Moby Dick

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there then reign all over the ship and all over the sea, only broken by
the intermitting dull sound of the sword, that it seemed as if this were
the Loom of Time, and I myself were a shuttle mechanically weaving
and weaving away at the Fates. There lay the fixed threads of the warp
subject to but one single, ever returning, unchanging vibration, and
that vibration merely enough to admit of the crosswise interblending
of other threads with its own. This warp seemed necessity; and here,
thought I, with my own hand I ply my own shuttle and weave my own
destiny into these unalterable threads. Meantime, Queequeg's impulsive,
indifferent sword, sometimes hitting the woof slantingly, or crookedly,
or strongly, or weakly, as the case might be; and by this difference
in the concluding blow producing a corresponding contrast in the final
aspect of the completed fabric; this savage's sword, thought I,
which thus finally shapes and fashions both warp and woof; this
easy, indifferent sword must be chance--aye, chance, free will, and
necessity--nowise incompatible--all interweavingly working together.
The straight warp of necessity, not to be swerved from its ultimate