/sci/ - Science & Math

>>7905665
hovering in the centre of the picture over three blue, dim,
perpendicular lines floating in a nameless yeast. A boggy,
soggy, squitchy picture truly, enough to drive a nervous
man distracted. Yet was there a sort of indefinite, halfattained,
unimaginable sublimity about it that fairly froze
you to it, till you involuntarily took an oath with yourself
to find out what that marvellous painting meant. Ever and
anon a bright, but, alas, deceptive idea would dart you
through.—It’s the Black Sea in a midnight gale.—It’s the
unnatural combat of the four primal elements.—It’s a
blasted heath.—It’s a Hyperborean winter scene.—It’s the
breaking-up of the icebound stream of Time. But at last all
these fancies yielded to that one portentous something in
the picture’s midst. THAT once found out, and all the rest
were plain. But stop; does it not bear a faint resemblance
to a gigantic fish? even the great leviathan himself?
In fact, the artist’s design seemed this: a final theory of
my own, partly based upon the aggregated opinions of
many aged persons with whom I conversed upon the
subject. The picture represents a Cape-Horner in a great
hurricane; the half-foundered ship weltering there with its
three dismantled masts alone visible; and an exasperated
whale, purposing to spring clean over the craft, is in the

>>7905662
Chapter 3
The Spouter-Inn.
Entering that gable-ended Spouter-Inn, you found
yourself in a wide, low, straggling entry with oldfashioned
wainscots, reminding one of the bulwarks of
some condemned old craft. On one side hung a very large
oilpainting so thoroughly besmoked, and every way
defaced, that in the unequal crosslights by which you
viewed it, it was only by diligent study and a series of
systematic visits to it, and careful inquiry of the neighbors,
that you could any way arrive at an understanding of its
purpose. Such unaccountable masses of shades and
shadows, that at first you almost thought some ambitious
young artist, in the time of the New England hags, had
endeavored to delineate chaos bewitched. But by dint of
much and earnest contemplation, and oft repeated
ponderings, and especially by throwing open the little
window towards the back of the entry, you at last come to
the conclusion that such an idea, however wild, might not
be altogether unwarranted.
But what most puzzled and confounded you was a
long, limber, portentous, black mass of something

>>7905661
chinks and the crannies though, and thrust in a little lint
here and there. But it’s too late to make any
improvements now. The universe is finished; the
copestone is on, and the chips were carted off a million
years ago. Poor Lazarus there, chattering his teeth against
the curbstone for his pillow, and shaking off his tatters
with his shiverings, he might plug up both ears with rags,
and put a corn-cob into his mouth, and yet that would not
keep out the tempestuous Euroclydon. Euroclydon! says
old Dives, in his red silken wrapper—(he had a redder one
afterwards) pooh, pooh! What a fine frosty night; how
Orion glitters; what northern lights! Let them talk of their
oriental summer climes of everlasting conservatories; give
me the privilege of making my own summer with my
own coals.
But what thinks Lazarus? Can he warm his blue hands
by holding them up to the grand northern lights? Would
not Lazarus rather be in Sumatra than here? Would he not
far rather lay him down lengthwise along the line of the
equator; yea, ye gods! go down to the fiery pit itself, in
order to keep out this frost?
Now, that Lazarus should lie stranded there on the
curbstone before the door of Dives, this is more wonderful
than that an iceberg should be moored to one of the Moluccas. Yet Dives himself, he too lives like a Czar in an
ice palace made of frozen sighs, and being a president of a
temperance society, he only drinks the tepid tears of
orphans.
But no more of this blubbering now, we are going awhaling,
and there is plenty of that yet to come. Let us
scrape the ice from our frosted feet, and see what sort of a
place this ‘Spouter’ may be.

