Moby Dick

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then, Ahab, in his hidden self, raved on. Human madness is oftentimes a
cunning and most feline thing. When you think it fled, it may have but
become transfigured into some still subtler form. Ahab's full lunacy
subsided not, but deepeningly contracted; like the unabated Hudson,
when that noble Northman flows narrowly, but unfathomably through the
Highland gorge. But, as in his narrow-flowing monomania, 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 concentred 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.

This is much; yet Ahab's larger, darker, deeper part remains unhinted.
But vain to popularize profundities, and all truth is profound. Winding