"Soon his steady, ivory stride was heard, as to and fro he paced his old rounds, upon planks so familiar to his tread, that they were all over dented, like geological stones, with the peculiar mark of his walk. Did you fixedly gaze, too, upon that ribbed and dented brow; there also, you would see still stranger foot-prints—the foot-prints of his one unsleeping, ever-pacing thought."
The Study: I have always found this passage mesmerizing. Melville is describing Ahab as a leader. There is the unrelenting pacing and the the fixed gaze, but it is the idea of the brow being a footprint to the mind that gets to me. It also reminds me of our current leadership. Sometimes, in president evil's awful, terrifying eyes, I see the mind of a madman.