>>7905660
emigrant from there. As the light looked so dim, and the
place, for the time, looked quiet enough, and the
dilapidated little wooden house itself looked as if it might
have been carted here from the ruins of some burnt
district, and as the swinging sign had a poverty-stricken
sort of creak to it, I thought that here was the very spot
for cheap lodgings, and the best of pea coffee.
It was a queer sort of place—a gable-ended old house,
one side palsied as it were, and leaning over sadly. It stood
on a sharp bleak corner, where that tempestuous wind
Euroclydon kept up a worse howling than ever it did
about poor Paul’s tossed craft. Euroclydon, nevertheless, is
a mighty pleasant zephyr to any one in-doors, with his feet
on the hob quietly toasting for bed. ‘In judging of that
tempestuous wind called Euroclydon,’ says an old writer—
of whose works I possess the only copy extant—‘it maketh
a marvellous difference, whether thou lookest out at it
from a glass window where the frost is all on the outside,
or whether thou observest it from that sashless window,
where the frost is on both sides, and of which the wight
Death is the only glazier.’ True enough, thought I, as this
passage occurred to my mind—old black-letter, thou
reasonest well. Yes, these eyes are windows, and this body
of mine is the house. What a pity they didn’t stop up the

>>7905655
thing I did was to stumble over an ash-box in the porch.
Ha! thought I, ha, as the flying particles almost choked
me, are these ashes from that destroyed city, Gomorrah?
But ‘The Crossed Harpoons,’ and ‘The Sword-Fish?’—
this, then must needs be the sign of ‘The Trap.’ However,
I picked myself up and hearing a loud voice within,
pushed on and opened a second, interior door.
It seemed the great Black Parliament sitting in Tophet.
A hundred black faces turned round in their rows to peer;
and beyond, a black Angel of Doom was beating a book
in a pulpit. It was a negro church; and the preacher’s text
was about the blackness of darkness, and the weeping and
wailing and teeth-gnashing there. Ha, Ishmael, muttered I,
backing out, Wretched entertainment at the sign of ‘The
Trap!’
Moving on, I at last came to a dim sort of light not far
from the docks, and heard a forlorn creaking in the air;
and looking up, saw a swinging sign over the door with a
white painting upon it, faintly representing a tall straight
jet of misty spray, and these words underneath—‘The
Spouter Inn:—Peter Coffin.’
Coffin?—Spouter?—Rather ominous in that particular
connexion, thought I. But it is a common name in
Nantucket, they say, and I suppose this Peter here is an

>>7905653
expensive and jolly there. Further on, from the bright red
windows of the ‘Sword-Fish Inn,’ there came such fervent
rays, that it seemed to have melted the packed snow and
ice from before the house, for everywhere else the
congealed frost lay ten inches thick in a hard, asphaltic
pavement,—rather weary for me, when I struck my foot
against the flinty projections, because from hard,
remorseless service the soles of my boots were in a most
miserable plight. Too expensive and jolly, again thought I,
pausing one moment to watch the broad glare in the
street, and hear the sounds of the tinkling glasses within.
But go on, Ishmael, said I at last; don’t you hear? get away
from before the door; your patched boots are stopping the
way. So on I went. I now by instinct followed the streets
that took me waterward, for there, doubtless, were the
cheapest, if not the cheeriest inns.
Such dreary streets! blocks of blackness, not houses, on
either hand, and here and there a candle, like a candle
moving about in a tomb. At this hour of the night, of the
last day of the week, that quarter of the town proved all
but deserted. But presently I came to a smoky light
proceeding from a low, wide building, the door of which
stood invitingly open. It had a careless look, as if it were
meant for the uses of the public; so, entering, the first

>>7905650
was stranded. Where else but from Nantucket did those
aboriginal whalemen, the Red-Men, first sally out in
canoes to give chase to the Leviathan? And where but
from Nantucket, too, did that first adventurous little sloop
put forth, partly laden with imported cobblestones—so
goes the story—to throw at the whales, in order to
discover when they were nigh enough to risk a harpoon
from the bowsprit?
Now having a night, a day, and still another night
following before me in New Bedford, ere I could embark
for my destined port, it became a matter of concernment
where I was to eat and sleep meanwhile. It was a very
dubious-looking, nay, a very dark and dismal night,
bitingly cold and cheerless. I knew no one in the place.
With anxious grapnels I had sounded my pocket, and only
brought up a few pieces of silver,—So, wherever you go,
Ishmael, said I to myself, as I stood in the middle of a
dreary street shouldering my bag, and comparing the
gloom towards the north with the darkness towards the
south—wherever in your wisdom you may conclude to
lodge for the night, my dear Ishmael, be sure to inquire
the price, and don’t be too particular.
With halting steps I paced the streets, and passed the
sign of ‘The Crossed Harpoons’—but it looked too

