that the gods themselves are not for ever glad.
The ineffaceable, sad birth-mark in the brow of man, is but
the stamp of sorrow in the signers.
Unwittingly here a secret has been divulged, which perhaps
might more properly, in set way, have been disclosed before.
With many other particulars concerning Ahab, always had it remained
a mystery to some, why it was, that for a certain period, both before
and after the sailing of the Pequod, he had hidden himself away
with such Grand-Lama-like exclusiveness; and, for that one interval,
sought speechless refuge, as it were, among the marble senate
of the dead. Captain Peleg's bruited reason for this thing appeared
by no means adequate; though, indeed, as touching all Ahab's
deeper part, every revelation partook more of significant darkness
than of explanatory light. But, in the end, it all came out;
this one matter did, at least. That direful mishap was at the bottom
of his temporary recluseness.
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