"Not one jot of Ahab’s broad madness had been left behind; so in that broad madness, not one jot of his great natural intellect had perished. That before living agent, now became the living instrument. If such a furious trope may stand, his special lunacy stormed his general sanity, and carried it, and turned all its concentrated cannon upon its own mad mark; so that far from having lost his strength, Ahab, to that one end, did now possess a thousand fold more potency than ever he had sanely brought to bear upon any one reasonable object."
The Study: Ishmael is not unsympathetic to Ahab. He understands the suffering that the tearing away of Ahab's leg caused the Captain. However, Ishmael seems to say, rather than the madness of the pain leaving Ahab once he healed, it intensified his anger toward the whale. I worry about a leader who can turn pain into a fixation with a perceived enemy. Will Pres. Trump/Evil become fixated with anger towards a former slight - physical or mental. Now that our President Trump/Evil has a new target in the writer from the NYT, will his "special lunacy" strengthen?