>>7901737
Chapter 2
The Carpet-Bag.
I stuffed a shirt or two into my old carpet-bag, tucked
it under my arm, and started for Cape Horn and the
Pacific. Quitting the good city of old Manhatto, I duly
arrived in New Bedford. It was a Saturday night in
December. Much was I disappointed upon learning that
the little packet for Nantucket had already sailed, and that
no way of reaching that place would offer, till the
following Monday.
As most young candidates for the pains and penalties of
whaling stop at this same New Bedford, thence to embark
on their voyage, it may as well be related that I, for one,
had no idea of so doing. For my mind was made up to sail
in no other than a Nantucket craft, because there was a
fine, boisterous something about everything connected
with that famous old island, which amazingly pleased me.
Besides though New Bedford has of late been gradually
monopolising the business of whaling, and though in this
matter poor old Nantucket is now much behind her, yet
Nantucket was her great original—the Tyre of this
Carthage;—the place where the first dead American whale

>>7905645
sounds, helped to sway me to my wish. With other men,
perhaps, such things would not have been inducements;
but as for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for
things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on
barbarous coasts. Not ignoring what is good, I am quick to
perceive a horror, and could still be social with it—would
they let me—since it is but well to be on friendly terms
with all the inmates of the place one lodges in.
By reason of these things, then, the whaling voyage was
welcome; the great flood-gates of the wonder-world
swung open, and in the wild conceits that swayed me to
my purpose, two and two there floated into my inmost
soul, endless processions of the whale, and, mid most of
them all, one grand hooded phantom, like a snow hill in
the air.

>>7905642
I take it that this part of the bill must have run something
like this:
‘GRAND CONTESTED ELECTION FOR THE
PRESIDENCY OF THE UNITED STATES.
‘WHALING VOYAGE BY ONE ISHMAEL.
‘BLOODY BATTLE IN AFFGHANISTAN.’
Though I cannot tell why it was exactly that those stage
managers, the Fates, put me down for this shabby part of a
whaling voyage, when others were set down for
magnificent parts in high tragedies, and short and easy
parts in genteel comedies, and jolly parts in farces—though
I cannot tell why this was exactly; yet, now that I recall all
the circumstances, I think I can see a little into the springs
and motives which being cunningly presented to me
under various disguises, induced me to set about
performing the part I did, besides cajoling me into the
delusion that it was a choice resulting from my own
unbiased freewill and discriminating judgment.
Chief among these motives was the overwhelming idea
of the great whale himself. Such a portentous and
mysterious monster roused all my curiosity. Then the wild
and distant seas where he rolled his island bulk; the
undeliverable, nameless perils of the whale; these, with all
the attending marvels of a thousand Patagonian sights and

>>7905638
money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no
account can a monied man enter heaven. Ah! how
cheerfully we consign ourselves to perdition!
Finally, I always go to sea as a sailor, because of the
wholesome exercise and pure air of the fore-castle deck.
For as in this world, head winds are far more prevalent
than winds from astern (that is, if you never violate the
Pythagorean maxim), so for the most part the
Commodore on the quarter-deck gets his atmosphere at
second hand from the sailors on the forecastle. He thinks
he breathes it first; but not so. In much the same way do
the commonalty lead their leaders in many other things, at
the same time that the leaders little suspect it. But
wherefore it was that after having repeatedly smelt the sea
as a merchant sailor, I should now take it into my head to
go on a whaling voyage; this the invisible police officer of
the Fates, who has the constant surveillance of me, and
secretly dogs me, and influences me in some
unaccountable way—he can better answer than any one
else. And, doubtless, my going on this whaling voyage,
formed part of the grand programme of Providence that
was drawn up a long time ago. It came in as a sort of brief
interlude and solo between more extensive performances.

>>7905635
somehow, I never fancied broiling fowls;—though once
broiled, judiciously buttered, and judgmatically salted and
peppered, there is no one who will speak more
respectfully, not to say reverentially, of a broiled fowl than
I will. It is out of the idolatrous dotings of the old
Egyptians upon broiled ibis and roasted river horse, that
you see the mummies of those creatures in their huge
bake-houses the pyramids.
No, when I go to sea, I go as a simple sailor, right
before the mast, plumb down into the forecastle, aloft
there to the royal mast-head. True, they rather order me
about some, and make me jump from spar to spar, like a
grasshopper in a May meadow. And at first, this sort of
thing is unpleasant enough. It touches one’s sense of
honour, particularly if you come of an old established
family in the land, the Van Rensselaers, or Randolphs, or
Hardicanutes. And more than all, if just previous to
putting your hand into the tar-pot, you have been lording
it as a country schoolmaster, making the tallest boys stand
in awe of you. The transition is a keen one, I assure you,
from a schoolmaster to a sailor, and requires a strong
decoction of Seneca and the Stoics to enable you to grin
and bear it. But even this wears off in time. sa

