"Ahab seized a loaded musket from the rack (forming part of most South-Sea-men’s cabin furniture), and pointing it towards Starbuck,...

Ahab: "Look ye, carpenter, I dare say thou callest thyself a right good workmanlike workman, eh? Well, then, will it speak thoroughly...

"There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast...

"Nor, at the time, had it failed to enter his monomaniac mind, that all the anguish of that then present suffering was but the direct...

"One often hears of writers that rise and swell with their subject, though it may seem but an ordinary one. How, then, with me, writing...

"How vain and foolish, then, thought I, for timid untraveled man to try to comprehend aright this wondrous whale, by merely pouring over...

"But at this critical instant a sudden exclamation was heard that took every eye from the whale. With a start all glared at dark Ahab,...

"So strange a dreaminess did there then reign all over the ship and all over the sea, only broken by the intermitting dull sound of the...

"For even the high lifted and chivalric Crusaders of old times were not content to traverse two thousand miles of land to fight for their...

"To accomplish his object Ahab must use tools; and of all tools used in the shadow of the moon, men are most apt to get out of order. He...

"The Sperm Whale is in some cases sufficiently powerful, knowing, and judiciously malicious, as with direct aforethought to stave in,...

"So ignorant are most landsmen of some of the plainest and most palpable wonders of the world, that without some hints touching the plain...

"But not only did each of these famous whales enjoy great individual celebrity- nay, you may call it an oceanwide renown; not only was he...

"And here, his mad mind would run on in a breathless race; till a weariness and faintness of pondering came over him! and in the open air...

"Therefore, the tormented spirit that glared out of bodily eyes, when what seemed Ahab rushed from his room, was for the time but a...

"Often, when forced from his hammock by exhausting and intolerably vivid dreams of the night, [ . . . ] and when, as was sometimes the...

"While thus employed, the heavy pewter lamp suspended in chains over his head, continually rocked with the motion of the ship, and for...

"And when we consider that other theory of the natural philosophers, that all other earthly hues- every stately or lovely emblazoning-...

"Is it that by its indefiniteness it shadows forth the heartless voids and immensities of the universe, and thus stabs us from behind...

"It is not probable that this monomania in him took its instant rise at the precise time of his bodily dismemberment. [ . . .] For long...