Moby Dick

Back Forward Menu

blue, bottomless soul, pervading mankind and nature; and every
strange, half-seen, gliding, beautiful thing that eludes him; every
dimly-discovered, uprising fin of some undiscernible form, seems to him
the embodiment of those elusive thoughts that only people the soul by
continually flitting through it. In this enchanted mood, thy spirit ebbs
away to whence it came; becomes diffused through time and space; like
Crammer's sprinkled Pantheistic ashes, forming at last a part of every
shore the round globe over.

There is no life in thee, now, except that rocking life imparted by a
gently rolling ship; by her, borrowed from the sea; by the sea, from
the inscrutable tides of God. But while this sleep, this dream is on ye,
move your foot or hand an inch; slip your hold at all; and your identity
comes back in horror. Over Descartian vortices you hover. And perhaps,
at mid-day, in the fairest weather, with one half-throttled shriek you
drop through that transparent air into the summer sea, no more to rise
for ever. Heed it well, ye Pantheists!