>>7905624
stay mad :^)

>>7905633
meaning. And still deeper the meaning of that story of
Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting,
mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was
drowned. But that same image, we ourselves see in all
rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable
phantom of life; and this is the key to it all.
Now, when I say that I am in the habit of going to sea
whenever I begin to grow hazy about the eyes, and begin
to be over conscious of my lungs, I do not mean to have it
inferred that I ever go to sea as a passenger. For to go as a
passenger you must needs have a purse, and a purse is but
a rag unless you have something in it. Besides, passengers
get sea-sick—grow quarrelsome—don’t sleep of nights—
do not enjoy themselves much, as a general thing;—no, I
never go as a passenger; nor, though I am something of a
salt, do I ever go to sea as a Commodore, or a Captain, or
a Cook. I abandon the glory and distinction of such offices
to those who like them. For my part, I abominate all
honourable respectable toils, trials, and tribulations of
every kind whatsoever. It is quite as much as I can do to
take care of myself, without taking care of ships, barques,
brigs, schooners, and what not. And as for going as
cook,—though I confess there is considerable glory in
that, a cook being a sort of officer on ship-board—yet,

>>7905628
within; and here sleeps his meadow, and there sleep his
cattle; and up from yonder cottage goes a sleepy smoke.
Deep into distant woodlands winds a mazy way, reaching
to overlapping spurs of mountains bathed in their hill-side
blue. But though the picture lies thus tranced, and though
this pine-tree shakes down its sighs like leaves upon this
shepherd’s head, yet all were vain, unless the shepherd’s
eye were fixed upon the magic stream before him. Go
visit the Prairies in June, when for scores on scores of
miles you wade knee-deep among Tiger-lilies—what is
the one charm wanting?—Water—there is not a drop of
water there! Were Niagara but a cataract of sand, would
you travel your thousand miles to see it? Why did the
poor poet of Tennessee, upon suddenly receiving two
handfuls of silver, deliberate whether to buy him a coat,
which he sadly needed, or invest his money in a pedestrian
trip to Rockaway Beach? Why is almost every robust
healthy boy with a robust healthy soul in him, at some
time or other crazy to go to sea? Why upon your first
voyage as a passenger, did you yourself feel such a mystical
vibration, when first told that you and your ship were
now out of sight of land? Why did the old Persians hold
the sea holy? Why did the Greeks give it a separate deity,
and own brother of Jove? Surely all this is not without

>>7905626
will not suffice. No. They must get just as nigh the water
as they possibly can without falling in. And there they
stand—miles of them—leagues. Inlanders all, they come
from lanes and alleys, streets and avenues—north, east,
south, and west. Yet here they all unite. Tell me, does the
magnetic virtue of the needles of the compasses of all those
ships attract them thither?
Once more. Say you are in the country; in some high
land of lakes. Take almost any path you please, and ten to
one it carries you down in a dale, and leaves you there by
a pool in the stream. There is magic in it. Let the most
absent-minded of men be plunged in his deepest
reveries—stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going,
and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be
in all that region. Should you ever be athirst in the great
American desert, try this experiment, if your caravan
happen to be supplied with a metaphysical professor. Yes,
as every one knows, meditation and water are wedded for
ever.
But here is an artist. He desires to paint you the
dreamiest, shadiest, quietest, most enchanting bit of
romantic landscape in all the valley of the Saco. What is
the chief element he employs? There stand his trees, each
with a hollow trunk, as if a hermit and a crucifix were

>>7905622
There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes,
belted round by wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs—
commerce surrounds it with her surf. Right and left, the
streets take you waterward. Its extreme downtown is the
battery, where that noble mole is washed by waves, and
cooled by breezes, which a few hours previous were out
of sight of land. Look at the crowds of water-gazers there.
Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath
afternoon. Go from Corlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and
from thence, by Whitehall, northward. What do you
see?—Posted like silent sentinels all around the town,
stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in
ocean reveries. Some leaning against the spiles; some
seated upon the pier-heads; some looking over the
bulwarks of ships from China; some high aloft in the
rigging, as if striving to get a still better seaward peep. But
these are all landsmen; of week days pent up in lath and
plaster—tied to counters, nailed to benches, clinched to
desks. How then is this? Are the green fields gone? What
do they here?
But look! here come more crowds, pacing straight for
the water, and seemingly bound for a dive. Strange!
Nothing will content them but the extremest limit of the
land; loitering under the shady lee of yonder warehouses

