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    distance ( seeming to come also from distant times as well as distant places ) with the uproar of waters ; and , douhtle 8 s , shapes of fear or shapes of beauty not less awful are at times seen upon the waves by the diseased eye of the sailor . Finally , the interruption habitually of all ordinary avenues to information about the fate of their dearest relatives ; the consequent agitation which must often possess those who are reentering upon home waters ; and the sudden burst , upon stepping ashore , of heartshaking news in long-accumulated arrears—these are circumstances which dispose the mind to look out for relief towards signs and omens as one way of breaking the shock bdimanticipations . ''

    y , This passage is a fit prelude to the thrilling pages of Melville ' s Whale . The book is not a romance , nor a treatise on Cetology . It is something of both : a strange , wild work with the tangled overgrowth and luxuriant vegetation of American forests , not the trim orderliness of an English park . Criticism may pick many holes in this work ; but no criticism will thwart its fascination . As we mean you to read it and relish it , we shall give no hint of the story : an extract or so by way of whet to the appetite is ail you must expect . Here is a picture of

    AHAB WITH THE IVORY LEG . " So powerfully did the whole grim aspect of Ahab affect me , and the livid brand which , streaked it , that for the first few moments I hardly noted that not a little of this overbearing grimness was owing to the barbaric white leg upon which he partly stood . It had previously come to me that this ivory leg had at sea been fashioned from the polished bone of the sperm whale ' s jaw . « Ay , he was dismasted off Japan , ' said the old Gay-Head Indian once ; ' but , like his dismasted craft , he shipped another mast without coming home for it . He has a quiver of

    em . * ' I was struck with the singular posture he maintained . Upon each side of the Pequod ' s quarterdeck , and pretty close to the mizen shrouds , there was an augur-hole , bored about half an inch or so into the plank . His bone leg steadied in that hole ; one arm . elevated , and holding by a shroud ; Captain Ahab stood erect , looking straight out beyond the ship ' s ever-pitching prow . There was an infinity of

    firmest fortitude , a determinate , unsurrenderable wilfulness , in the fixed and fearless , forward dedication of that glance . Not a word he spoke ; nor did his officers say aught to him ; though by all their minutest gestures and expressions they plainly showed the uneasy , if not painful , consciousness of being under a troubled master-eye . And not only that , but moody stricken Ahab stood before them , with an apparently eternal anguish in his face ; in nil the nameless , regal , overbearing dignity of eohil ; mighty

    woe . " JKre long , from his first visit into the air , he withdrew into his cabin . But after that morning he was every day visible to the crew ; either standing in his pivot-hole , or seated upon an ivory stool he had ; or heavily walking the deck . As the sky grew less gloomy—indeed , began to grow a little genial—he became still less and less a recluse ; as if , when the ship had sailed from home , nothing but the dead wintry bleakness of the sea had then kept him so secluded . And , by and by , it came to pass that he

    was almost continuully in the air ; but , as yet , for all that he said , or perceptibly did , on the , at last , sunny deck , he seemed as unnecessary there as another inaat . But the Pequod was only making a passage now ; not regularly cruising , nearly all whaling preparatives needing supervision the mates were fully competent to ; so that there was little or nothing , out of himself , to employ or excito Ahab now , and thus chase away , for that one interval , the clouds that layer upon layer were piled upon his brow , as cv « t all clouds choose the loftiest peaks to pile theni-¦ elvcu upon .

    " Nevertheless , ero long , the warm , warbling persuasivcncHS of the pleasant , holiday weather we came to , seemed gradually to charm him from Inn mood . For , as when the red-cheeked , dancing girls , April und May , trip home to the wintry , misanthropic woods ; even the barest , ruggedest , most thunder-cloven old oak will lit leant send forth some few green sproutH , to welcome such glad-hearted visitants ; so Ahab did , in the end , a little respond to the playful alluiinga oi that girliali air . More thun once did he put forth the / hint blossom of . a look , which , in . any other man , would have soon Howe-rod out in a Hiuile . "

    There in a . chapter on the " Whiteness of the Wlialo " which should be rend at midnight , alone , with nothing heard but the sounds of the wind moaning witliout , and the embers fulling into the grate- within . From it wo quote thi . s on—• HIM AliHATKOMH A IIIKO OK TKKROil . " I remember the firut idbatroHH I ever saw . It was duriug a prolonged gale , in waters hard upon the Antarctic houh . 1 'roiu my forenoon watch below , 1 ascended to the overclouded deck ; and there , dashed upon the main hatches , I saw a regal , feathery thing

