"Oh! time was, when as the sunrise nobly spurred me, so the sunset soothed. No more. This lovely light, it lights not me; all loveliness is anguish to me, since I can ne’er enjoy.' This passage, a soliloquy from Ahab, reminds me of a passage from Wordsworth: "There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,/The earth, and every common sight, /To me did seem Apparell'd in celestial light,/ The glory and the freshness of a dream. /It is not now as it hath been of yore;— /Turn wheresoe'er I may, /By night or day,/ The things which I have seen I now can see no more." It seems to me that when the love of nature dies in a human being, life itself is over. Ahab can no longer feel the world. The abi
"Stand up amid the general hurricane, thy one tossed sapling cannot, Starbuck!" Ahab is the speaker of this quote. He has just convinced the crew of The Pequod to pledge their loyalty to him and focus on hunting Moby-Dick. Starbuck knows the focus on one whale is not what the voyage is about. It is dangerous. It feels evil. It will harm everyone. But Ahab tells Starbuck he is one tiny voice against a hurricane. I think many of us feel this way in the days of the (T)rump storm. But last night, the tossed saplings stood strong in the SA mayoral race! Sometimes good can overcome gale-force winds. We have to keep standing tall.
"All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event—in the living act, the undoubted deed—there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the moldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there’s naught beyond." This passage seems to be the heart of Moby-Dick and the one Chapter I wrestle with each time I read the book. My take this time around - behind each mask, masks that are either artificially created or products of nature, is something we often can't pre
