Moby Dick

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added how that sometimes in these walks, when most plunged in his mood,
he was wont to pause in turn at each spot, and stand there strangely
eyeing the particular object before him. When he halted before the
binnacle, with his glance fastened on the pointed needle in the compass,
that glance shot like a javelin with the pointed intensity of his
purpose; and when resuming his walk he again paused before the mainmast,
then, as the same riveted glance fastened upon the riveted gold coin
there, he still wore the same aspect of nailed firmness, only dashed
with a certain wild longing, if not hopefulness.

But one morning, turning to pass the doubloon, he seemed to be newly
attracted by the strange figures and inscriptions stamped on it, as
though now for the first time beginning to interpret for himself in
some monomaniac way whatever significance might lurk in them. And some
certain significance lurks in all things, else all things are little
worth, and the round world itself but an empty cipher, except to sell by
the cartload, as they do hills about Boston, to fill up some morass in