    through me then . But at last I awoke ; and turning , asked a sailor what bird was this . A goney , he replied . Goney ! I never had heard that name before : is it conceivable that this glorious thing is utterly unknown to men ashore ! Never ! But , some time after , I learned that goney was some seaman ' s name for albatross . So that by no possibility could Coleridge ' s wild rhyme have had aught to do with , those mystical impressions which were mine , when I saw that bird upon the deck . For neither ^ had I then read the rhyme , nor knew the bird to be an albatross . Yet , in saying this , I do but indirectly burnish a little brighter the nob le merit of the poem and the

    of unspotted whiteness , and with a hooked , Eoman bill sublime . At intervals , it arched forth its vast wings , as if to embrace some holy ark . Wondrous flutterings and throbbings shook it . Though bodily unharmed , it uttered cries , as some king s ghost m supernatural distress . Through its inexpressible , strange eyes , methought I peeped to secrets not below the heavens . As Abraham before the angels , I bowed myself ; the white thing was so white , its wings so wide ; and in those for ever exiled waters , I had lost the miserable warping memories of traditions and of towns . Long I gazed at that prodigy of plumage . I cannot tell—can only hint—the things that darted

    poet . " I assert , then , that in the wondrous bodily whiteness of the bird chiefly lurks the secret of the spell ; a truth the more evinced in this , that by a solecism of terms , there are birds called grey albatrosses ; and these I have frequently seen , but never with such emotions as when I beheld the Antarctic fowl . " Here you have a glimpse

    into—THE MERCILESS SEA . " But , though to landsmen in general , the native inhabitants of the seas have ever been regarded with emotions unspeakably unsocial and repelling ; though we know the sea to be an everlasting terra incognita , so that Columbus sailed over numberless unknown worlds to discover his own superficial western one ; though , by vast odds , the most terrific of all mortal disasters have immemorially and indiscriminately befallen tens and hundreds of thousands of those who

    have gone upon the water ; though but a moment s consideration will teach , that however baby man may brag of his science and skill , and however much in a flattering future , that science and skill may augment ; —yet for ever and for ever , to the crack of doom , the sea will insult and murder him , and pulverize the stateliest , stiffest frigate he can make ; nevertheless , by the continual repetition of these very impressions , man has lost that sense of the full awfulness of the sea which aboriginally belongs to it .

    " The first boat we read of , floated on an ocean , that with Portuguese vengeance had whelmed a whole world without leaving so much as a widow . That same ocean rolls now ; that same ocean destroyed the wrecked ships of last year . Yea , foolish mortals , Noah ' s flood is not yet subsided ; two-thirds of the fair world it yet covers . " Wherein differ the sea and the land , that a miracle upon one is not a miracle upon the other ? Preternatural terrors rested upon the Hebrews , when under the feet of Korah and his company the live ground opened and swallowed them up for ever ;

    yet not a modern sun ever sets , but in precisely the same manner the live sea swallows up ships and crews . " Hut not only is the sea such a foe to man who is an alien to it , but it is also a fiend to its own offspring ; worse than the Por . sian host who murdered his own guests ; sparing not the creatures which itself hath spawned . Like a savage tigress , that , tossing in the jungle , overlays her own cubs , so the sea dashes even the mightiest whales against the rocks , and leaves them there side by side with the split wrecks of ships . No mercy , no power but its own controls it . Panting and snorting like a mad battle steed that has lost its rider , the musterless ocean overruns the globe .

    " Consider the subtleness of the sea ; how its most dreaded creatures glide under water , unapparent for the most part , and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure . Consider also the devilish brilliance and beauty of many of its most remorseless tribes , as the dainty embellished shape of many species of sharks . Consider , once more , the universal cannibalism of the sea ; all whose creatures prey upon each other , carrying on eternal war Bince the world began .

    " Consider all this ; and then turn to this green , gentle , and most docile earth ; consider them both , tlio hou and tlie l < tnd ; » nd do you not iind a strange analogy to something in yourself ? For as thin appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land , ho in tin : soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti , full of peace and joy , but cacompaHsed by all the horrors of the half-known life . ( Jod keep thee ! Push not oil' from that i . sle—thou eunut never return ! " Let , us first tell you that the sharks are in fierce shoals tearing away at the , flesh of a dead wiialo fastened to the whip , and you will then listen with p lean tiro to—

    -TI 1 K NKKJlillH HKUMON TO HUAUKH . " 'Fellow-critters : I ' so ordered hens to miy dat you muot atop dul dam noisy dare . You hear ? Stop

    dat dam smack m ob de lip ! Massa Stubb sav ~ 77 you can fill your dam bellies up to de hatchinea h , ? by Gor ! you must stop dat dam racket ! ' ' "' Cook , ' here interposed Stubb , accompanvi n the word with a sudden slap on the shoulder 4 Cook ! why you mustn ' t swear that way whp you ' re preaching . That ' s no way to convert sinnAv cook ! ' . "" we , " 'Who dat ? Den , preach to him yourself . i lenly turning to go . ' " ' No cook ; go on , go on . '

    " « Well , den , Belubed fellow-critters : '"' Bight ! ' exclaimed Stubb , approvingly , « Coax ' em to it ; try that , ' and Fleece continued . "' Dough you is all sharks , and by natur werv woracious , yet I zay to you , fellow-critter s , dat dat woraciousness—' top dat dam slappin' ob de tail ' How you tink to hear , ' spose you keep up such a dam slappin' and bitin" dare ?' * ' Cook , ' cried Stubb , collaring him , « I won ' t have that swearing . Talk , to ' em gentlemanl y . " " Once more the sermon proceeded .

