The Daily Dick: Musings from the Greatest Novel Ever
"But this occasional timidity is characteristic of almost all herding creatures. Witness, too, all human beings, how when herded together in the sheepfold of a theater's pit, they will, at the slightest alarm of fire, rush helter-skelter for the outlets, crowding, trampling, jamming, and remorselessly dashing each other to death. Best, therefore, withhold any amazement at the strangely gallied whales before us, for there is no folly of the beast of the earth which is not infi
The Daily Dick: Musings From the Greatest Novel Ever
"For d'ye see, rainbows do not visit the clear air; they only irradiate vapor. And so, through all the thick mists of the dim doubts in my mind, divine intuitions now and then shoot, enkindling my fog with a heavenly ray. And for this I thank God; for all have doubts; many deny; but doubts or denials, few along with them, have intuitions. Doubts of all things earthly, and intuitions of some things heavenly; this combination makes neither believer nor infidel, but makes a man
The Daily Dick: Musings From the Greatest Novel Ever
The whale "is both ponderous and profound. And I am convinced that from the heads of all ponderous profound beings, such as Plato, Pyrrho, the Devil, Jupiter, Dante, and so on, there always goes up a certain semi-visible steam, while in the act of thinking deep thoughts. While composing a little treatise on Eternity, I had the curiosity to place a mirror before me; and ere long saw reflected there, a curious involved worming and undulation in the atmosphere over my head." Mus
The Daily Dick: Musings From the Greatest Novel Ever
"My dear sir, in this world it is not so easy to settle these plain things. I have ever found your plain things the knottiest of all. And as for this whale spout, you might almost stand in it, and yet be undecided as to what it is precisely." Musing: In reading Moby-Dick, sometimes it is hard to know who Ishmael is talking to, or if Melville has forgotten Ishmael is the narrator and simply speaks to us himself. This is one of those times. We are getting a series of chapters a
The Daily Dick: Musings From the Greatest Novel Ever
"It is plain, then, that phrenologically the head of this Leviathan, in the creature's living intact state, is an entire delusion. As for his true brain, you can then see no indications of it, nor feel any. The whale, like all things that are mighty, wears a false brow to the common world." Musing: In the chapters 3/4 of the way through the book, Melville takes readers on a tour of a whale's skull, head, and skeleton. It is interesting? Sometimes. Why does he do this? Because
The Daily Dick: Musings From the Greatest Novel Ever
"For I believe that much of a man's character will be found betokened in his backbone. I would rather feel your spine than your skull, whoever you are. A thin joist of a spine never yet upheld a full and noble soul. I rejoice in my spine, as in the firm audacious staff of that flag which I fling half out to the world." Musing: Melville has left the whale head to go down the length of the spine. I rather agree with him. Most people with full brains are simply full of many othe
The Daily Dick: Musings From the Greatest Novel Ever
"Therefore, though I am but ill qualified for a pioneer, in the application of these two semi-sciences to the whale, I will do my endeavor. I try all things; I achieve what I can." Musing: How much better off would I be if I took heed of the lines above rather than reverse them. I try only what I am (pretty sure) I can achieve. To fail would be - what - a failure. It is sometimes in the simple moments of this book where the impact is felt. How easy it sounds to try everything
The Daily Dick: Musings From the Greatest Novel Ever
"Oh, man! admire and model thyself after the whale! Do thou, too, remain warm among ice. Do thou, too, live in this world without being of it. Be cool at the equator; keep thy blood fluid at the Pole. Like the great dome of St. Peter's, and like the great whale, retain, O man! in all seasons a temperature of thine own." Musing: I never imagined you could have a motivational talk constructed around being like the whale! But I do like this passage. I'm surprised the whale hasn'
The Daily Dick: Musings From the Greatest Novel Ever
"So long as a man's eyes are open in the light, the act of seeing is involuntary; that is, he cannot then help mechanically seeing whatever objects are before him." Musing: What a great way to say that we can see, but still not SEE. Melville uses the "mechanical" word here as he often will. He worries that man is becoming too machine-like - too automated - too much alike. You really see that in his short fiction Bartleby the Scrivener, but he plays around with the idea throug
The Daily Dick: Musings From the Greatest Novel Ever
"Out of the trunk, the branches grow; out of them, the twigs. So, in productive subjects, grow the chapters." Musing: The title of this Chapter comes from the "notched stick of a peculiar form, some two feet in length, which is perpendicularly inserted into the starboard gunwale near the bow, for the purpose of furnishing a rest for the wooden extremity of the harpoons." Still, it is interesting that Melville begins this Chapter with a line about writing. And what a line it i
