Moby Dick

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or one grain of sand will be to-morrow noon; and yet with thy impotence
thou insultest the sun! Science! Curse thee, thou vain toy; and cursed
be all the things that cast man's eyes aloft to that heaven, whose live
vividness but scorches him, as these old eyes are even now scorched
with thy light, O sun! Level by nature to this earth's horizon are the
glances of man's eyes; not shot from the crown of his head, as if God
had meant him to gaze on his firmament. Curse thee, thou quadrant!"
dashing it to the deck, "no longer will I guide my earthly way by thee;
the level ship's compass, and the level deadreckoning, by log and by
line; THESE shall conduct me, and show me my place on the sea. Aye,"
lighting from the boat to the deck, "thus I trample on thee, thou paltry
thing that feebly pointest on high; thus I split and destroy thee!"

As the frantic old man thus spoke and thus trampled with his live
and dead feet, a sneering triumph that seemed meant for Ahab, and a
fatalistic despair that seemed meant for himself--these passed over
the mute, motionless Parsee's face. Unobserved he rose and glided away;