"So man’s seconds tick! Oh! how immaterial are all materials! What things real are there, but imponderable thoughts?"
Musing: These are the lines that stop me cold in Moby-Dick. Ahab is still bothered by the coffin becoming a life-buoy. The entire book asks us to consider what is real and what we make real. What is the coffin but wood, yet what is a coffin but what it represents? Imponderable thoughts. "Wonder ye then at the fiery hunt?"