>>7905601
Moby Dick
or
The Whale
Herman Melville


Chapter 1
Loomings.
Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how
long precisely—having little or no money in my purse,
and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I
would sail about a little and see the watery part of the
world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and
regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself
growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp,
drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself
involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and
bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially
whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it
requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from
deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically
knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to
get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol
and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself
upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is
nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all
men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very
nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.

>>7905618
But here is an artist. He desires to paint you the
dreamiest, shadiest, quietest, most enchanting bit of
romantic landscape in all the valley of the Saco. What is
the chief element he employs? There stand his trees, each
with a hollow trunk, as if a hermit and a crucifix were within; and here sleeps his meadow, and there sleep his
cattle; and up from yonder cottage goes a sleepy smoke.
Deep into distant woodlands winds a mazy way, reaching
to overlapping spurs of mountains bathed in their hill-side
blue. But though the picture lies thus tranced, and though
this pine-tree shakes down its sighs like leaves upon this
shepherd’s head, yet all were vain, unless the shepherd’s
eye were fixed upon the magic stream before him. Go
visit the Prairies in June, when for scores on scores of
miles you wade knee-deep among Tiger-lilies—what is
the one charm wanting?—Water—there is not a drop of
water there! Were Niagara but a cataract of sand, would
you travel your thousand miles to see it? Why did the
poor poet of Tennessee, upon suddenly receiving two
handfuls of silver, deliberate whether to buy him a coat,
which he sadly needed, or invest his money in a pedestrian
trip to Rockaway Beach? Why is almost every robust
healthy boy with a robust healthy soul in him, at some
time or other crazy to go to sea? Why upon your first
voyage as a passenger, did you yourself feel such a mystical
vibration, when first told that you and your ship were
now out of sight of land? Why did the old Persians hold
the sea holy? Why did the Greeks give it a separate deity,
and own brother of Jove? Surely all this is not without meaning. And still deeper the meaning of that story of
Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting,
mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was
drowned. But that same image, we ourselves see in all
rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable
phantom of life; and this is the key to it all.

>>7905613
Once more. Say you are in the country; in some high
land of lakes. Take almost any path you please, and ten to
one it carries you down in a dale, and leaves you there by
a pool in the stream. There is magic in it. Let the most
absent-minded of men be plunged in his deepest
reveries—stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going,
and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be
in all that region. Should you ever be athirst in the great
American desert, try this experiment, if your caravan
happen to be supplied with a metaphysical professor. Yes,
as every one knows, meditation and water are wedded for
ever.

>>7905610
But look! here come more crowds, pacing straight for
the water, and seemingly bound for a dive. Strange!
Nothing will content them but the extremest limit of the
land; loitering under the shady lee of yonder warehouses will not suffice. No. They must get just as nigh the water
as they possibly can without falling in. And there they
stand—miles of them—leagues. Inlanders all, they come
from lanes and alleys, streets and avenues—north, east,
south, and west. Yet here they all unite. Tell me, does the
magnetic virtue of the needles of the compasses of all those
ships attract them thither?

>>7905609
There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes,
belted round by wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs—
commerce surrounds it with her surf. Right and left, the
streets take you waterward. Its extreme downtown is the
battery, where that noble mole is washed by waves, and
cooled by breezes, which a few hours previous were out
of sight of land. Look at the crowds of water-gazers there.
Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath
afternoon. Go from Corlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and
from thence, by Whitehall, northward. What do you
see?—Posted like silent sentinels all around the town,
stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in
ocean reveries. Some leaning against the spiles; some
seated upon the pier-heads; some looking over the
bulwarks of ships from China; some high aloft in the
rigging, as if striving to get a still better seaward peep. But
these are all landsmen; of week days pent up in lath and
plaster—tied to counters, nailed to benches, clinched to
desks. How then is this? Are the green fields gone? What
do they here?