Moby Dick

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There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is the true
method.

The more I dive into this matter of whaling, and push my researches up
to the very spring-head of it so much the more am I impressed with its
great honourableness and antiquity; and especially when I find so many
great demi-gods and heroes, prophets of all sorts, who one way or other
have shed distinction upon it, I am transported with the reflection
that I myself belong, though but subordinately, to so emblazoned a
fraternity.

The gallant Perseus, a son of Jupiter, was the first whaleman; and
to the eternal honour of our calling be it said, that the first whale
attacked by our brotherhood was not killed with any sordid intent. Those
were the knightly days of our profession, when we only bore arms to
succor the distressed, and not to fill men's lamp-feeders. Every one
knows the fine story of Perseus and Andromeda; how the lovely Andromeda,