Moby Dick

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it, you involuntarily yield the immense superiority to him, in point
of pervading dignity. In the present instance, too, this dignity is
heightened by the pepper and salt colour of his head at the summit,
giving token of advanced age and large experience. In short, he is what
the fishermen technically call a "grey-headed whale."

Let us now note what is least dissimilar in these heads--namely, the two
most important organs, the eye and the ear. Far back on the side of
the head, and low down, near the angle of either whale's jaw, if you
narrowly search, you will at last see a lashless eye, which you would
fancy to be a young colt's eye; so out of all proportion is it to the
magnitude of the head.

Now, from this peculiar sideway position of the whale's eyes, it is
plain that he can never see an object which is exactly ahead, no more
than he can one exactly astern. In a word, the position of the whale's
eyes corresponds to that of a man's ears; and you may fancy, for