    " ' Your woraciousness , fellow-critters , I don ' t blame ye so much for ; dat is natur , and can ' t be helped ; but to gobern dat wicked natur , dat is de pint . You is sharks , sartin ; but if you gobern de shark in you , why den you be angel ; for all angel is not'ing more dan de shark well goberned . Now look here , bred ' ren , just try wonst to be cibil , a helping yourselbs from dat whale . Don ' t be tearin ' de blubber out your neighbour ' s mout , I say . I 8

    not one shark dood right as toder to dat whale ? And , by Gor , none on you has de right to dat whale ; dat whale belong to some one else . I know some o' you has berry brig mout , brigger dan oders ; but den de brig mouts sometimes has de small bellies ; so dat de brigness of de mout is not to swallar wid , but to bite off de blubber for de small fry ob sharks , dat can ' t get into de scrouge to help demselves . '

    "' Well done , old . Fleece ! ' cried Stubb , "that ' s the right sort ; go on . ' "' No use goin' on ; de dam willains will keep a scrougin' and slappin' each oder , Massa Stubb ; dey don ' t hear one word ; no use a preachin' to such dam g ' uttons as you call 'em , till dare bellies is full ; and dare bellies is bottomless ; and when dey do get ' em full , dey won ' t hear you den ; for den dey sink in de sea , go fast to sleep on de coral , and can ' t hear not'ing at all , no more , for eber and eber . ' " ' Upon my soul , I am about of the same opinion ; so give them a blessing , Fleece , and I'll away to my supper . '

    " Upon this Fleece , holding both hands over the fishy mob , raised his shrill voice and cried"' Cussed fellow-critters ! Kickup de damndest row as ever you can ; fill your dam' bellies till dey bust—and den die . "' Although this is not a set treatise on Whales , it contains a large amount of information on the subject , and the materials for a treatise evidentl y ; were collected . We have no room for a tithe ot

    the curious things he tells us ; but we must give a passage from his chapter on the " Monstrous Pictures of Whales . " He expresses the most emphatic disapprobation of almost all the portraits that have been published of his favourite fish . Way , even these given by such eminent naturalists as Lacdpede and F . Cuvier , are pronounced monstrous absurdities . He adds , however : — " But these manifold mistakes in dep icting the whale are not so very surprising after all . Oon 81 ? , ; ' Most of the scientific drawings have been taken iron correct a

    the stranded fish ; and these are about as . a drawing of a wrecked ship , with broke" J"C " ; would correctly represent the noblo animal list ¦ all its undashed pride of hull and spare . U >»» elephants have stood for their full-lengths , the uyi b Leviathan has never yet fairly floated himaeH iw m portrait . The living whale , in his full ma J ^ 1 ( * _ significance , is only to bo seen at sea in u . ) Ut able watoi-H ; and afloat the vast hulk ot 1 "'» of sight , like a launched lmo-of-battle ship ; « " « of that element it is a thing eternally » »|»! > HB 1 . ^ t 0 mortal man to hoist him bodily into the air , ' ^^ preserve all his mighty swells and undulation-. ^ not to speak of the highly presumable { illtc \ il in \\ - contour between a young sucking whale am (>[ grown Plutonian Leviathan ; yet , even in "" ' ' i |)' B one of those young sucking whales hoisted w > r ( 1 ( 1 ( deck , such is then the outlandish , col-liKe , i ^ varying shape of him , that his proeine oxpre *

    devil himself could not catch . kelr" JJut it may be fancied , that from the «» k « " ' ( 1 (; . ton of the stranded whale , accurate hn » h may ^ . ^ rived . touching his true form . Mot at nU iuth ( lH , one of the more curious thmgH about Una i ^ that ; his ( skeleton gives very little idea ot « h ^ . ^ shape . Though Jeremy Ilentham » bIuj < -t » ' t () rHf is pnwrved in the library of one of Iuh ^ ^ ^ j . correctly convey « tho idea of a imriy-- " loading tarian old gentleman , with all Jeremy » otlic ^ personal characteristics ; yet '" . ^'"" J . ' arti cul » d could be inferred from any Leviatluui h ar bones . In fact , iu . tho great Hunter «»/» " tfu , Bkolotou of tho whale hours tho stuno relation

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• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 8, 1851, page 1068, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1908/page/16/